STEEL PANTHER's SATCHEL: 'I Think That People Shouldn't Analyze Our Lyrics Too Closely'

Greg Prato of Songfacts recently conducted an interview with guitarist Satchel (real name Russ Parrish; ex-FIGHT) of Los Angeles glam-metal jokesters STEEL PANTHER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Songfacts: It seemed like there was a point in the '90s where '80s metal was considered goofy by a lot of people. But in the past 10 years, people have gone back and realized that there was some legitimate good music there. So what exactly do you think of '80s hair metal looking back: Was it goofy or was it legitimate good music?

Satchel: If you think about it, virtually everything that's out there can be considered cool or goofy. It's so subjective. I mean, think about the stuff that people were listening to during the '90s when they considered hair metal goofy. There was so much shitty stuff on the radio during the '90s. It was virtually all shitty. And a lot of it didn't have any hooks, which was amazing. There were a lot of bands in the '90s getting signed just on their look, just because grunge was in, just because they didn't look "heavy metal." Granted, there's a lot of heavy metal that was sucky, as well. But there was also a lot of really, really hooky stuff. Take TWISTED SISTER, for instance. TWISTED SISTER at some point probably got laughed at because they looked the way they looked and when heavy metal went away, people probably went, "Oh, TWISTED SISTER, that's so basic and it's so 'cave rock'." There were people that definitely laughed at what they did. but think about it: TWISTED SISTER never stopped doing what they do. And their songs, the songs that made them famous, are still totally hooky. "We're Not Gonna Take It", that's such a hook. It doesn't matter whether you think it's dumb or silly, or you think that Dee Snider looks clownish with his makeup on — they wrote a timeless song. It's awesome. It's a testament to their hookiness.

Songfacts: Would you say that STEEL PANTHER's lyrics may be misconstrued as being a bit over the top, or it's not being misconstrued, that it is supposed to be over the top?

Satchel: I think that people shouldn't analyze our lyrics too closely. [Laughs] I mean, there's definitely going to be people that are offended by us. But I think that those people need to lighten up a little bit. We live in an age, in 2014, where you can't say everything you want to say because of political correctness. And as a matter of fact, I just read an interview with Norman Lear, who produced "All In The Family" and "The Jeffersons" and a lot of great TV shows from the '70s. I don't know if you ever watched any of that stuff, but you could pretty much say anything you wanted on TV back then. There was a lot of humor that was racially based and sexually based, and it was funny as shit. And he was saying he could never get that stuff on TV nowadays. And it's true, even though we live in the freest society, we live in an Internet age now where you have access to information any time of the day, anywhere you want, but there's more rules as a society. You can't say whatever you want without being ostracized by people. I think that's part of what makes STEEL PANTHER bitchin', is that we just write songs and we don't give a shit. As long as you have a sense of humor, you're going to laugh. I think people need to be able to laugh at the differences between each other. That's why racist jokes are funny and sexist jokes are funny. You can't take it too seriously, because there's always going to be differences between people and you just need to lighten up and roll with it.

Read the entire interview at Songfacts.