From My Collection #73: Starz – Violation

Welcome to another edition of From My Collection. In late 2020, while the pandemic was still raging, author Doug Brod released a captivating read entitled They Just Seem a Little Weird about the four bands he believed “remade rock n’ roll” in the late ’70s. As you could infer by the title, one band was Cheap Trick. The other three were KISS, Aerosmith, and…nope, not Van Halen, but Starz. Considering the wide array of heavy metal and hard rock music we cover on this site, I wouldn’t be surprised if say you came from an extreme metal background and/or are under the age of 55 and are sitting in front of your phone or laptop right now asking aloud, “Who?” In this week’s essay, we revisit the band who Metal Blade founder Brian Slagel credited as “the band who saved heavy metal” in the late ’70s and their sophomore magnum opus, Violation.

The Starz saga begins with the end of Looking Glass: An early ’70s pop rock band who skyrocketed to the top of the charts in the summer of ’72 with “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”. I don’t care how old you are or what genre you prefer: If you have a surface level knowledge of music, you know this song. Matter of fact, you can probably recite it by heart. It’s one of the few ’70s pop hits that continues to be played as nauseam today, and for good reason; it’s a damn good tune. So you could only imagine the frustration of both Looking Glass and their label, Epic, when they weren’t able to replicate this success.

After a few years of floundering around the east coast bar circuit where they started, frontman Elliot Lurie walked. He was subsequently replaced by Michael Lee Smith and the band rebranded themselves as the much more metal sounding Fallen Angels. Not long after, they’d be joined by guitarist Richie Ranno. Coincidentally, Ranno also played in a chart-topping outfit that bottomed out, Stories. In case you forgot, their big hit was a cover of the Hot Chocolate deep cut, “Brother Louie”.

All the pieces were coming together. Now all they needed was an accessible moniker. Let’s face it folks; if you were a band named Fallen Angels in ’75, at best you’d be dismissed as a Sabbath knockoff. At worst, you’d be put on trial for blasphemy. Thankfully, the band rebranded themselves Starz and conjured up an eye-catching logo to match. For all purposes, this logo should’ve become as synonymous with rockers as those of KISS and The Rolling Stones. Speaking of KISS, it was their manager Bill Aucoin who took notice of the budding hard rockers and got them signed to Capitol Records.

The band’s self titled debut album was well received, but did little in the way of commercial success. Produced by Jack Douglas (best known for his association with Aerosmith), the album was a unique blend of hooky power pop coupled with hard rocking guitars. The songs were catchy and accessible, yet bore a dark, metallic edge that set Starz apart from their peers competing for FM radio airplay. And no song on Starz was darker than “Pull the Plug”: A sly, creeping rocker about a man who pulls the plug on his comatose wife. Mind you, this was a year before Cheap Trick tackled similar eerie subject matter in similar heavy power pop fashion on their self titled debut.

From here, Starz proceeded to get their name out there the way every band did back then, and that was by endless touring. Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, Lynyrd Skynyrd: You name ’em, Starz opened for ’em. Capitol and Rock Steady Management seemed dead set on making a return on their investment. After all, for as “out of the ordinary” as Starz were, so was every other hard and heavy band of the day. If you sounded remotely like another band of the era, your career was essentially over, hence why we still listen to and talk about the ’70s crops today; not only were they the originators of heavy, but they carved their own identities.

Following in suit with the “album, tour, repeat” cycle that was industry standard in the ’70s, Starz found themselves back in the studio with Douglas in ’77 to record their undisputed masterpiece, Violation. Although one wouldn’t take Starz for intellectuals upon surface value (and they’d be the first to tell you they weren’t), Violation stood in stark contrast to its predecessor for a few reasons, the biggest reason being that it is in fact a concept album. Kind of.

On Violation, Starz dreamt up a Clockwork Orange-esque dystopia in which teenage rebellion and the pleasures that come with it (sex, juvenile delinquency, and rock n’ roll) are punishable by law. Capitol, not impressed by this overarching concept, thought it was way too ambitious of an effort for a band they were trying to market to middle America. Ironically, they’d say the same thing to Queensrÿche 7 years later ahead of their man vs. machine epic, The Warning (1984). So just like The Warning after it, the songs that made up Violation were kept, but placed out of sequence.

