STEEL PANTHER's MICHAEL STARR: We Never Intended To Become 'A Band That Makes Fun Of The Bands We Love'

In a recent interview with Celebrity Jobber Podcast With Jeff Zito, vocalist Michael Starr of California glam metal jokesters STEEL PANTHER was asked when he and his bandmates came up with the idea of a fun, satirical rock group. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "That's a great question, man. And I can answer it in a short version or a long version. And I'm gonna do the medium version because it's important to start from the beginning. So when we first started out, grunge had just taken over heavy metal. And if you were in a heavy metal band, people started making fun of you — kind of like if you were in NICKELBACK. And it was that thing going on. But we were, like, 'You know what? We like NICKELBACK' or we were, like, 'We love heavy metal.' We didn't cut our hair. We kept playing, and we kept playing heavy metal and people made fun of us, and we were just, like, 'Hey, we're gonna bring heavy metal back.' And really, at the core of it, all four of us, at that time, all were just having fun anyways, so we just brought it on stage and we started making fun of ourselves. And people started making fun of the fact that we were making fun of ourselves and then we would start just pointing out all the absurdity and excessiveness of the '80s, that was funny about it, and just started talking about it, 'cause it was funny. I mean, you think about a girl dancing on a Jaguar? And you're, like, 'Wait, what? Why is he on the hood of the car dancing? This is so weird.' It's funny as hell, but at the time it was, like, 'This is so metal.' And it just became kind of funny, and we just kept doing it. And actually, people would say to us, 'Shut up and play some music. Quit talking.' I think the longest time we had in between a song was 25 minutes. And the only reason I know that is 'cause our drummer times everything. So he makes sure that we start on time and we end on time and we're on time. So, yeah, that's the record we held. And at the core, we like to have fun, we like to crack jokes, and we pretty much do the same stuff backstage. And then we just kind of developed it over the years. And then people started calling us a comedy show. And we were, like, 'Really? Comedy? We're not comedians. Really?' And then once it got bigger and we started playing really big shows and we realized that a lot of the quick stuff that we were doing worked in a small venue, we couldn't do that anymore. We had to slow it down and really just kind of make everything a little bit bigger. And it was different, so you had to really kind of plan out an outline of what you're gonna do and then you can kind of use improv in between all that. So that's how it developed into it. We didn't really sit down and go, 'Hey, let's be a heavy metal cover band that makes fun of the bands we love.' We never thought it would be that."

Formed in 2000, STEEL PANTHER specializes in imitating and exaggerating the less flattering aspects of 1980s hair metal, with unrepentantly crude, non-PC sexual content as a favorite lyrical theme.

The group's music has been described as "VAN HALEN meets MÖTLEY CRÜE meets RATT meets 'Wayne's World', complete with operatic shrieks, misogyny, shredding guitar solos and libidinal overdrive."

Sixteen years ago, STEEL PANTHER changed its name from METAL SKOOL to its current moniker and shifted the focus of its act from '80s metal covers to originals.

STEEL PANTHER's sixth studio album, "On The Prowl", was released in February 2023.

In September 2022, STEEL PANTHER announced the addition of Spyder as the band's new bassist.

Two months ago, STEEL PANTHER's debut album, "Feel The Steel", was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales in excess of 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

"Feel The Steel - 15th Anniversary Edition" was released worldwide on November 15. The 15th-anniversary edition features two tracks that were only released on the original Japanese import: "You Don't Make Me Feel Dumb" and "I Want Your Tits". The album was produced by Jay Ruston (ANTHRAX, COREY TAYLOR).

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the album, STEEL PANTHER embarked on the "Feel The Steel 15th Anniversary Tour". The trek kicked off in Huntington, New York on November 20 and will run through December 13 where it will wrap up in Orlando, Florida.