It’s no secret that I love my 80’s metal. Glam metal, sleaze
metal, pop metal, hair metal or whatever you call it, it’s my jam. I wouldn’t
even say it’s a guilty pleasure. I don’t feel guilty at all.
So when Steel Panther landed in 2009, they rocketed up my
“Most Played” playlist on my beat up iPod Mini. Their singles “Death to All
But Metal” and “Community Property” immediately communicated their musical
mission. They were here to bring metal to the masses. Again.
Anyone with a cursory understanding of the 80’s can pick up
on the mockery here. Imagery is key to the band’s success. Long hair, tight
pants, and hyper feminine features are directly ripped from the 80’s pop metal
aesthetic. But an expertise in the height (in terms of revenue) of American
metal music reveals the layers the band has committed to. The “Death to All But
Metal” music video is a homage to Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock”. The
pre-chorus riff of the same song is only the opening lick in “Sweet Child of
Mine”. Nearly every track in their debut album “Feel The Steel” is a musical
tribute to their predecessors. “Party All Day” is mixture of Bon Jovi tracks,
“Lay Your Hands on Me” and “Living on A Prayer”. Vocal ad-libs and most of
Michael Starr’s singing is a dead ringer for David Lee Roth. “Girl From
Oklahoma” parodies Extreme’s “More Than Words”, and “Hell’s on Fire” directly
referring to their dead heroes in the lyrics.
Oh but the lyrics. They are what sets the band apart from
other 80’s in the oughts bands like Reckless Love or Hardcore Superstar. They’re
not so much tongue in cheek, as the tongue has wriggled its way out of the
cheek and slipped into some spandex pants. Dr Ralph Saenz (AKA Michael Starr)
has his PhD
in English Literature from Berkeley. (I couldn’t find any academic work by
him, he has a number of aliases, but weirdly I found all members of the band
thanked in this paper on Market
Competition Problem with Sex Segregated Private Schools). And he uses all
of creative prowess on sex laden soliloquies. And here is where Steel Panther
occasionally circles around from offensively sexist to progressively feminist.
I would give you the stars in the sky but they’re too far
away
If you were a hooker you know. I’d be happy to pay
If suddenly you were a guy, I’d be suddenly gay
A beautiful, though, derivative first line, a humorous
second, and an introspectively enlightened third. If you (as a man) were in
love with a woman and they did become a man, you would be gay! Or! You would
not be in love with them anymore because they were a man. But here is a man
professing that his love transcends gender.
Of course, the hook of the song is that “my cock is
community property”, meaning that while he loves this woman at home, he simply
cannot subscribe to monogamous relationship. Which explores another facet of
humanity sexuality, whether or not people can truly be monogamous. In fact this
comes up in another song “Eating Ain’t Cheating”. Here, the protagonist invites
women “If you wanna have a seat, I’ll clear a place on my face”, and believes
that oral sex isn’t cheating on his partner. In pursuit of equality he declares
in the chorus that “you should know that sucking aint fucking”. A truly egalitarian partner.
Almost all the tracks on Feel the Steel are gold. The
exception being “Eyes of the Panther” sticking out for its lack of hypersexual
lines, it being the only non-explicit track on the album. It’s almost as if
bland lyrics, on an already explored musical territory lack any substance
without the self-awareness found on the other tracks. The B-side “Big Boobs”
also falls ironically flat, Though this was written before the other material.
To be fair, Steel Panther’s official position is that “people
shouldn’t analyze our lyrics too closely”.
But let’s not do that.
Other examples of oddly progressive attitudes in their
lyrics include the body acceptance anthem “Fat Girl (Thar She Blows)”. Named NME’s
41st worst music video ever, Michael Starr avows his feelings for a woman
who “Can’t fit through the door”. This could be immediately written off as
fetishism. But it’s not! He repeatedly demonstrates that it’s only this one
particular woman he’s interested in and that she’s “really really tons of fun”,
he “can’t live without her”, and “I wanna prove to you my feelings are for
real”. This song doesn’t objectify a woman’s body as much as it describes a
relationship between two people.
