Earlier this month, Quiet Riot announced they would be welcoming Rudy Sarzo back into the band after an 18-year absence.

Rudy was one of the original founding members of the legendary Metal Health lineup. He played bass on the Metal Health album, which sold over ten million copies and spawned the hits "Cum On Feel The Noize" and "Metal Health", and on the follow-up record Condition Critical. Sarzo appeared in the most notable music videos during the MTV age and toured with Quiet Riot until 1985, and again from 1997 to 2003. Rudy is looking forward to recording and touring with Quiet Riot beginning in 2022. 

Widely respected photographer Mark Weiss recently interviewed Rudy Sarzo for his Spotify podcast, The Decade That Rocked. An excerpt has been transcribed as follows:

“The only time I’ve ever left Quiet Riot was in 1985. When we had the reunion in the '90s, the band broke up. It was just like, we can't carry on after, you know, with what's going on and that happened in 2003 the band breaking up. So for me to return back to the consciousness that is me... it's really a gift to be able to do that, to celebrate the legacy of the brothers that I made that music with and I toured that music with. We started going out in station wagons and then driving ourselves around in RVs because we believed in one thing, feeling the noise and banging our heads. That's at the core, that's the heart and soul of the consciousness of Quiet Riot.”

Growing up in Matawan, New Jersey, Mark Weiss filled his teenage nights sneaking into concerts to shoot the biggest acts of the ’70s. After being arrested for selling photographs outside a KISS concert in 1977, he walked into the offices of Circus with his portfolio and soon landed his first centerfold spread—a photo of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler. Soon after, he became the publication’s staff photographer. Throughout the ’80s, his photos were seen by millions, appearing in countless magazines around the world and on the covers of the most iconic albums of the decade.

Dig into Mark’s archives and take a tour through never-before-seen photos of a teenage Jon Bon Jovi, and behind-the-scenes and unreleased images from the album shoot for Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and the band’s decade-ending historic performance at the Moscow Music Peace Festival. Travel to Washington, DC, as Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider sits before Congress to combat censorship at the infamous PMRC hearings.

Captured from the unique vantage point of a photographer who lived and breathed the ’80s in all its grit and glory, The Decade That Rocked brings to life the no-holds-barred sounds and sights that changed the world of hard rock and metal forever.

Order your copy now via Amazon.com or TheDecadeThatRocked.com.

(Photo courtesy of Mark Weiss)