STEEL PANTHER Interview

Hi Satchel, how are you today?
That’s the best question you’ve asked so far.

It's a good one, I liked it.
I've been up all night partying, so I feel great. I'm just starting to come down off of my ecstasy buzz, but I'm about to do another line of cocaine in my car while I'm driving to rehearsal.

You are a multi-tasker.
I'm a what?

A multi-tasker.
Yes. Exactly. I thought you called me a roller-coaster. Yes, I'm a roller-coaster too.

A couple days ago you released your sophomore album title Balls Out. Congrats on that.
Thank you! It's a fucking awesome record and I'm totally proud of it.

Oh it is, it's awesome. Is it true that you write most of the songs?
I don’t write all of it, but I write about 99.9% of it.

How does the writing process work for the percentage remaining?
A lot of times I will write something and I will bring it to the band. I trust the guys in my band’s opinion, so if they dig the song, then we will work on it as a band and arrange it musically as a band. I’m not a drummer, so I let Stix come up with his own drum parts. I don’t want him to play something that doesn’t feel good to him. If I have a melody that I wrote for Michael, he and I have been working together for a long time, so I know what sounds good for him. I usually know what his range is and I don’t write stuff that will be out of his range. I let him experiment too. Everybody gets to throw their ideas in, especially with words. When we are recording a song, we want it to be the most entertaining lyrics that we can get, so if there is a line that says "Eat my poop," but “Eat my turd” is more effective then we will put the word turd in there instead of poop. It's democratic when it comes to the final things going down. We all talk about it and when we go into pre-production with a song a lot of times I won't even demo it up, I will write just the first chorus and bridge, we will go in there and we will come up with more parts as a band. We all have input on all the songs, which makes it everybody's song at that point, instead of me telling everybody what to do. Everyone can write and add to the songs. I think it makes all of us feel more connected even though we hate each other.

I think you pulled it off because the album is amazing.
Thank you Shauna! Are you making a pass at me?

Yes I was. I'll come to your show on Monday.
Awesome. Cool. Don’t wear panties.

I never do.
Oh sweet! You’re that kind of girl.

Of course, it's the rock n roll lifestyle baby!
Whoooooooo!

Let's talk about a couple of the tracks shall we?
Sure!

The opening track is called "In The Future." That is Dane Cook’s voice.
Yes that is Dane Cook and you can probably tell if you are a Dane Cook fan even though we put an effect on his voice that makes him sound like the devil. Even though that effect is on there, if you are into Dane Cook, you can totally tell it is him just because of the way he speaks and his phrasing. It is cool to hear Dane Cook as a robot, it’s Bitchin!

A lot of women think he's hot, so were you nervous about putting him on the record because he may get all the chicks!
I really wasn’t nervous because I knew that I had that part pretty much written and Dane had started coming to the shows at the tail end of recording and we hadn’t recorded that part yet. He was so cool and such a bitchin guy. We knew that when we asked him to do it that he would be totally into it. He’s so down to Earth. He came down to the studio and he is totally easy to work with. I didn’t even have to tell him or direct him at all. He read it a few times and did an awesome job. We spliced it together and took the best parts of each take. It was awesome, he is badass!

Yeah, it turned out really cool. I love Dane Cook anyway, he is incredible.
Me too, I recorded a song with Dane Cook and it will be released very soon.

Oh yeah?
He sang on it.

Really? I had no idea he could sing.
He sounds great. Wait until you hear it.

Awesome! Well now you guys had another cameo on the song "It Won't Suck Itself" with Chad Kroeger and Nuno Bettencourt. I've seen Chad at one of your shows before.
You did? Oh yeah he has been there before. He was hammered.

These songs are supposed to be based on personal experiences, so which one of you got bit beneath the belt?
Chad did actually, we were in Vancouver and he lives up North of Vancouver and he was like “Hey, I want to write a song with you guys!” We went to his house right? His house is 43,000 square feet. It’s massive. It is a fucking castle. He has eighteen hockey rinks underneath his house. It’s crazy. The Goblet of Fire and the Resurrection Stone is under there somewhere. It’s huge! He has a studio with his own engineer and his own groupies that he hires. We went into his studio and he said “I have an idea for a song because I got bit on my cock by a snake and I have an idea.” He had the title already and he had the idea for the song. He really did get bit on the pee pee by a snake. The snake must have had killer eyesight because his penis is not very big. The snake had really good aim.

The snake must have been a fan of Nickelback.
(Laughing) but yeah that was Chad. We wrote that song with Chad in his studio and it didn’t take very long. It took a few hours and we were totally doing drugs the whole time, fucking bitches and just writing in between, which is the way you should write by the way. Don't ever try to write unless you have hookers and blow.

