In the smoky haze of 1970s Los Angeles, where every nightclub was a battlefield and every band believed they were destined to save rock and roll, no story was more unlikely or dramatic than the rise of Quiet Riot.

Long before they made history as the first heavy metal band to ever hit number one on the American charts, they were simply a group of misfit dreamers—Randy Rhoads, Kelly Garni, Kevin DuBrow, and Drew Forsyth—struggling to survive in a music scene that didn’t want them, didn’t understand them, and repeatedly slammed the door in their faces.

Their story began in 1973, when guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Kelly Garni reluctantly teamed up with a stubborn, loudmouthed vocalist named Kevin DuBrow, a guy they openly admitted they didn’t even like at first.

DuBrow, inspired by seeing The Beatles on TV in 1964, had the voice, the ego, and the drive, even if nobody realized it yet.

Rhoads, with his waist-length blond hair and razor-sharp thumbnail, baffled DuBrow at first sight, but once the young guitarist played, everything changed.

By 1975, with a lineup solidified and the new name Quiet Riot chosen—supposedly inspired by a comment from Status Quo—the band became one of LA’s hottest acts.

They played the Starwood and Whiskey A Go Go like they were headlining arenas, delivering a wild hybrid of British glam swagger and raw American energy.

Yet while Van Halen was scooped up by the major labels, Quiet Riot received rejection after rejection.

They were too old-school, too heavy, too unfashionable.

Eventually, Sony agreed to release their first two albums—but only in Japan, nowhere else.

DuBrow would later dismiss those records as “crap,” stripped of the power they had onstage.

Offstage, the band’s chemistry was a ticking bomb.

In 1978, after a night of drunken chaos, Kelly Garni fired a gun into the ceiling during a fight with DuBrow, nearly killing him and ending the original lineup.

Rudy Sarzo replaced Garni after randomly stumbling into a Quiet Riot show when he couldn’t get into a packed Van Halen show down the street.

But even new blood couldn’t stop Randy Rhoads from drifting away.

Frustrated with years of failure, he accepted an invitation to audition for Ozzy Osbourne—despite not even being a Black Sabbath fan.

Ozzy, drunk in a hotel room, declared Randy “the greatest guitarist I’ve ever seen,” and soon Rhoads was gone.

Sarzo eventually left too.

DuBrow kept trying to rebuild under different band names, but by the early 1980s the LA scene had changed.

Punk and new wave took over.

Dinosaur rock was out.

Glam metal wasn’t even born yet.

Hard rock bands were cutting their hair, wearing skinny ties, adding “The” to their names just to fit in.

Then in 1982, tragedy struck.

Randy Rhoads died in a freak plane crash while touring with Ozzy.

The shockwaves ripped through the LA rock community.

Sarzo was devastated.

DuBrow was heartbroken.

But the tragedy set the stage for a rebirth nobody could have predicted.

Enter producer Spencer Proffer, a man with a plan and an ear for hits.

One day he heard Slade’s 1973 anthem “Cum On Feel the Noize” on the radio and instantly recognized its explosive potential.

If the right band recorded it, he thought, it could be huge.

A friend told him to check out Kevin DuBrow’s new band at the Country Club in LA.

The audience was tiny—maybe twenty people—but DuBrow performed like a general commanding an army, whipping the room into a frenzy with anthems like “Bang Your Head.

” Proffer saw the spark.

He offered the band studio time, but with one condition: they had to cover the Slade song.

The band hated the idea so much that they agreed to record it only if they could sabotage it.

They refused to rehearse, hoping to make it unusable.

But once the tape rolled, something incredible happened.

Their sloppy plan backfired.

They delivered a ferocious, electrifying performance—raw, heavy, unforgettable.

Proffer loved it.

DuBrow was furious.

The sabotage had become their masterpiece.

Even then, label executives initially refused to sign them.

Hard rock wasn’t selling.

Metal was dead.

But Proffer fought relentlessly and finally secured funding for a full album.

The band reunited under their old name Quiet Riot, now featuring DuBrow, Sarzo, drummer Frankie Banali, and guitarist Carlos Cavazo.

In March 1983, they released Metal Health.

At first, almost no one noticed.

Then miracles began to stack up.

The band landed a slot at the US Festival after John Cougar Mellencamp dropped out.

They played in front of hundreds of thousands—easily the biggest audience of their lives.

Radio stations resisted “Bang Your Head,” so Proffer personally begged them to play it.

Only a handful agreed… and then the phones exploded.

Kids requested it nonstop.

MTV added the video—in the dead of night at 3 AM—and somehow, even from that graveyard slot, it caught fire.

But nothing compared to what happened when “Cum On Feel the Noize” hit the airwaves.

It became the most requested rock song in America, smashing through every barrier the band had faced for a decade.

Suddenly, Quiet Riot was everywhere.

In September 1983, they made history when Metal Health became the first heavy metal album ever to hit number one on the Billboard charts, knocking The Police’s Synchronicity out of the top spot.

It was the moment heavy metal officially became mainstream.

DuBrow later explained their success simply: “We wrote anthems—songs kids could scream and own.

” From bitter rejection to violent fights, from heartbreak to sabotage, from the death of a guitar legend to a miraculous second chance, Quiet Riot’s story was a lightning bolt that struck at the perfect moment.

Their success didn’t just launch their career—it kicked open the door for an entire generation of metal bands and changed the landscape of American music forever.