Violation opens with the most accessible song on the album, and subsequently Starz’s biggest hit, “Cherry Baby”. With its Who-esque chord progressions and ultra sugary chorus, “Cherry Baby” would become Starz’s sole Top 40 entry, making it up to #33. Just like “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”, “Cherry Baby” is a textbook radio single if there ever was one, albeit more upbeat than the former. Contrasting this is the rough and rowdy “Rock Six Times”. Off the wall lyrics and punch riffage reigns supreme, as is the case with so many Starz tunes. Perhaps funniest is Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” being branded a “scratchy old record” just 2 short years after its release. That said, remember that Violation takes place in a not too distant future where maybe “Walk This Way” is a “scratch old record”.

“Sing It, Shout Out” espouses the same young love and innocence as “Cherry Baby”. The lyrics are admittedly more suggestive, but musically speaking, it’s a subdued power pop tune that was aptly released as Violation‘s second single. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet the same success as “Cherry Baby”. I can only chalk this up to single-buying public chalking it up as a mere cousin of the former, both tunes being cut from the same cloth. Side A then closes with the album’s muscular title cut. An abrasive rocker, in the context of the story’s narrative, “Violation” serves as a warning to the album’s protagonist. “You wanna rock n’ roll, lose control, love someone, and have some fun?” “No, that’s a violation!”

As we flip over to side B, we’re greeted by my favorite Starz song of all time, and perhaps the heaviest in their catalog, “Subway Terror”. A horrifying tale of ‘lude-fueled violence, “Subway Terror” is musically years ahead of its time, it’s thunderous drumming, roaring riffage, and wild energy sounding more in line with the NWOBHM circa ’81 than any of Starz’s American contemporaries. Scaling it back is the much more timely “All Night Long”, its boogie glam tendencies not far removed from KISS. In the same breath, one would never mistake this for a KISS knockoff, if only for Smith’s distinct vocals and the metallic twin guitars. Let’s be honest folks; aside from the “Detroit Rock City” solo, Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley could never lay it down like Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson.

Even though “Cool One” comes off as a tongue in cheek novelty compared to the rest of this album, it’s still an enjoyable listen for what it is: an innuendo-laden ode to the glory days of rock n’ roll. Smith sings with the same mischievous demeanor as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. How could you not when singing a cringe-inducing lyric like, “She reached over and squeezed my rocks. I lost it all in the popcorn box.” This happy go lucky ditty can’t prepare us for the bludgeoning power pop doom of “S.T.E.A.D.Y.” I assume on the album’s original sequence, this was meant to follow “Violation”, as if you commit such an act, “they” (the authoritarian government) are gonna “steady you up”. It’s a frightening prospect set to a frightening soundtrack. Even though the chorus sounds sweet, there’s a sinister edge to it than can only be described as haunting.

Speaking of haunting, there’s no doubt Starz saved the most stirring song for last in “Is That a Street Light or the Moon?”. Starz were never much for ballads, let alone symphonic ballads, so to close Violation on such a note is rather unusual. However, when we frame it in the context of the narrative, it makes sense. I can’t confirm if this is true or not, but from what I’ve heard from fellow Starz fans, after being “steadied up”, our protagonist, once full of lust for life, stands aimlessly brainwashed and alone, unable to tell the difference between a street light or the moon. With its Beatlesesque grandiosity, it’s no wonder Douglas told me personally this was his favorite Starz song.

While Violation proved to be Starz’s most successful album, it didn’t do much in the long run commercially. The band soldiered on for two more years and two more albums before ultimately calling it a day in ’79. Similar to Angel, one could only imagine how their fortune may have changed had they persisted through the ’80s, greeting an entire crop of bands they helped inspire, among them being Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, and Poison, just to name a few. As of 2023, Starz have since reunited and continue to perform sporadically when their schedules allow them to do so. Though their fanbase never reached the heights of KISS or Aerosmith, we still stand strong and proud, ready to fight against those who want to steady us up. So will you after one spin of Violation: Hard rock’s answer to A Clockwork Orange.