Exactly the way it should be. The first single off the new album is "17Girls in A Row." This song is about Michael's conquests, so how many girls in a row have you had?
I know that Michael likes to say they he fucked seventeen girls in a row, but I have a hard time believing that because I don’t even know if he can get a boner now.

Because...
He is not a spring chicken anymore. After two hip replacements, fourteen liposuction surgeries and two face lifts it is not easy. He is on a lot of medication. He wrote “The Shocker” and that was because he couldn’t get a boner and that was the first record. I don’t know if can, unless he was fingering all these girls, I don’t think he actually put his penis in all of them. He has a great imagination that kid; you’ve got to give it up for him. I have fucked way more than that by the way. I’m still counting because there are so many girls. I’m fucking a girl right now.

While you're driving.
Yes and when I’m done with her I am going to move onto the girl in the back seat. She is going to climb up to the front seat.

That is incredible.
She is incredible. Uh! I just came.

I’m glad I was here for that. I really like the song “Just Like Tiger Woods.” It makes me want to put my hands up in the air and sway back and forth. Do you think Tiger would like the song?
I think he is going to love it and guess what, I know that he is going to hear it. We know people that know Tiger and we are going to make sure that he gets a CD. He heard our first record and I guess he dug it. Most pro golfers by the way fuck a bunch of girls like Tiger Woods. They are all a bunch of whores. Arnold Palmer is a whore.

And still he had the time to make that drink.
(Laughs) Well the thing is he took credit for the drink, but he had one of his bitches making it for him.

He's like "Hey Bitch! Get me some lemonade and ice tea!"
Yeah! You know what golf stands for? It's Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden. They are a bunch of sexist punks. I guess that is why I relate to them.

I dig the album cover, although I have to admit I was disappointed it was not a picture of the band because you guys are pretty sexy.
Thank you, I appreciate that. We decided it probably wouldn’t be good to put ourselves on the album cover this time because we were on it last time. The critics, who I hate, everybody who reviews our album I pretty much hate because if they give it 4 out of 5 stars I always want to punch their face. It deserves 5 out of 5 stars. It’s always “This album is good, but it’s no Feel the Steel.” It’s not Feel the Steel, yes of course, it is a different fucking record. It’s just as good as Feel the Steel and anybody who says it’s not is a dick. God, I hate fucking critics, I fucking hate them. I really do, I want to stab them all in the neck. To anybody reading this, if you are an album reviewer, you are a DICK! Look at yourself in the mirror and face the facts, you are a dick!

Here is what I would say to the critics. What I think is remarkable about your band is that you don't even have to go out and tour, people will fly in to see you. I personally do not know of any other band that has that ability.
Well thank you and you're right. I don’t know of any other band that can pack 800 to 1000 people into a club week after week for eleven years in a row on the Sunset Strip. That is proof that we are fucking awesome right there, even with our shitty records.

I hear all the time from people who are coming to LA and the first thing they want to do is see a Steel Panther show.
Yeah of course because we are fucking awesome.

You ARE awesome. You are going out on tour come December. You will be going out with Def Leppard and Motley Crue. How does it feel knowing that you will be touring with bands whose songs you cover?
For us, we are just really glad that we are going to be touring doing our own music. We will never be taken seriously as musicians because we are entertaining and funny, but we have all been musicians for our whole lives. I’ve been writing songs since before Mick Mars was potty-trained. We’ve been doing it just as long as Motley Crue, it’s just that they have been famous for way longer than us, which is awesome because they deserve it. We are considered a new band by a lot of people. It is inherent in people that when there is something new they just want to hate it, they don’t want to like it, especially a band like us. There will always be people who hate you because they don’t understand it or they don’t get it. They don’t want to give it a chance because that is human nature. We had to play covers for a long time because we didn’t have records out and we were just entertainers. For me, being a songwriter, I realized that we had a built in audience because we are such a good band. It was like "Hey, let's write some great songs and deliver something new to people that love this genre of music." I think that we have succeeded in that because the songs are great, the hooks are awesome and it's different. You are able to celebrate heavy metal and sing along to bitchin rock choruses that are anthems, but it's not "Photograph" or "Pour Some Sugar on Me" again. We all love those songs and we are all fans of heavy metal, but a lot of those bands were in their prime in the 80's and they are not making records like that anymore. They aren't making those huge anthemic songs anymore. I'm just trying to capture some of that. We are stoked to be going out with Motley Crue and Def Leppard because those are two of our favorite bands.

