Steel Panther Drummer Stix on Rocking the 'AGT' Stage and Proving That Heavy Metal Rules

There’s something in the air at America’s Got Talent this season with acts that you might not expect to see on the AGT stage turning up to audition for the talent competition’s 18^th season – and one of those acts is the metal band Steel Panther.

The band is comprised of lead vocalist and guitarist Michael Starr, guitarist and backing vocals Russ “Satchel” Parrish, drummer Darren “Stix Zadinia” Leader, and bassist and backing vocals Joe "Spyder" Lester

“We got a phone call from somebody that said, ‘Hey, you guys should go audition for America’s Got Talent,’" Stix, who explained he got the nickname because he has been basically banging on things since he was a baby and still does, tells Parade in this exclusive interview. “Our first reaction was we’re professionals and we didn’t think that you’re allowed to be on that show if you’re professionals, but apparently somewhere along the way, they opened the competition to people who are professionals. We had to weigh it out and say, ‘Hey, the type of band that we are, the things that we say and sing about don’t necessarily mesh with network television rules.’ We did bring that up and they said, ‘We know. We’re cool with that.’”

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Once that was clarified, the band still had to decide if going on AGT would be a positive, or if would they be walking into a minefield of negative comments from the judges.

“Would Simon say, ‘Why the hell are you guys on our stage in spandex and long hair? That’s ridiculous, that’s so 1980.’ But at the end of the day, for us, if we could expose our music that we love and we grew up on and love playing from the bottom of our hearts, if we could expose one person to it and they get turned onto it and they love it as much as we do then it was a success.”

During our conversation, Stix also laid out how the band came together, what winning would mean to metal music, how they would use the $1 million, and appearing live in Las Vegas.

Wikipedia calls Steel Panther an American comedic glam metal band. Is there comedy involved?

For us, no. For us, it’s our band; for us, this is what we do. We sing about a lot of stuff that people find humorous. I think people find joy in it. If it’s something that makes people smile and laugh and have a good time, I think sometimes people attribute comedy to the label because it makes people happy and feel good. That’s what we do. We sing about stuff that we love to celebrate; we sing about the rock and roll lifestyle and it’s fun.

I think that we can be funny, and people seem to laugh at a lot of the stuff we say, which is awesome. I love being that band. If you want to call us a comedy band, cool. If you want to call us a heavy metal band or a hair band, we’re cool with whatever label, just call us.

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For your audition you did an original song, Eyes of the Panther. Simon’s always asking for bigger and better when you get to the second performance, so you performed another original.

All our songs are pretty awesome. It was definitely an in-your-face performance where the whole idea for us is if somebody’s watching in let’s say Wichita and they have the TV on they’re distracted doing other things, we want them to hear and see us start our performance and look up from whatever the heck they’re doing and go, ‘Oh, my God, what am I watching right now?” That was the intention with the performance. We’re came out guns blazing, and we took no prisoners and all the other clichés. We threw down as hard as we possibly could.

We’ve been doing this for decades literally. To have this platform and go kill it, a lot of bands don’t get that opportunity. We took full advantage of it.

How did you meet your bandmates?

We met like most bands do. We’ve all been playing music our entire lives and we’ve been in various bands and different situations. Then as you keep going in music a lot of people peel off and they get “real jobs.” There are a handful of people who just keep going in music for whatever the reason. Maybe it’s you don’t want to do a nine-to-five job.

For all of us in Steel Panther, we didn’t really have a choice because all of us are musicians through and through. We individually were going to either live or die by making music. Just by virtue of playing in different bands and meeting people and running in the same circles, we ended up connecting and getting to know each other. We realized we have this crazy chemistry, and we love to sing, and we love to write songs that turn us on and make us happy. We just met organically.

You said you’re professionals so I’m assuming that means that you don’t have day jobs?

I do not have a day job. My day job is rocking.

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What would it mean if you won the $1 million? Would you reinvest it in more costumes or new equipment? Do you have any idea what you would do with it?

Well, I think we would all get a couple new pairs of pants, that’s one thing. I think we would reinvest it in our band. For the most part, we may peel off five grand each and go crazy and go buy a Vespa or something fun. But to be honest with you, putting money back into our business and putting money back into our band to make our show bigger and better only helps grow what we do.

To win the million dollars to me would be amazing, don’t get me wrong. But, for me, winning the show and getting that kind of spotlight on the band, the win is not the money as much as it's the validation of what we have been doing for our entire lives. This genre of music, heavy metal has kind of gone by the wayside. In the ‘90s, it was grunge and alternative music that came to the forefront. It didn’t kill heavy metal, but heavy metal took a back seat. Then pop and all that stuff. Heavy metal is this diamond that’s just sitting in the rough. I feel like if we won, it would be a nice shiny polish to that diamond that everybody would take note of and go, “Wait a minute, this is amazing.” Everything is so pop oriented that bringing back guitar to the forefront that’s the win for me.

Steel Panther has six studio albums out?

We have six studio albums; we have a couple live albums, and we have a couple live DVDs. Yeah, six studio records of all original songs. We’ve been doing this thing for so long. Even though we do have a comfortable place in rock and roll right now, we still want more. We want to be the biggest band in the world.

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Did you notice a bump in sales after your audition?

I don’t know if it was a necessarily a dollar amount increase, but we did notice a lot of traffic, a lot of people on social. Our numbers went up in general. We definitely felt some effects from the spotlight on that first show. We’re looking forward to seeing what this second appearance does. And then if we get through to the finals, we’re going to take this thing to the limit.

Do you have any celebrity fans?

We’ve had support from Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. We’ve had support from Dane Cook, comedian. There’s so many. I’m trying to go through the mental Rolodex. You’re going to have to give me a second and I’ll try to remember who else has texted.

You have a Canadian tour coming up, is that right?

Yeah, I leave on the fifth of September. We go to Canada for about a month and we’re going to go across the entire country and we’re going to play all the nooks and crannies. It’s not just a major city tour, it’s a lot of smaller territories and smaller markets, which I love because a lot of times bands will skip over those kinds of things. On this run, we’re going for it, we’re going deep.

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Are there going to be dates coming up in the U.S.?

Yeah, we just got done a month in the States. We’re kind of permanently touring. We don’t necessarily tour on album cycles. Because of the nature of our show, we go on tour and if people saw us six months ago and we come to the same city six months later, there’s a solid shot they come back to the show because it’s always fresh, it’s always fun, and we change the setlist up. The answer is yes, we will always tour the United States. We go all over the world. But definitely if we won AGT, we’d have a Vegas residency but we’d also keep touring.

You can do the Vegas show even if you don’t win this. Is that something that might be of interest to you?

Absolutely. We used to be a weekly residency band in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, and we used to do every Monday night in Hollywood. That’s what kicked off our whole career. We were doing Monday night and selling it out at 1,000 or 1,500 people every single week. That’s when Universal Records came calling. We were never seeking a record deal because we were just rocking. They came calling and said, “We want to do a record deal with you guys,” and we said, “What?” It’s kind of like the AGT thing, they came to us and said, “We want you to do AGT,” and we went, “What?” Everything we’ve done has been very organic.

To be back in Vegas would be amazing to have a residency where we would have a theater or a room where we could put in the production that we want for every show. It’s hard to put your preferred production in rooms because it gets cost prohibitive. But to go to Vegas, set up shop for a while, we could get crazy with different elements. Engines, winches, smoke, fire, lasers, all the things.

America’s Got Talent airs Tuesday and Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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