Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and Regina Russell, the writer and director of Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back: The Quiet Riot Movie, recently spoke with Fred Topel at CraveOnline.com about the project. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Q: Is there anything like saying no, we’ll never reform Quiet Riot to motivate you to ultimately reform Quiet Riot?

Banali: "Quiet Riot has had a long history of being told no and we can’t do that. Right from the get go, nobody was really interested in signing the band, and if you look at historically what happened, it was the complete opposite of no, you can’t. That has been a common thread through the entire history of the band, so I’m pretty much used to having people tell me no and then I go ahead and do it anyway."

Q: And even when you tell yourself no, you go ahead and do it anyway?

Banali: "Yeah, well, you have to understand, and what most people don’t understand is when I lost Kevin, to me it was just complete darkness. I never really thought I’d see light at the end of that tunnel again. I mean, there really was no light at the end of that tunnel, but as time passed and I was able to reconcile with the situation, I found that I missed Kevin, but I also missed Quiet Riot and at the end of the day, this is what I do and I saw no reason to stop doing it. So I’m not apologetic for my statement. The statement was made, it was very honest and it was made during a period of intense grief."

Q: Nor should you be. It’s just positive to see you move out of that grief.

Banali: "Like I said, this is what I do, this is what I’ve always done and this is what I’ll continue to do."

Click here for the complete interview.

The Quiet Riot feature documentary Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back: The Quiet Riot Movie will be screened in Toronto, ON this Sunday, June 15th at 9:45pm at The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.

Doors open at 9pm for a DJ set, beer specials and a seven-minute short film called Panama. It's a comedy about two friends who met as extras in the Van Halen video for "Panama". Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali and director Regina Russell will be there for the party and the Q&A; after.

Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back: The Quiet Riot Movie premiered at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 29th. At the event Eric Blair from the Blairing Out With Eric Blair spoke with singer Jizzy Pearl (Love/Hate, L.A. Guns, Ratt) and Kelly and Kathy Rhoads who talked about their brother Randy Rhoads:

Quiet Riot topped the charts in 1983 with the first #1 heavy metal album (Metal Health) which sold over 10 million copies worldwide, and paved the way for successful metal bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison and Bon Jovi turning the '80s into the decade of heavy metal hair rock.

An unlikely and surprisingly personal narrative to conquer the loss of a friend emerges from an odyssey about the rise, fall and resurrection of an '80s metal band. The career of Frankie Banali, drummer of Quiet Riot, took a major sideswipe when his singer and best friend Kevin DuBrow died in 2007. In 2010 and at a cross roads in his life, Banali has to forge ahead and make a new life for himself and his daughter. At times both utterly tragic, and downright hilarious, the film follows him going through the emotional feat of trying to fill the void left by Kevin and get the band back together one more time.

The 105-minute character-driven documentary goes beyond the guts and glory of the common getting the band back together tale. Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back reveals an unforgettable man who uses ambition, adaptability, relentless determination and principle to navigate through a business, and a series of obstacles that are attempting to control his fate.

“When Frankie Banali told me he was planning to meet with Kevin DuBrow’s mother to get her blessing to go on with the band and find a new singer, I thought this would be an extraordinary story for a documentary." First time director Regina Russell gained access to the private video and photo archives of the band. She followed them for four years and got interviews with many of the integral characters in the band’s history.

Production on the indie film was launched in 2010 after a surprisingly successful campaign on Kickstarter.com, in the crowdfunding website's infancy. The campaign raised $25,000 of startup capital from the band’s loyal fan base for over 30 years, and a whole new generation of young head bangers.

Well Now You're Here, There's No Way Back is produced and directed by Regina Russell, edited by Kelly McCoy and executive produced by Gene Raphael Miller.