MADAM X – We Reserve The Right [Lost Gems Records remastered reissue]

As requested, here’s the rare Aussie remastered CD reissue of MADAM X culet classic 1984 LP “We Reserve The Right”. Formed by sisters Maxine and Roxy Petrucci (later in VIXEN) among its several members there was a young future Skid Row vocalist Sebastian Bach.
With the US metal explosion in 1983, Jet Records signed MADAM X for the release of their debut LP next year, produced by Rick Derringer and engineered by legend George Tutko.
The aim was to present a half women / half men glam metal band with the typical anthemic sound from the era, something like QUIET RIOT meets TWISTED SISTER. The cover art for “We Reserve The Right” looks funny now, but back in 1984 it made an impact.

While MADAM X did a comeback the last decade with a new album and gigs, in the ’80s only lasted 4 years and split when Roxy decided to form VIXEN, and only put out this one album at the time. They exemplified the stereotype of glam rockers, the term big hair is an understatement when describing the band.
But they also can play. And wrote some damn good rockin’ tunes. The album has plenty of catchy tracks like ‘High in High School’, ‘Metal in My Veins’ and the anthemic title track ‘We Reserve the Right… To Rock’.
Maxine Petrucci shreds like a maniac here, sister Roxy bash the drums with that classic metal fills, and there’s a strong vocalist in Bret Kaiser (he later founded his own band, and also performs as an Elvis Presley tribute artist).

There is no way that any 14 year old metal dude ever looked over this record in the bin at his local record shop in 1984 and did not at least ponder buying it, just for the cover. The band photo emblazoned across it, framed in red smoke, is one of the greatest, most absurd images of the ’80s.
Roxy is wearing a leotard and a headband, just like Olivia Newton John in her “Let’s Get Physical” video. Bass player Chris “Godzilla” Doliber looks like he’s been constructed from old motorcycle parts. Just take a long look at this fella and tell me he’s not the inspiration for Edward Scissorhands.
Maxine, the undisputed eye candy of the band, looks like a fluffer girl on the set of New Wave Hookers. Bret Kaiser, well, he just looks like a fuckin’ dirtbag… haha, oh the ’80s.

It is an entirely classic photo, meant to satisfy every teenage metalhead desire – lust, power, mayhem, rock – at once. Yeah, sure, there was a record inside, but if Madam X were selling haircuts, not songs, then they would’ve have been bazillionaires.

But maybe you were beyond all that back in 1984. I was only 14. I wasn’t beyond anything yet, so I bought a copy. Now, I am not saying that ”We Reserve the Right” is a lost flash metal gem, but if you did not heard this LP then you missed out on one of the most flagrant examples of dumb, bad fun ever committed to vinyl.

Going with the please-everybody-at-once concept, Madam X tried to sound like a motor-riffing Brit metal band, like Judas Priest or Saxon, and a glammy-sleazy hard rock band, like Motley Crue or WASP, and a teenage-baiting party-anthem band, like Twisted Sister or Quiet Riot, all at once.
And you know what? That’s pretty much how they sound.

Brett Kaiser does a dead-on Rob Halford impression throughout the proceedings, screeching and growling like an arena monster, Maxine lifts Priest, Kiss, and Crue riffs like they were on sale, and effortlessly twists them into supersonic Cheezwhiz, and the band all yelp out a goofy refrain at every chorus.
Best of all, the lyrics read just like the ones you used to write in your notebook during study hall in the ninth grade. The songs on this record are just amazing in their obviousness.
In the self-explanatory Dirty Girls, the line “Dirty girls keep calling me” is accompanied, every time, with the ringing of a telephone.
The only actual heavy metal song on the record is called ‘Metal in My Veins’, and is led off with a gratuitous ‘metal’ guitar solo. You know, stuff like that. Cheap and wonderful.

The song you’d know MADAM X from, if you knew ‘em at all, is opener ‘High in High School’, which was also a memorably goofy MTV video. The lyrics, in part, are as follows: “Wake up, you’re late for school, now that’s history/1 plus 1 equals fun, that’s math to me”. You would literally have to get a chunk of brain removed from your head to write something dumber then High in High School.
And yet, on a primitive, teenage hellraiser kinda level, it actually works. MADAM X was sort of like a Satanic Sweet in that way, capable of writing instantly catchy pop songs with enough grit to make the rockers think they were getting their dose of metal mania.

And, also like The Sweet, their songs were so basic that even if you spoke Chinese, you could ‘get’ it. Hence, the brutal simplicity of songs like She’s Hot Tonight (“She likes her meat well-done”), Good With Figures (“I’m good with figures/ and I like your figure”), and Cat’s Got Your Tongue (“F is for fighting, C is for chew, K is for knuckles, all I need is U”).
And, as was standard policy in those days, half the songs on the record were about rock (Stand Up and Fight, Metal In My Veins, Reserve the Right to Rock), and how you’ve got to “Fight for rock”, whatever that means.

“We Reserve The Right” is state of the art ’80s Flash / Glam Metal, and unless you’re a total killjoy, it’s pretty much impossible not to like.
This Lost Gems Rec. release is the best sounding version we ever heard, a pretty hard to find out of print collectible.
Only at 0dayrox

01 – High In High School
02 – Come On, Come All
03 – She’s Hot Tonight
04 – Dirty Girls
05 – Max Volume
06 – Metal In My Veins
07 – We Reserve The Right To Rock
08 – Good With Figures
09 – Cat’s Got Your Tongue
10 – We Want Rock
11 – Stand Up And Fight

Bret Kaiser – vocals
Maxine Petrucci – guitars, backing vocals
Chris “Godzilla” Doliber – bass, backing vocals
Roxy Petrucci – drums, backing vocals

Out of Print