Wants You!

Wants You! is the second and last studio album Rough Cutt made for Warner Bros. Jack Douglas, who had produced Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic and Rocks, took the chair. Against the showy wall of sound Tom Allom built on the debut, this one is dry, settled and earthier. Douglas also put a hand into the writing, and the result is plainly more mature. The line-up is unchanged, with Amir Derakh doubling on synthesizers. It is the record on which the band sounds most firmly planted. The opener “Rock the USA” was their anthem of the moment, and “We Like It Loud” reads almost as an answer to Twisted Sister's “I Wanna Rock.” “Hot 'n' Heavy” looks like a plain rocker until Latin percussion arrives in its middle section. But the success they were promised never came. Wendy Dio brokered Paul Shortino's move to Quiet Riot, and in 1987 he left to replace Kevin DuBrow. Parramore McCarty of Warrior filled the gap briefly before the band simply folded. Both albums have since been reissued, in 2005 and again in 2016, and their standing has quietly risen.