I think you have proven that you are great musicians, especially on these last two records.
I love you and I want to make love to you.

(Laughing) What do I say to that? I'll be at your show on Monday!
Don't get me wrong, when I say "Make love to you" I mean fuck the shit out of you. I don't want to get emotionally attached to you.

Are you guys still working on Steel Panther TV?
We just filmed an awesome twelve minute pilot that is killer. We will see what we can do with it. I don’t know what the deal is with it. TV is honestly sort of like the record industry. Getting a record deal now is not like it was back in the 80's. If you got a record deal in the 80's and you made it, you can make millions of dollars. Now if you get a record deal, you get a "I hope for." I hope they promote us because we are not going to make any money on the record. It’s sort of like jumping on a ship that is going down because the music industry is dead. It's dying. The TV industry is similar because people can get media on their phone and anywhere they want. A lot of people aren’t watching TV, plus there are like 19 million channels. If you look at pay per view, there are like 100 pay per view channels with nothing on it at any given time because there is just too much space out there and not enough content. We could almost do just as well putting our TV show online and just spreading the word. We’re going to just try to get something somewhere so that people can see the other side of Steel Panther, as opposed to just our record and what’s on YouTube. You can come over to my apartment later and I will play you the pilot. It’s bitchin! You have to watch it naked.

Well yeah of course, how else would you watch it? If you had a Calvin Klein deal, what would your fragrance smell like?
THAT is the best question you have asked so far. I have been waiting for that question. It would kind of be like a mixture of man sweat, like testosterone. You go to like Gold’s Gym, get the most muscular dude there who is totally ripped and shit and takes steroids whose nuts are really small. Take a little bit of sweat off of five or six guys and you mix it with some pussy juice. You shake it up and you let it ferment. I don’t know what that smells like, but I’m pretty sure that would be a good smell. It’s a mixture of men and women fucking and that turns people on.

It's like watching porn.
Exactly! Girls always say that they don't like porn, but they fucking love it. They are just as dirty as guys. Don't be fooled by that. If you are with a girl and she won’t do anal, I’m telling you, she is going to love watching another girl get fucked in the ass. She is like “I wish I could do that!” When she is watching it, you know what you do? You stick your dick in her ass.

And it works?
It works every time.

What do you do that is so special for women?
Well are you kidding? What do I do for women that isn’t special? Everything I do for women is special. I think most women can sense that. It’s just being a dude with a bitchin cock and playing guitar in an awesome heavy metal band. Most women are satisfied with just that. They love me just for that.

There is something about a dude that plays guitar.
There is something about a dude that plays guitar with a huge five inch cock.

There you go. That is the recipe.
Yes, that is the recipe and a lot of guys can play guitar, but it is not easy to grow a cock that big.

Exactly! Right? That is something you are born with.
Yeah, you have to be born with it.

You wear some pretty tight spandex on stage I noticed. Does it ever cut off you're your circulation there?
No, it is too thick, it's like a Campbell's soup can. You can't cut the circulation off on that thing.

Well that is good to know.
Yes it is. I'll show it to you later when you are watching that pilot.

Alright well...
That was an awkward silence.

I was looking for a quip to come back at you with. What do I say to that?
There is nothing you can say, you’re mouth was hanging open.

That is exactly what was happening. My mouth dropped open and I was like "Wow!"
That is what I was going for.

What is the ultimate goal of Steel Panther?
The goal is to become the biggest band not only on planet Earth, but also in the galaxy. There are probably a lot of other planets in the galaxy with rock bands on them, but there is no way to tell if we are going to be bigger than those. The only way that a band on another planet will be bigger than us is if the planet is much bigger and there is a bigger population of extra terrestrial beings on the planet. If there are 14 billion extra terrestrials that can buy that band’s CD then obviously they are going to be bigger than us. There is only 7 billion on our planet, but maybe we will be able to make up for it with merch sales. Who knows?

Thank you so much for the interview. It was really a lot of fun talking with you. You have created yet another full album of kick ass songs!
Thank you Shauna! You have a very, very sexy voice. I’m going to masturbate to it right now.

I'm glad I could assist you in that.
You are awesome at that.

Before I let you go would you like to add or say anything?
No, just that I’ve really enjoyed our time together and I feel much closer to you now.

I know, it’s like we bonded.
We really did, we bonded.

Definitely, we will bond some more when I come to the show.
Okay cool, come back and say Hi.

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Tags:  Steel Panther, Satchel  , interviews

Shauna O'Donnell    December 09, 2011