James Durbin says that he was “no longer inspired” prior to his departure from QUIET RIOT.
Durbin recorded two studio albums with QUIET RIOT — 2017’s “Road Rage” and 2019’s “Hollywood Cowboys” — during his three-year stint with the group. In September 2019, QUIET RIOT parted ways with Durbin and replaced him with Jizzy Pearl. Pearl previously fronted QUIET RIOT from 2013 until October 2016, when he was briefly replaced by Seann Nichols, who played only five shows with the group before the March 2017 arrival of “American Idol” finalist Durbin.
During a recent appearance on “Vox&Hops”, the podcast hosted by Matt McGachy, frontman of extreme metal band CRYPTOPSY, Durbin stated about his departure from QUIET RIOT (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We just couldn’t come to an agreement on moving forward. The album-making process wasn’t something I really enjoyed, because we were just kind of making throwaway records, and I just don’t like doing that. So it was kind of that. But we just couldn’t come to a new agreement. I really wanted to make music and really put a focus on making new music and good music.
“My involvement on [making music with QUIET RIOT] was I would just get given instrumental tracks that there was no changes — you couldn’t change anything — and I just had to write to it,” he explained. “And sometimes that was easier said than done. On ‘Road Rage’, when I first joined the band, Seann Nicols had written all the songs, but then when I joined, I had, like, two weeks to write all brand new lyric and melodies for the whole record — and record. I had to write it and record it. And by that point, they were, like, ‘Just send us dry vocals. We’ll mix it in.’ They literally just dropped in the dry vocals and printed the record. They put no effects; they put nothing on it. Which is just, like, oh my God. [It was] my big debut with them. It’s a classic rock record — it’s more like a HUMBLE PIE record. But when I recorded it, it sounded like MOUNTAIN. It sounded like good classic rock — really wet vocals. I did a lot of harmonies and harmony sections and everything and really dug my heels into that.
“I know Kevin [DuBrow, QUIET RIOT‘s original singer] was a big fan of, and really inspired by, Steve Marriott from HUMBLE PIE, as am I, so I was really digging into that Steve Marriott thing. And it was just all washed away. And some tracks got dropped in the wrong section, and that happened on both records. It was not my circus, not my monkey. That was the catchphrase those guys in the band kept throwing back and forth at each other. ‘Not my circus, not my monkey. We’ve just gotta sit back.’ If you make a suggestion, it’s, like, ‘What do you mean?’ And you play it side by side, and they still don’t get it.
“This is just part of the job. Sometimes you’ve gotta push paper. [And] it’s very hard, especially if you’re not inspired,” Durbin added. “And, really, I just was no longer inspired. I still enjoyed playing the live shows and everything and doing all that stuff. And I just wanted to spend more time with my family. I wanted a week off during the summer to go on our annual camping trip, and that just blew up and turned into a bigger deal than it needed to be.
“It’s funny — everything ended up getting canceled for 2020, and we were able to go on our camping trip anyway. We got our cake and we got to eat it too. We got to extend our trip. It was great. And I got to make this killer record out of it.”
Despite everything that’s happened, Durbin said that he doesn’t look at his stint with QUIET RIOT as a bad time. He added: “I wish those guys all the best in the world. I think it’s great that Frankie‘s [Banali, late QUIET RIOT drummer] wish was for the band to continue, ’cause Chuck Wright [bass], Alex Grossi [guitar], Jizzy Pearl and Johnny Kelly [drums] are all killer musicians and they work great together. Alex and Chuck have been playing together for, like, 15 years. And Johnny is so reminiscent of Frankie‘s playing. It’s just great to know that he was handpicked by the guy. The last four months of touring that I did in the band was with that lineup, sans Jizzy, and sometimes Mike Dupke on drums. But it was great.”
Banali resurrected QUIET RIOT in 2010, three years after the death of founding member and singer DuBrow.
QUIET RIOT went through two vocalists — Mark Huff and Scott Vokoun — before Pearl‘s first three-year run with the band.
QUIET RIOT announced in September that it would carry on touring following Frankie‘s death a month earlier.
QUIET RIOT initially featured the late guitar legend Randy Rhoads and went through some early lineup shifts before securing the musicians that recorded “Metal Health”.
Durbin released the debut album from his solo band, DURBIN, “The Beast Awakens”, on February 12 via Frontiers Music Srl.
