About Riot
Riot V, formerly known as Riot, is an American heavy metal band formed in New York City in 1975 by guitarist Mark Reale. Achieving peak success and popularity during the early 1980s, the band has continued a long-running successful career. Riot's sound initially started out as straightforward heavy metal, but since their 1988 release Thundersteel, their musical style has shifted a little towards power metal.
In 2013, surviving members of Riot re-formed the band to Riot V, after the death of founder, guitarist, primary songwriter and leader Mark Reale. The group uses a baby seal face as a logo on its album covers.
Riot was formed in 1975 in New York City, when Kon-Tiki guitarist Mark Reale and drummer Peter Bitelli recruited bassist Phil Feit and vocalist Guy Speranza. The line up recorded a four-track demo, which they hoped would be included in a proposed compilation of new rock bands. While waiting for the project to get off the ground, they added Steve Costello on keyboards.
Reale took the various demos to New York-based producers Billy Arnell and Steve Loeb, who also owned Greene Street Recording Studio and the associated label Fire-Sign Records. Arnell and Loeb turned down the compilation proposal but signed Riot. The band added second guitarist Louie Kouvaris and replaced Feit with Jimmy Iommi, though both bass players participated in the recording of its debut album, Rock City; the record was recorded and produced by Arnell and Loeb and released on their Fire Sign Records. After a promising start and support slots with AC/DC and Molly Hatchet, the band were unable to maintain momentum and were on the verge of breaking up by 1979.
In that year, however, the new wave of British heavy metal broke mainstream, and the band came to the attention of influential DJ Neal Kay who spread the word about them in Britain where fans bought imported copies of Rock City. Encouraged, Arnell and Loeb, now Riot's managers, recorded the band's new album Narita. In the course of the recording, Kouvaris was replaced by roadie Rick Ventura .
Subsequent to a successful support of Sammy Hagar on his US Texas tour, Capitol Records offered Riot a worldwide deal for Narita, mostly to support Hagar. Capitol and Hagar needed a harder, younger edge to associate with him, so Riot was chosen if they agreed to open for Hagar on his UK tour. Hagar and Riot had a successful tour, but Riot was dropped by Capitol as soon as they were finished with the tour.
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