Frankie Banali reveals his second choice for Quiet Riot singer when Jizzy Pearl gave notice

Frankie Banali reveals his second choice for Quiet Riot singer when Jizzy Pearl gave notice

Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali was recently interviewed by Icon vs Icon on the occasion of the release of the band’s new studio album Road Rage with new singer James Durbin, which was released three days ago.

Back in October 2016, Quiet Riot had announced that former Adler’s Appetite lead vocalist Seann Nicols was going to be replacing singer Jizzy Pearl starting in 2017. The band was scheduled to release the album Road Rage on April 21, 2017 and had even released the song “The Seeker” in early March 2017 with Nicols on lead vocals when the group replaced Nicols with American Idol finalist James Durbin. The release of the album Road Rage was then delayed to August 4, 2017 to allow Durbin to apparently re-arrange the songs and record his vocal tracks.

Banali has stated in previous interviews that his number one choice to replace Pearl was Durbin but the latter was unavailable and his second choice was also unavailable given that he did not want to tour. This means that Nicols was apparently Banali‘s third choice to handle the lead vocals at that time.

Banali has now revealed his number two choice as Iconvsicon asked him what got the ball rolling and made this the right time for  a new studio album from Quiet Riot. Banali replied: “I received a communication from Frontiers Record and they wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a Quiet Riot record. They had pursued me in the past and, at the time, I really wasn’t motivated to make a record for a variety of reasons. When this one came around, I thought the time was right but it also coincided with the time we had Jizzy Pearl singing with us and he gave notice. Ya know, we had three really good years with Jizzy but he wanted to concentrate on his solo career and wanted to write music for that, so he wash;t going to write any music for a new Quiet Riot record. That left me in the situation where I had to find a new singer and I time to do it because he gave ample notice. He wanted to finish out the year.

I needed somebody to fill the void live and to do the record. The first person I reached out to was James Durbin. I was aware of James not only because of the “American Idol” status that he had but also because my guitarist, Alex Grossi, already knew James. I had gotten in touch with James but, at the time, he had just signed on to do a project in Las Vegas and he had no idea how long that was going to run, so that made it impossible. The second choice I had was a singer by the name of Jacob Bunton, who was with Adler’s Appetite. He’s a really, really good singer and songwriter. As it turns out, he wanted to do the record but he decided to stay off the road for awhile, so that didn’t work out. People say everything happens for a reason and ultimately the reason came about and James was available when we needed him the most. He came into the fold and it’s been a really really great great experience to work with him. I just think it’s the right time to do a Quiet Riot record! We haven’t released an official Quiet Riot record since 2006, when we released “Rehab,” which was the last record we did with Kevin DuBrow. I think 11 years was a good enough rest from the record business!”

You can read the rest of the interview with Banali at Icon vs Icon.

Sleaze Roxx recently interviewed Nicols and asked him about Banali‘s comments that he was the “third choice” to which Nicols stated: “I had no knowledge of that when I joined the band and as far as I know and as far as I am concerned, that story is a fabrication. To my knowledge, I joined Quiet Riot before James Durbin ever came into the fold. From what I understood, when I joined the band, Alex had already hooked up with James Durbin and was working with James Durbin on their solo thing — [Map To] The Hollywood Scars deal. So James Durbin was clearly available at the time that I had joined Quiet Riot ’cause he was working with Alex [laughs] right? I think that what most likely happened is that after Frankie realized that I was interested in being compensated for my work and that I was asking questions pertaining to the band’s business, he quickly went in to some type of a back up plan mode and that’s when they approached James Durbin about replacing me in the band. I don’t think that they had James Durbin as their first choice. Alex Grossi had gone out of his way to tell me that I was his number one choice of singer to work with in Quiet Riot. He told me point blank that I was the best singer he had ever worked with and that if he had it his way, I would be the last singer to sing in Quiet Riot because he wanted me to go the distance.

Frankie had talked with me and told me that he had spent months checking me out, watching videos, talking to people that I had worked with, talking to Alex and that he was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was the right guy to be the permanent lead singer for Quiet Riot moving forward. They weren’t just taking into consideration my performance ability, they were also taking into consideration my ability to write, my history — I’ve got a lot of history. My path criss-crosses with Quiet Riot in so many ways. My dad worked with Kevin DuBrow back in the early eighties. They were actually in a band together.”

It appears that Durbin publicly announced in early August 2016 that he was going to do a four month residency in Las Vegas starting at the end of August 2016 until the end of November 2016.

Nicols advised Sleaze Roxx in his interview that he joined Quiet Riot in August 2016 and that by the time that he was announced as the new band singer on October 5, 2016, he had been in the band for one and a half to two months already. Nicols stated: “I think it was last August [2016]. When the announcement came out that I had joined the band, we had already formalized our working relationship about a month and a half earlier — maybe two months earlier.”

Charvel Artists states the following about Bunton: “Jacob Bunton is an Emmy Award winning songwriter and multi instrumentalist. From Birmingham, AL, Bunton began his music career in 2000 as the founding member of the rock band Mars Electric (Columbia Records). Discovered by legendary A&R guru John Kalodner (Aerosmith, Steve Vai, Whitesnake), Mars Electric scored a top 30 radio hit with the song “Someday” and released the critically acclaimed album “Beautiful Something”. After Mars Electric dissolved, Bunton formed the rock band Lynam and signed a deal with DRT / Universal. The band’s major label release “Slave To The Machine” peaked at No. 21 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart and No. 19 on its Top Heatseekers chart. The album’s first single, “Tanis” achieved the No. 1 spot on both the active rock independent chart and the mainstream rock independent chart. Their follow up album, Tragic City Symphony, was released on August 18th, 2009 via Megaforce/Mascot. This album features the song “Save My Soul,” which peaked at No. 5 on the active rock independent chart.

As a songwriter and session musician, Bunton has had numerous songs on the charts at multiple formats including Rock, Top 40, Country and Alternative.

Bunton recently joined forces with former Guns N Roses drummer Steven Adler to form the rock band ADLER along with guitarist Lonny Paul and bassist Johnny Martin. The band’s debut album “Back From The Dead” will be released November 26th via New Ocean Media.”

Adler‘s Back From The Dead was released in November 2012.