Eyes Of A Panther

The Zoo Crew has been spinning "Eyes Of A Panther" off Steel Panther's debut album Feel The Steel, and if you have ever stood in a club when that riff hits, you already know why the Zoo Freaks keep calling in for it. The song is built like an old Sunset Strip opener: teeth-like-razors lyrics, a chorus you can shout before you know the words, and a guitar solo that sounds like somebody left the amps on all weekend. Steel Panther has said, looking back on fifteen years of Feel The Steel, that "Eyes Of A Panther" is the perfect song to open a road show, no matter what city they roll into. That tracks. It does not ease you in. It pounces.

Feel The Steel landed in 2009 on Universal Republic, produced by Jay Ruston, after the band had already been working a lot of those songs for years on the club circuit. In a 2009 chat with The Aquarian, singer Michael Starr said the tunes were personal experiences the band had actually lived through, which is why they felt real even when the jokes got ridiculous. He also joked that Steel Panther was way better than that band Metal Skool, whose singer was hot but whose rest of the lineup sucked. That is the kind of bit they have been running since day one. Around the same sessions, the album picked up guest spots from friends who actually liked the joke: Allison Robertson of The Donnas and Justin Hawkins of The Darkness on "Party All Day," M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold on "Turn Out The Lights," Scott Ian of Anthrax on "Asian Hooker," and, as reported at the time, Corey Taylor of Slipknot on "Eyes Of A Panther" and "Death To All But Metal." Starr told that same interviewer he did not really have a favorite cut yet, because they had been living with the songs so long, though at that moment he was partial to "Eatin' Ain't Cheatin'."

Guitarist Satchel, talking to Premier Guitar before the record even hit the shelves, called Feel The Steel a crowning achievement twenty years in the making and, with a straight face and a drunken grin, the heavy metal version of Sgt. Pepper, only with the ripping solos the Beatles left off. He also noted that "Asian Hooker" was already getting downloaded heavily in Japan, which tells you the humor traveled even when the translation did not. "Eyes Of A Panther" traveled in its own way. When the skate game Skate 3 showed up in 2010, the track was all over the soundtrack, and a whole crowd of players still remember bombing hills with those panther eyes in their ears. The band later treated the album like the landmark it became. A fifteenth-anniversary edition brought the record back around, including a couple of tracks that had only shown up on the original Japanese import, and the British Phonographic Industry certified Feel The Steel gold in the UK for sales past 100,000 copies.

The path to that record is the part Zoo Freaks love hearing on the air. Steel Panther is Ralph Saenz, Russ Parrish, Travis Haley, and, after a drummer change, Darren Leader, better known on stage as Michael Starr, Satchel, Lexxi Foxx, and Stix Zadinia. Spyder later stepped in on bass. They came up on the Los Angeles club scene around the turn of the century, when grunge had already shoved hair metal off the radio and anybody still wearing spandex was a punchline. Starr has said they never sat down and decided to become the band that makes fun of the bands they love. They liked heavy metal, they did not cut their hair, and people made fun of them, so they started making fun of themselves and pointing at the absurdity of the eighties, the girl on the Jaguar and all of it. The act grew out of that, not out of a comedy-club plan. For a long stretch they were a cover band with real chops, Monday nights on the Sunset Strip at the Viper Room and then the Key Club, under the names Metal Shop and then Metal Skool. Satchel had serious tribute-band miles, including Van Halen work, which is why the solos never sound like a sketch. They also turned up as Danger Kitty in a Discover Card commercial and as themselves on The Drew Carey Show. A Metal Skool cover of Aldo Nova's "Fantasy" even became the theme for an MTV show.

In April 2008 they changed the name to Steel Panther and made a new debut at The Rockin' Saddle Club in Redlands, California, then signed and cut Feel The Steel. The switch from covers to originals was messy in the best way. On the band's own look back at the album, they remembered a run at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver where the record was out but the residency habit was still in their bones. They opened with "Eyes Of A Panther," rolled into other originals including "Asian Hooker," and then dropped Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" because they were not totally sure what the booker had hired them to be. Cover show, original show, or the weird hybrid. That confusion is the whole origin story in one set list. People who only know the dirty jokes sometimes miss how long the songs had been kicking around. Starr later told interviewers that a lot of the early material was refined over years, not dashed off for a punchline. The joke works because the band can actually play.

That is the spirit the Zoo Crew is after when they drop the needle on this one for the Zoo Freaks: loud, funny, a little dangerous, and played by guys who came up in the clubs instead of a writers' room. You can hear the whole catalog and catch the station any time you want over at THE ZOO. Steel Panther keeps the party posted on the official site at steelpanther.com, where the Feel The Steel fifteenth-anniversary records, CDs, and cassettes are still sitting in the shop. Their official Facebook page is Steel Panther on Facebook, the Instagram account is @steelpanther, and the X account is @Steel_Panther. Fans who want the clubhouse version of the party can find the official Fanthers page at Steel Panther Fans on Facebook, and the band lays out the Fanthers club on the Fanthers page. Turn it up, Zoo Freaks. She has got the eyes of a panther, and this one still bites.