Quiet Riot Singer Dead at 52

Kevin DuBrow, the lead singer of huge-in-’83 pop-metal band Quiet Riot, died Sunday in his Las Vegas home. Cause of death has yet to be determined.

Here’s a clip from a 1984 Oklahoman review by Todd Webb of a Quiet Riot show at Lloyd Noble Center. It’s classic and true.

“Lead singer DuBrow, the Mel Blanc of rock, ran his caricaturish voice through a variety of difficult and demanding vocal calisthenics during the course of the evening, pouring his Alvin the Chipmunk vocals into a zebra-striped mike stand, often holding the device aloft like some great javelin.

“At other times, DuBrow would spin the versatile stand in place, high over his head, holding on as if suspended by a two-tone chinup bar. Other times he simply would clamp the overworked prop in his teeth. Quiet Riot is a visual band. Quiet Riot is not an intellectual band.”

I had a friend in Jenks back in Quiet Riot’s brief headlining days who would not stop playing “Metal Health” on his boom box no matter how much I pleaded for a return to my Aztec Camera or Prefab Sprout tape. In those days, that was the go-to cassette for suburban mullet jockeys — less refined than “Pyromania” but not as unintentionally funny as Krokus or Dokken.

We’re not fans of death here at Staticblog — the preference is for immortality, love and never-ending riches – and our hearts go out to DuBrow’s family. Bang your head quietly in observance.