INTERVIEW: SATCHEL, STEEL PANTHER – April 2016

INTERVIEW: SATCHEL, STEEL PANTHER – April 2016
By Shane Pinnegar

Steel Panther are set to invade our shores again, bringing all the bombast and OTT hair metal glory they can muster – as well as southern rockers Black Stone Cherry. As SHANE PINNEGAR discovered, interviewing the band is never dull, so sit back and enjoy guitarist Satchel as he pontificates on a wide variety of subjects.

STEEL PANTHER with BLACK STONE CHERRY – AUSTRALIAN TOUR June 2016

FRIDAY 17TH JUNE – BIG TOP SYDNEY, NSW
SATURDAY 18TH JUNE – FESTIVAL HALL MELBOURNE, VIC
MONDAY 20TH JUNE – EATONS HILL HOTEL BRISBANE, QLD
WEDNESDAY 22ND JUNE – THEBARTON THEATRE ADELAIDE, SA
THURSDAY 23RD JUNE – METRO CITY PERTH, WA
SUNDAY 26TH JUNE – POWERSTATION AUCKLAND, NZ (BLACK STONE CHERRY NOT APPEARING)

On Black Stone Cherry joining the Steel Panther tour as primary support act:

“I think we’re going to get along just fine because I’ve met the guys in Black Stone Cherry, and they like to drink a lot. They do a lot of illegal drugs. That’s all that really matters. I think they’re all great musicians, but the main thing is that we’re all going to party together. Before those guys signed on to our bill, we asked them if it was cool if we had sex with all their girlfriends and they said, ‘yes,’ so we were cool with that.”

On shooting their new live acoustic DVD, Live At Lexxi’s Mom’s Garage:

“You know what? We had to do it on a budget because nobody’s watching TV anymore. All the kids are just watching Netflix and stuff. We basically had to fund all that ourselves. We did that entire video at Lexi’s mom’s house for under $50. I know it sounds hard to believe. It’s very low budget.

On including an acoustic section in their Australian tour:

“Probably only if the electric guitars break down because we sound better with electric guitars. If we hit bad notes it’s easier if we’re really loud and distorted, because then people can’t really tell. [But] you never know, maybe we will. It depends on how we feel. It depends if there’s… you see the thing is, when you play acoustic you can really get girls to take their clothes off easier, I think, because it’s intimate and soft. Girls like that kind of shit. So, you never know, maybe we will add some acoustical stuff, even Barry White or something.

How about a bit of Maroon 5 or some latter-day Bryan Adams?

[Laughs] I don’t know if our singer’s that good. He can do Barry White though.

Before christening the band Steel Panther, they were known as Metal Shop, then Metal School, and even did one Japanese advertisement as Danger Kitty. Did they flirt with any other band names as well?

“A lot of people don’t know that there was a short period there where we were Prince, because Prince gave up his name and we became Prince. We did really well for a while, then people came and saw that we weren’t Prince – the other Prince. We were Prince the band but it just didn’t work out. Then we changed the name from Prince to, I think we were White Panther, and then we were the Black Panther – but that wasn’t cool, because you have to be black to be the Black Panther.

“That’s not cool, because then there was people showing up at the Black Panther show and they thought it was a Black Panthers rally. We changed our name a bunch of times but we ended up with Steel Panther and I think it’s working out pretty well. No doubt about it.”

On getting annoyed that Steel Panther sometimes get written off as just a comedy band:

“No, because I don’t care anymore. I’m so old and I did so many drugs… there’s always going to be critics out there, and you can’t listen to that. You have to follow your heart. There’s a lot of noise out there online. There’s always bullies on the internet. You’re down on the internet, right? It’s fucking horrible.

“Like they say, the haters are going to hate, right. Haters gonna hate. Those people that hate Steel Panther, they can just suck my dick. That’s all I can say about that. Yeah. Some of the ones that like us, they can do the same thing. It’s a kick in a way.”

On what a Satchel solo album would be all about:

“It would be really awesome, I can tell you that! I don’t know if I have any desire to do a solo album. I get to write most of the stuff for Steel Panther and I just tell the guys what to do: it’s just like doing a solo record, except I make those guys play all the instruments. I don’t know… if I did a solo album, I’d probably have to do some really crazy shit. I get to do all my heavy metal shit with Steel Panther. I don’t know what I would do if I did a solo album. I love to sing so I guess I would sing all the stuff but I’d probably play all the instruments myself too. And I’d probably do it all naked, and take naked pictures of myself and put it on the cover. I think if there’s anything that really gets young girls to buy records, it’s a picture of a man in his mid-fifties naked on the cover of the record.”

On a Russ Parish [allegedly Satchel’s real name, Parrish has performed in Rob Halford’s band Fight, Jeff Pilson’s War & Peace, and his own pre-Panther band The Thornbirds, alongside Darren Leader, aka future Steel Panther drummer Stix Zadinia] solo album:

“I don’t even know who you’re talking about to be honest with you.”

There’s much fascination online with finding old pictures of Steel Panther before they made it big, without the costumes and big hair and everything. On being concerned about skeletons falling out of the closet from their old days:

“Well, there’s a couple of pictures floating around out there. We had some crazy parties back in the past. There’s a picture of Lexxi with his German Shepard. You’re going to have to go on the black web for that. There’s pictures of Stix and some gangbangs – there’s nothing wrong with that, everybody was doing gangbangs, I just don’t know if there’s any girls at that one that he was at. There’s all kinds of shit out there that you can find online. To me there’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re all trying to have fun, party and if you end up at a gangbang and you have a good time then who care if there was chicks there, you know what I’m saying?”

