STEEL PANTHER BRINGS THE "HEAVY METAL RULES" TOUR TO
FORT LAUDERDALE
Fresh out of the box and on the road for the first week of their Heavy Metal Rules tour, Steel Panther continues to sell out venues across the Country. In advance of their performance at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale on 10/11, vocalist Michael Starr took time out of his busy touring schedule to talk with Bill Hernandez at Rockbandreviews. Starr talks about the new album, cats, and who can go suck his dick!
Q: Right out of the gate, Steel Panther has a new album out called Heavy Metal Rules which was just released last month. What do you say to those that, by the second album, said that you guys wouldn’t last or be around anymore?
A: Well, we’re still here aren’t we? We go out and play our best and like what we do. So what do I say to those guys? I tell them they can suck my dick!
Q: I understand that you guys took your time recording Heavy Metal Rules. I also heard that the recording sessions were lost by the hands of Lexxi Foxx and had to be recorded. Do you think that was a blessing in disguise?
A: Yeah, definitely! Well we took a lot of time on this record because the whole record ended up getting deleted because Lexxi Foxx took the hard drives with the sessions and the backup and he dropped it on the cement and the files were all gone and we had no back up in the cloud because the internet wasn't working at the Studio. So we had to re-record all the vocals, the bass, the guitars and the keyboards for the whole record so we really re-recorded everything. Then after listening back to my voice it sounded like there was something wrong with it so I went to my voice doctor and he looked and said I had a polyp or node on it so we had to postpone the release of the record and I went and had surgery, so they cut the node out and I've recovered 100%. Then I recorded all the vocals again so for this record we spent a lot of time on it and we perfected every part of each song and you're gonna hear it and be blown away it's killer.
Q: What do you do, if anything, to maintain your vocals while on tour?
A: I don’t do anything. I just drink a lot of vodka!
Q: Is Spyder touring with you guys? I know he filled in for Lexxi when he went into sex rehab.
A: No, Spyder is actually working from our remote satellite location. He’s got a band together and is getting ready to go on tour. Hopefully, they’ll join us and open our shows at some point during this tour.
Q: Your fans are just as crazy as the members of Steel Panther. Is there a crazy fan moment that sticks out in your head?
A: Yeah, just last night. We were hanging out next to the tour bus and his girl comes up and we start talking and she’s like, I live right up there in that apartment, want to come up and see my apartment? So I’m like yeah. We go up to her apartment and she opens the door and there are fucking cats everywhere! The interesting thing is, everyone of these cats had like these little sweaters on with Steel Panther printed on the front of them. I saw that and I was like, I got to get the fuck out of here! But I got to say, that’s pretty metal to do something like that.
Q: Who came up with the idea for the video for All I Wanna Do is Fuck (Myself Tonight)? I know the concept is based on the movie The Hangover.
A: it was really fun. We just – one of my favorite movies is the hangover so we just ripped off the whole idea from that, and just did our own version of it. And we play Las Vegas a lot we used to have a residency there on the strip every Friday and Saturday, for like 10 years. So I was like coming home for us, you know? It was really a fun experience to shoot. We had-you know, Carrot Top is one of our biggest fans. He loves us so much and we were so happy to have him in the video. Fuck! And the gun scene, it was so great dude! It’s a fun video. It’s like a little short movie and we’re thinking about putting it in the short film festival and cons France, just to see if we can get some traction.
For more information about Steel Panther and upcoming tour dates, please visit their website at...