Steel Panther

T

he quartet known as Steel Panther saw their start on the Sunset Strip during the early 2000s under the name Metal Shop and Metal Skool until 2008 when they changed it to the current moniker under the membership of Ralph Saenz (a.k.a. Michael Starr; vocals), Darren Leader (a.k.a. Stix Zadinia; drums), Travis Haley (a.k.a. Lexxi Foxx; bass) and Russ Parrish (a.k.a. Satchel; guitar). Contrary to popular belief the name did not evolve out of Steel Dragon from the movie Rock Star.

The early days saw the act taking whatever gig they could, including appearing in a Discover Card advertizement as "Danger Kitty" and in the sitcom Drew Carey Show as themselves. Also in 2003, their song Death to All But Metal was included in the compilation CD, Hey, That's What I Call Sludge! Vol. 1 by the 'Metal Sludge' web site. As Metal Skool their cover of the song Fantasy by Aldo Nova was used as the opening musical theme for the MTV program Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory.

By 2008, the act had changed their name to the present to release Feel the Steel (2009); Eyes of a Panther from the album would be featured on the soundtrack for the video game Skate 3.

Balls Out would follow in 2011 to continue their revival of the glam metal (aka "hair metal") style of the heavy metal genre best known in the 1980s and debuted at 40 on the Billboard 200 chart and at 1 on the Billboard Comedy chart with first-week sales of 12,000 copies in the US. The Comedy hits chart? Indeed, Steel Panther's music is heavy metal peppered with tongue and cheek lyrical content.