STEEL PANTHER's SATCHEL: 'We Are All Equal Bandmembers And We All Wanna Make Great Records'

On February 16, Metal Covenant conducted an interview with guitarist Satchel (real name: Russ Parrish) and drummer Stix Zadinia (real name: Darren Leader) of Los Angeles glam-metal jokesters STEEL PANTHER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Covenant: How much tougher was it to write the songs for ["All You Can Eat"] compared to "Feel The Steel", [which] had a lot of re-makes and where you had plenty of time to arrange the songs?

Satchel: Yeah, that's a good question. We never really planned on putting out our first record on a major label. Really, our song "Death To All But Metal", which is on the first record, we meant every word of it, you know: "Kill those fucking fuckheads who work at MTV! They can suck my ass with all the record companies!" We really felt that way. We didn't think we'd ever do a record for a major label, but then Universal Republic came to us and they were, like, "We understand you guys. We know we suck dicks. We wanna sign you anyway, because we hope that you forgive us for being dickheads." And we were, like, "That's so bitching," and they put our record out. We weren't in a hurry to write our first record. It was sort of like we wrote a song every few months, or whatever, and just like I'd throw ideas out there. We actually got signed when we were in the middle of recording about six songs on our own. And then we signed with Universal, and then we decided to just record, like, five or six more and put it out. Once we were signed to Universal, we knew we were probably gonna put out a second record. Then it was, like, "We gotta start writing more," and I like to write a lot, you know. When we're on the road, there's shit that happens all the time. You know, personal experiences to everybody in the band, songtitles, sometimes riffs will come out at soundcheck. Then it's just a matter of putting the bitching lyrics with the fucking music. The last fiveyears or so, it hasn't really been a lot of pressure, but it's been fun. Because when you know you have an opportunity to put music out there for fans who enjoy it, it, to me, makes the writing process even more enjoyable, because I know somebody's gonna sing along with "Gangbang At The Old Folks Home" and dig every word and all the melodies. I think this record is our best one yet.

Metal Covenant: Yeah, we'll see about that.

Stix: I also would like to add to that. Satchel does the lion's share of the writing and I don't think that there's any pressure that one record or another is gonna put on him that's gonna be more pressure than he puts on himself. He and I have been playing music forever together and he always holds songs at the same standards. So it's not, like, "This record may sell more, so we should write better songs." It's always going for the best, he's always going for the best song he can write when he's writing.

Satchel: Yeah, and I feel we work so well as a band that I know that I'm always gonna get an honest response from the dudes in the band. I have a good barometer with those guys. I usually don't bring them stuff unless I think they're gonna dig and I know that if they don't dig it, that they'll let me know, so it works well. Like at the end of the day, everybody usually likes the record a lot, because nobody's bullshitting.

Stix: If he wrote something and I didn't love it, I wouldn't be able to go, like, "Dude, that's awesome!"

Satchel: I think a lot of bands don't have that kind of relationship. We are all equal bandmembers and we all wanna make great records. You always wanna go on stage and to have everybody in the band be totally into the songs that you're doing. And if one dude isn't enjoying a song, then that's not fun for anybody else. Some bands aren't like that. It's like one dude who's, like, "You're playing my shit no matter what! I don't care if you like it!" That's why some people aren't into it and bands break up and shit like that. So, we are all in this for the same reason: we fucking love heavy metal, we love great songs with bitching hooks and we love to fuck bitches.

Stix: He's totally not kidding.

Read the entire interview from Metal Covenant.