While heterosexual sex is usually the goal within the lyrics
of Steel Panther, their onstage antics portray a far more open minded
philosophy. This is a band that is obsessed with cool. And cool includes
constant gyration on each other’s bodies. The guitars and singer are in a
perpetual game of musical chairs where one’s face is the chair. Often this is
expressed with glee by both parties. Being playfully gay is seen as normal by
the band.
Steel panther obviously has a foot in the sexual expression department,
but also makes commentaries on gender performance. This is most obvious in Lexi
Foxx. While all member of the band express the glammy Mötley Crüe look. Lexi
pushes the spandex, fish nets, long hair and makeup (memorably satirized in Aerosmith’s
"Dude Looks Like a Lady") to the most obviously feminine. Constantly
preening, Lexi's gag is that he is improbably vain. Between nearly every song
he primps, often with a full vanity mirror on stage. The band even allows him a
solo. A hair solo, to show off how good his hair is. His ideal self is what we
would traditionally call feminine. And the rest of the band celebrates this.
After discovering this amazingly talented band (seriously, this guys are top notch musicians), playing my kind of music and then after digging around realizing they had an altruistic agenda, I was stoked. Because they also had the right audience to deliver their message.
I don’t think I’m a typical Fanther. I don’t have any
academic research on demographics of a typical Steel Panther show, but I’ve
been to a few concerts and seen hours of footage. I would guess that the
average Fanther has lived through the 80’s, and holds 80’s ideals about women,
sexuality, and gender.
That’s what could’ve made the best party band the most
politically influential.
Here’s a band that appeals to the kind of people (I believe)
who could use an updated view on the world! Using the kind of music that
previously carried misogynistic messages, Steel Panther turns those messages
into the absurd and realizes the humanity in everyone. It doesn’t matter if
you’re gay, fat, or look like a lady, as long as you rock, you’re cool.
But they threw it all away!!!
They threw away their chance at actually having an impact in
this world. They sold out, bought into actual misogyny and the blur between
parody and being actual assholes became solidified. And they were on the wrong
side of the line.
Songs that had much more of an emphasis on the hilarity of
oversexualization became more specifically about devaluing women on the second album. “It Won’t
Suck Itself” speaks for itself, “Just Like Tiger Woods” instructs the listeners
on how to cheat, and “That’s What Girls Are For” actually alludes to killing a
partner. Their third album only gets worse. “Bukakke Tears” has the awful line “There
was so much love on your face that I couldn’t see the tears” (Granted, in the
song it’s the woman who initiates the bedroom experimentation). “She’s on the
Rag” misses the awesome opportunity to normalize periods. I mean if there’s
anyone who would find sexual normalcy in something non-conservative (they recommend
having sex with goats in “Party Like It’s The End of The World”) it’s Steel
Panther. Instead they opt for the easy way out and view periods as gross.
But what really turned off to them was the way they treated
women at their shows. A mostly male demographic, they would single out women
and get them to flash the band. Sometimes they would bring girls on stage. Here
a woman would have a hostile crowd yelling at her to take her shirt off. Look,
I love boobs, but you shouldn’t make people do things they don’t want to do. At
a Steel Panther show, women are only viewed as entertainment for men.
And that’s so disgusting.
What could have been an amazingly progressive band playing
amazingly regressive music became another white noise, sexist exploit rock band.
Still talented musicians with an awesome live show, but now the parody of the
sellout hard partying hair metal band in the 80’s is no longer a parody.
It would be so easy to tweak some of these lyrics and change
their behavior to still fit their style and keep their fans. It wouldn’t need a
strong message, it just needs to avoid the obvious pitfalls of lazy
songwriting. Instead of “I’m gonna pound ya til ya fucking start to bleed,
bitch”, how about “I’m gonna pound ya til my balls have slapped my ass itch”.
Evokes an equally disturbing imagery without hurting anyone. What about a song
about the intricacies of the female orgasm? That’s so Steel Panther.
I still hold hope for Steel Panther. I hope that they can
realize what they can do. I don’t think they’ve been actively malicious in
their actions, just swept up in the crazy rock n roll adventure like so many
others. I hope they learn from their mistakes, don’t burn out too fast, and put
out an album that corrects the past and places them firmly in the echelon of world
changing bands. No longer topping the comedy charts, they should top the charts
of our hearts. And as Ned Schneeebly puts it “One great rock show can change
the world”.
