Kids These Days:

Last Friday afternoon, I was working at home when I received an online headline alert that a fellow named Kevin DuBrow had been found dead in his home in Las Vegas. According to the report, he had been dead for six days before his body was found.

A few readers may recognize the name, but most will not know DuBrow as one of the pioneers of a second generation of American heavy metal through his band Quiet Riot. For those unfamiliar with the term or music, heavy metal describes a loud, often incomprehensible collection of guitars, drums and voices. For a brief time, Quiet Riot was a famous band. And they had a hit in 1983 with “Cum on Feel the Noize.”

The image of the crowd that relishes heavy metal is likely to be the partying, tattooed, drug-taking, anti-social group one would expect.

But that is not how I remember Kevin “Butch” DuBrow as my very good friend of 40 years ago.

I’m not sure where Kevin came from or why we were friends after we met at Laurel Elementary School in Hollywood. All I know is that he was a really nice guy. And if my brother-in-law, Bud West, a teacher and school principal for more than 20 years is correct that one’s personality is cemented by the time we are 6 years old, Kevin was probably a really nice adult, too.

For the record, it should be noted that I knew Kevin for only a year or two, but in that time, I achieved a level of status in his life: I was the lead singer in Kevin’s first band.

Yes, that’s true. But it’s also true that this band of 11-year-olds played only one gig, to an audience of senior citizens that appreciated the Rolling Stones songs we covered as much as they appreciated arthritis.

When I knew Kevin, he lived with his mother and brother in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles where we both grew up. His mother was divorced and I remember her as both very pretty and very nice.

Because of the chaos in my own home, I could not invite Kevin or my other friends over so I spent time with him in his room listening to the “B” sides of 45 rpm records. That was in 1966 when the British invasion was in full force. Kevin and I sang along with the records and tried to imitate their accents, wondering, as do many people still, why the Brits don’t seem to sing with the same accents with which they speak.

I was no reluctant member of the band but Kevin was clearly the brains behind the operation.