FRANKIE BANALI Quits FREAKSHOW

Former QUIET RIOT drummer Frankie Banali has announced his departure from FREAKSHOW, the new band featuring Markus Allen Christopher (guitar/vocals; M!SS CRAZY) and Jeff LaBar (guitar; CINDERELLA). He says, "Please understand that I am no longer a member of the group FREAKSHOW, and have not been since at least July of 2009, nor will I tour with the band or ever record with this entity in the future.

"It has come to my attention that both my name and image are being used and bantered around without my permission or consent as if I am continuing with the band which is misleading to the fans and anyone else.

"I am not being paid my rightful and legal share of my royalties by the band for the iTunes sales nor am I receiving any accounting which further compounds the situation.

"Let me also add that not only am I not associated with FREAKSHOW but neither is [bassist] Tony Franklin beyond the recording of the record, yet both are names continued to be misused in an attempt to sell this product as if we have further association.

"I am not a participating member of FREAKSHOW, plain and simple."

Banali spoke to Backstage Live magazine about how his involvement with FREAKSHOW came about. "My initial musical involvement was a very straightforward affair," he said. "Markus asked me when I would be available to come in and lay down drum tracks and I let him know what my available times were. Once we sorted the time frame out, he sent me, I think, three or four songs that he had as drum machine demos that were very well done. I flew up to San Jose, where Markus is based out of, and started to work. He had budgeted three days for pre-production and three tracking days. We completed the pre-production in one rehearsal, just he and I, and then I recorded the 10 tracks in two evening sessions. One was a seven-hour session including set up, miking, getting drum sounds and tracking the drums for seven of the songs. The next evening I recorded the next three songs in about two hours. There was a problem with the recording drive which wiped out the very first song I did on day one, so early the next morning before flying back to L.A. I had to go back in to the studio, set up the drums again and re-cut the first track. The Pro Tools system can sometimes be Pro Fools! There was one additional track, the eleventh one, which was just Markus singing and playing acoustic guitar. I had him send me a MP3 of it and I took that into a studio in L.A. and added congas, shakers, tambourine and a timpani and sent the files back to him. He liked it and added it when he mixed the record."

For more information, visit the band's MySpace page.