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The title of Steel Panther’s third full-length album, All You Can Eat, came from a dream.
However, it wasn’t a dream Martin Luther King had or even any of the band members—Michael Starr [lead singer], Satchel [guitarist], Lexxi Foxx [bass], and Stix Zadinia [drums]—for that matter.
“Believe it or not, the title came from a fucking girl that I was fucking,” admits Satchel. “She fell asleep next to me on the tour bus. She woke up and told me she had a dream that we called the album, All You Can Eat. She was really hot, and she had great tits. I decided I was going to steal the title from her and not tell her. I kicked her off the bus. She can’t do jack shit about it. She’s probably living in a trailer park somewhere. It’s a great title though.”
More importantly, that moniker fits this rock ‘n’ roll opus like a condom—not that Steel Panther practice or condone safe sex though. No, All You Can Eat is raw, raucous, and righteous heavy metal in its finest form. The Los Angeles quartet upholds the pillars of its sound. There are badass riffs aplenty, arena-size grooves, lyrics about sex, drugs, and senior citizens, and the lingering scent of whisky, a stripper’s perfume, and hairspray. In order to capture all of this, the band began writing immediately after they got off the road behind their sophomore effort, Balls Out, their second album to debut at #1 on Billboards Comedy Albums Chart.
“We’ve grown a lot,” says Michael Starr. “On the first record, you get a flavor of some Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, and Def Leppard. On the second, you get a flavor of Guns N’ Roses. On this record, the main flavor is Steel Panther.”
Tasting the Panther, the boys retreated to Clearlake Studios with longtime producer Jay Ruston. Immediately, they got into their groove and went for it balls-to-the-wall.
“I do a lot of my writing while I’m taking a shit or I’m in the shower,” Satchel goes in. “I’ll fucking jump in the shower once a week, and it happens. I write it down. Lyrics will be written on a chick’s back while I’m fucking her. Then, everybody does his own thing to the song—or the chick—and the song is great. The music really writes itself. You just let the Lord speak through you.”
It sounds as if Steel Panther is on a mission from God after one listen to the first single “Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World”. Boasting a hook that’s harder to shake than herpes and ballsy guitars, it’s the ultimate party anthem. For the music video, Rob Riggle [The Goods, 21 Jump Street] offered up his directorial talents and Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte and Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland all made cameos.
“If you’re going to ‘Party Like Tomorrow is the End of the World’, of course, you’re going to have fucking hot bitches everywhere,” affirms Satchel. “That was the idea for the video.”
“On every record so far, we’ve had a party song,” adds Michael Starr. “I guess it’s Steel Panther’s version of a concept, if you will. We’re tied together by partying. You’ve got ‘Party All Day (Fuck All Night)’, ‘Tomorrow Night’, and now this. Everything comes back to partying.”
There’s a different kind of partying going on during “Gang Bang at the Old Folks Home Though”. Building from a slow groove into an irresistible refrain, it’s the ultimate geriatric love song.
“Michael used to deliver pizza, and I think that probably has actually happened to him,” says Satchel. Michael could not be reached for comment in regards to the validity of this statement.
Satchel goes on, “I don’t think he likes to admit how much he loves to fuck old ladies—like really old. Michael still does deliver pizzas when we’re not on the road, and he makes good money. If you happen to wind up at a fucking old folks home and the old lady has a gun in her hand and says, ‘You’re fucking everybody in here and then we’ll pay for the pizza,’ you’re going to do it.”
Michael is happy to discuss another single, “The Burden of Being Wonderful”, though. He says, “It’s a life story for me. It’s finally a way for people to understand what it’s like to actually to be me. Growing up, I was always an attractive child as well as an adult. It’s difficult when you’re beautiful because people treat you differently. They expect you to be smart. They expect you to have morals. It’s hard.”
Lexxi Foxx agrees, “It’s very hard to be pretty cauz regular people think that I have a dumb brain. It's very lonely like this...”
Now, to disseminate this masterpiece, Steel Panther have teamed up with Kobalt Music. About this partnership, Stix Zadinia states, “I am super-duper stoked on our new deal with Kobalt. Someone told me they have like, 35,000 people that work for them, and they are going to personally hand deliver each record sold! That’s totally rad because that kind of service doesn’t exist anymore, unless you’re a milkman, and being a milkman is bitchin’ because you totally get to nail all of those stay-at-home moms!! I LOVE the fact that we work with 35,000 cougar hunters. Go Kobalt!”
With a milkman like work ethic, Steel Panther may just be the hardest working men in show business. Their formal debut Feel the Steel also hit #1 on Billboard’s Top Comedy Albums Chart. They’ve sold out shows worldwide from Australian to the UK’s iconic Brixton Academy, as well as appearing on festivals such as Download and Rock on the Range. Historical milestones include being the oldest heavy metal band to snag a major label deal and the only band to consistently play weekly on the Sunset Strip for an unprecedented thirteen years straight. Moreover, rock luminaries ranging from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and KISS’s Paul Stanley to Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello have all partied with the Panther on stage. Meanwhile, this fearsome foursome has also appeared on Dancing With the Stars, Bad Girl’s Club and a web campaign for the big screen adaptation of Rock of Ages.
Ultimately though, they’re not stopping anytime soon. “Our drive to bring heavy metal back has not lessened,” concludes Michael Starr. “It’s actually gotten stronger. We’re not going to stop. I look forward to our continued world domination.”
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