Frankie Banali states he failed miserably with past karaoke Kevin DuBrow club like singers

Frankie Banali states he failed miserably with past karaoke Kevin DuBrow club like singers

Quiet Riot‘s long-time drummer Frankie Banali was recently interviewed by The Morning Call and continued to criticize some of his former lead vocalists while heaping praise to his current singer and ex-American Idol finalist James Durbin.

When asked about parallels between Durbin and DuBrow, Banali stated (with slight edits):

“I’m being very careful with this. … He reminds me of Kevin in that Kevin had more energy than any person I’ve ever known in my entire life – right down to the last performance we ever did up in San Jose, Calif., less than a month before he passed away. I mean he was just a dynamo, right? And he had an incredible sense of humor – the two things that bonded Kevin and me together was the love of music and comedy.

“So James is 28 – so he’s got that youthful energy. He’s a really funny guy and Kevin was 6-4 and James is 6-2. So those are the first apparent similarities.

“The other similarity is that, while they’re completely different vocal styles because Kevin had more of a growl to his voice. But Kevin could sing the highest of notes and the lowest of notes and everything in between. Which is something James can also do. It’s a little cleaner style than Kevin’s. But that was important to me. It’s not just about doing a new record and doing new material – it was about performing the old songs live. And if he cannot hit those notes, Quiet Riot is in trouble.

“But hands down, listen – there’s no replacing Kevin. I’ve never tried to replace him; he was one of a kind. The single greatest singer I’ve ever worked with. But James has really stepped up his game to the point that he can sing all the old catalog great.

“What he has brought to the live material is his own thumb print. So it does sound like Quiet Riot, but at the same time he brings something of himself. Which I welcome because I tried the karaoke, Kevin-DuBrow-club lead singers and failed miserably doing that. So I decided to step away from that, and either people will like it and accept it on his own merits or they won’t.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Banali at The Morning Call.