Slade – Cum On Feel The Noize

Slade was very successful in the UK with 6 number ones, 16 top ten, and 24 top 40 singles. They could not duplicate their success in America where they only had two top forty singles…Run, Runaway, and My, Oh My both in the 80s.

Jim Lea and Noddy Holder of Slade wrote this song, and it was produced by Chas Chandler, who managed Jimi Hendrix before working with Slade. The song entered the UK charts at #1, becoming the first to do so since The Beatles “Get Back” in 1969. It was Slade’s fourth UK #1.

This song peaked at #98 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in the UK  in 1973.

Americans know this song and Slade’s Mama Weer All Crazee Now more by Quiet Riot in the 80s. I’ve grown to appreciate Slade’s glam rock and wonder why they weren’t more successful in America.

 

From Songfacts

This is a glam rock classic. Slade performed loud, anthemic songs in flamboyant costumes, often with lots of makeup and plenty of energy. Glam rock was big in the UK in the mid-’70s, and this was one of the genre’s first hits. Slade also hit #1 with similarly misspelled songs “Coz I Love You” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.”

Most Americans know this song from the Quiet Riot cover, which went to #5 in 1983 and helped their album Metal Health become the first metal album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200. It was the band’s producer, Spencer Proffer, who asked them to cover the song; lead singer Kevin DuBrow wanted nothing to do with it, since he wanted the band to write every song on the album. He and the band cooked up a plan to sabotage the song, but it failed.

In a Songfacts interview with Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali, he told the story: “We were supposed to rehearse the song and go in and record it. The producer kept calling the rehearsal studio, ‘Are you working on ‘Cum On Feel the Noize’?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah. It sounds great.’ But we never played it.

So the day came when it was time to record the song, and I came in early and told the engineer what was going on. I was honest with him. I said, ‘You might just want to record this for laughs and giggles.’

We went in, there was no intro, no nothing at all. There was a little bit of arguing as to how it was going to start, and finally, when I knew the engineer was rolling tape, I just started playing what became the intro. Rudy [Sarzo, bass] joined in, and then Carlos [Cavazo, guitar] joined in. Kevin was sitting at the corner of the studio, just giggling, waiting for this massive train wreck, and the train wreck never happened.

I had already done so many sessions in LA – even before the Metal Health record – that I knew, ‘Vamp long, there’s no click track on it,’ and all of that. And then when we were done, the producer says, ‘That sounded great. I wish we had recorded it.’ And the engineer said, ‘Come on in.’

He went in to listen, and Kevin grabbed me by the arm and almost dislocated my shoulder. He says, ‘What the hell was that?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know man. I just started playing it!’ He says, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now?’ And I said, ‘Well, you can always sing it s–tty, can’t you?’ He smiled a little, but he was really pissed off.

The thing is, when you listen to the original Slade version and you listen to our version, Slade begins at a different part of the song. Slade did not have an intro – it just goes right in. And because we weren’t familiar with the song – and I definitely wasn’t familiar with the song – I think I either left out a verse or a chorus in our arrangement. So if you play them side-by-side, they’re not going to match.

I will say that there is a lot of similarities between Kevin’s voice and Noddy Holder’s. It was good call on the producer’s part to do that. And I understand why he did it: Quiet Riot was a new band, doing music that nobody else was doing, and he just wanted to have a ‘safety song’ that was a hit everywhere except for the United States. I get it. And the reality is, if we had not done that song, you’d probably be interviewing the drummer from another band right now.”

Quiet Riot had been recording since 1975 without a hit. After finding success with “Cum On Feel The Noize,” they had a minor hit with their next single “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” and recorded another Slade song, “Mama Weer All Crazee Now.” After Metal Health, they never caught on and failed to enjoy the success of similar bands like Mötley Crüe and Poison.

In 2007, Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow died of a drug overdose at age 52. The band re-formed in 2010 with a number of vocalists going through the ranks. James Durbin, the fourth place finisher on American Idol in 2011, took over in 2017.

The Quiet Riot version took off thanks to a video that got lots of airplay on MTV. At the time, pop radio was dominated by Michael Jackson, The Police, Madonna and other acts that were chasms away from metal, but MTV had plenty of wiggle room in their playlist and was looking for American rock bands in particular. The “Cum On Feel The Noize” video was sweet nectar to the young male audience they were trying to attract; one of this species stars in the clip, undergoing a metal assault in his bedroom. Mark Rezyka, who did all of Quiet Riot’s early videos, was the director.

Though little known Stateside, Slade was enormously popular in the UK, where they had 18 songs reach the Top 5, seven of them #1s.

Much of their musical output was produced by Chas Chandler, famous for managing Jimi Hendrix and a talented rocker in his own right, playing bass as a founding member of the seminal British rock band The Animals. But Glam Rock was buried in Britain by the late 1970s and Slade slid into semi-obscurity in the US until the release of Quiet Riot’s cover, which helped boost their own sales a bit.

Cum On Feel The Noize

Baby baby baby!

Yow!

So you think I got an evil mind, well I’ll tell you honey
And I don’t know why
And I don’t know why
So you think my singing’s out of time, well it makes me money
And I don’t know why
And I don’t know why
Anymore
Oh no

So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
We get wild, wild, wild
So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
At your door

So you say I got a funny face, I ain’t got no worries
And I don’t know why
And I don’t know why
Say I’m a scruff bag well it’s no disgrace, I ain’t in no hurry
And I don’t know why
I just don’t know why
Anymore
Oh no

So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
We get wild, wild, wild
So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
At your door

Yow!
So you think we have a lazy time, well you should know better
And I don’t know why
I just don’t know why
And you say I got a dirty mind, well I’m a mean go-getter
And I don’t know why
And I don’t know why
Anymore
Oh no

So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
We get wild, wild, wild
So come on, feel the noise
Girls, grab your boys
We get wild, wild, wild
At your door

So come on, feel the noise (come on, come on)
Girls, grab your boys (grab your boys)
We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild)
We get wild, wild, wild (yeah)
So come on, feel the noise (feel it, feel it)
Girls, grab your boys (grab ’em, grab ’em)
We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild)
We get wild, wild, wild (we get wild)

Come on, feel the noise (can you feel it, can you feel it?)
Girls, grab your boys (feel the noise)
We get wild, wild, wild (come on, get wild)
We get wild, wild, wild (get wild)
So come on, feel the noise (come on, come on, come on)
Girls, grab your boys (feel the noise)
We get wild, wild, wild
We get wild, wild, wild