On where the name ‘Satchel’ originally come from:

“Well, it originally came from a small handbag. For me, I’m pretty sure my Dad named me Satchel. I don’t even really know who my Dad is but my Mum has narrowed my Dad down to about five Dads who were in the room at the time. One of those guys, I’m pretty sure, came up with the name Satchel for me. I don’t know where they got the name Satchel, but it has stuck and I think it suits me. I don’t use my last name – nobody knows my last name, I’ve never used it. I’ve never told anybody in any interview, what my last name is. I haven’t used it in so long, it feels natural. All of the biggest sellers like Prince didn’t have a last name. Madonna didn’t have a last name. There’s a lot of people out there. Voldemort didn’t have a last name. I think people feel natural not giving me a last name. It feels right. Does it just say ‘Satchel’ on my passport? Yeah, pretty much!”

On the Australian sense of humour, and why we latched onto Steel Panther early on in the piece:

“People Down Under know how to party. They live life to the fullest: they like to fuck and they like to rock. When you like to fuck and rock, you fuck and rock with Steel Panther – you come to a Steel Panther show and you let it all hang out. People aren’t afraid of being judged at a Steel Panther show. They like to laugh and they like to party. We bring the whole party to the show. You don’t come to a Steel Panther show and wonder where you’re going to go after that because it’s like a one-stop shop for music and sex and alcohol and drugs. It’s a killer.”

On getting ‘80s model Bobbie Brown to star as Lexxi’s Mum in the new DVD:

“Well, that’s the weird thing: a lot of people don’t realise this, but Bobbie Brown is actually Lexxi’s Mum. It doesn’t seem like she would be because she was so hot back in the ‘80s, and you would think she’s got to be younger than Lexxi – but she’s not. She’s really a lot older. She’s had a lot of work done. When she was in [Warrant’s] Cherry Pie video, she was in her mid-thirties, and she looked really good. Lexxi was at home alone when she was doing those videos. I think he was probably in his late teens or something, I don’t know. She IS Lexxi’s Mom. I’m not going to bullshit you.”

On writing songs for the next album:

“Yeah, we’re working on a bunch. I’ve got a bunch written already and we’re going to go and start recording soon. In fact, I’m in the studio right now. I’m playing the drums. [hits some drums] Like that? I just sit around and play instruments, smoke pot, do some coke. We’ve got some cool songs lined up. I can’t wait ’til the next record is done.”

Is there such a thing as a typical day in Steel Panther-land?

“You know what, when you’re in a band there is no typical day. Every day is an adventure because you don’t know if you’re going to end up making it to the end of the day. You don’t know if you’re going to get laid or you’re going to get shot during a drug deal. You don’t know if you’re going to wind up at the show and your instruments are going to be in tune or maybe they will be stolen. You don’t even know. That’s what’s fun about being in a band, because if every day was the same you wouldn’t be able to write records. Steel Panther, we just party so hard. You don’t usually go to sleep, we stay up all the time looking for our next fix and our next cheque. I think that’s the beauty of it. A lot of people have normal jobs, they go to bed at the same time every night. They get up, they have an alarm clock. Nobody in our band has an alarm clock. You just wake up whenever you wake up. Brush off, bath and you go on with your life. You know what I’m saying? It’s rock and roll.”

On the last album getting a little bit dark lyrically, on a couple of songs, such as Gang Bang At The Old Folks Home, and especially Bukakke Tears, which crossed the line from everyone having a good party, to there being some regret in there, and things getting a bit rapey:

“We’re only human. We have to express even the dark side of ourselves. Bukakke Tears, for instance, that’s a real emotion that a lot of girls deal with when they have gangbangs. It sounds like a big party and then sometimes, you’re in the middle of it and you’ve got a dick in your arse and it hurts and you’re like, ‘why am I doing this?’ You can’t just stop it right there. It’s like being in jail – you ever been in jail before? Only a few hours here and there in a drunk tank? Yeah, it sucks. You get in jail and you bend over to pick up your soap, and you can’t just tell the guy, hey, stop fucking my arse, you’ve got to let him finish… it’s going to get rough.”

On jail being inspirational:

“It’s always inspiring going to jail. I come out with an album full of songs. ‘Jailhouse Cock’? That’s an awesome title – nice one!”

On writing Steel Panther songs:

“Sometimes it’s the lyric and sometimes it’s the riff [that comes first], sometimes it’s just an idea of the subject matter. At the end of the process sometimes we will have riffs sitting around that have pooped into your head at sound checks or whatever and we like using them for stuff. I like setting the date for recording and you’ve got 10 or 15 songs written, then you end up writing the last few songs. You’ll put different lyrical ideas that don’t have music with riffs that have been sitting around for a year. Sometimes they’re the best ones. The inspiration can come from anywhere. You’ve just got to do enough drugs to let it pop up.”

On how Steel Panther are going to bring Heavy Metal back to the masses:

“We have to continue to bring the youth into the mix. There’s a lot of kids out there that are listening to One Direction, and they just need to be kicked in the balls with heavy metal. You’re playing Steel Panther and you’re never going to listen to One Direction again. They are going to be like, ‘what the fuck was I doing wasting my time listening to Bieber and One Direction when I could’ve been rocking out to fucking All You Can Eat and Balls Out by Steel Panther?’ When our next record comes out, which is tentatively titled You Can’t Catch Herpes Twice, it’s going to blow people’s minds. These kids are going to finally rally around the heavy metal cause and they’re going to realise how much time they’ve been wasting. You know what? It’s going to be okay. They’re going to carry the torch of heavy metal for the old people that can’t rock anymore.”

On my eight-year-old daughter being too young to listen to Steel Panther yet:

“Another 6 months and she’ll be old enough!”

Don’t miss Steel Panther LIVE in Australia with Black Stone Cherry this June!
First published in edited form in X-Press Magazine and www.themusic.com.au

Category: Interviews