Richie Onori, Legendary Drummer of The Sweet Shares His True Life, Near-Death Experience at a 1970’s Drug Deal Gone Bad When the Real Hillside Stranglers Burst In
(Los Angeles, Ca., April 28, 2026) Entertainer Richie Onori, (https://richieonori.com) best known as the drummer and member of the multi-platinum groupThe Sweet (Love Is Like Oxygen, Ballroom Blitz, Fox on the Run, Little Willie) and independent solo artist, decided to relate his brutal cautionary tale with the goal of encouraging others, especially the young, to tell them what can really happen. “Playing in the dark world of drugs, criminals and dangerous people can get you killed,” says Onori. In his case, the assassins came in the forms of the real “Hillside Stranglers”, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi. https://www.mgmplus.com/series/the-hillside-strangler
Here’s What Went Down
It’s the late ‘70s in LA and the young Onori was enjoying local success with his group Satyr, co-managed with music icon Dick Broder (Tony Orlando, The Fifth Dimension, Phoebe Snow), which, for a time, outdrew another local favorite, Van Halen.
Onori explains, “Starting out, making money just as a musician was sketchy, so some members of Satyr sold drugs as a sideline as we built our careers in the music business. Considering most of us came from low-income suburban communities in a setting known as the sprawling San Fernando Valley, we invested our gig money back into our stage show, etc. That was the most important thing to us and we’d do whatever it took to somehow get the money to keep the band going.”
Richie made friends with a shady character and drug dealer who followed the band and went by the name of Little John.They both had product to try, buy and sell. However, Onori’s visit at Little John’s home was interrupted by pounding feet coming up the wooden stairs to the house and right outside the window where they were sitting.
Ordinarily on a Friday night Little John’s house had a constant parade of customers. However, on this night only Onori, Little John and a girlfriend partied by sampling Richie’s weed and John furnishing his high-grade cocaine.
Suddenly the Hillside Stranglers, Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, slammed through the front door identifying themselves as plainclothes homicide detectives who claimed they were looking for a missing girl believed to have been killed. It quickly got ugly to the point where Onori found himself handcuffed and begging for his life. While Kenneth Bianchi shook down and argued with Little John for drugs and money in the other room, Angelo Buono firmly put his gun to Onori’s temple.
Back to now, Onori can be found as a guest speaker in schools and youth groups. “The impact of telling my story in person and through original songs can be seen on their faces as their eyes widen in a mix of curiosity and fear. I hope I can inspire and steer them away from a dead-end road that only leads to a difficult life..or worse.”
To help amplify and add strength to his message, Onori has written, performed and is about to a release a single entitled, Runnin Down the Devil’s Road (the Ballad of the Hillside Stranglers), a country tune available to the public next month. In addition to Onori on guitar, vocals and drums, the track features Jenee Fleenor on fiddle, Dave Chamberlain, bass with Dave Jenkins as engineer and producer. Richie Onori - Music
“I gotta say, just the title of that MGM+ documentary hit hard, reminding me again, after all this time, how close I came to losing my life.” What’s more, Onori says, “Don’t mess around in that world and don’t think that it can’t happen again, considering the drug cartels of today are notoriously vicious killers who have no regard for your rank or status of anything.”
You can expect Richie Onori’s autobiography soon, along with several fully produced albums of material. Onori currently continues to tour with his band The Sweet and next month, The Sweet is set to offer an unreleased song co-written by David Arkenstone and The Sweet founder Steve Priest who also performs with vocals and bass on the track titled Sweet Dream. In addition, Richie Onori recently teamed with Brasko on a songwriting collaboration for The Sweet, with a track called Cavity to be released on The Sweet’s new record due late 2026. Of note, Brasko is one of the co-writers of The Funeral by Yungblud.
Click here to listen and download Runnin' Down the Devil's Road!