It’s not just that drummer Stix Zadinia, guitarist Satchel, frontman Michael Starr, and bassist Spyder adopted the big hair and spandex look, but their clever and explicit songs recall the over-indulgent debauchery of the times. For those who appreciate the band, however, the quartet are a dream come true, a pitch-perfect parody of the eighties’ Hollywood / Sunset Strip metal scene that produced Guns N’ Roses, Quiet Riot, Poison, and Mötley Crüe. Low-brow, crass, misogynistic, outrageous, controversial and offensive: just a few of the terms used by critics to describe Steel Panther. Stix Zadinia discusses the band’s great new record, On the Prowl, and upcoming tour, then takes a trip back to the mid-eighties, before cell phones and social media, when sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll were more than an Ian Dury and The Blockheads song or a Denis Leary television show… it was a way of life.
