Steel Panther

16 February 2015 | 11:43 am | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Killyourstereo.com caught up with Steel Panther bassist Lexxi Fox to talk about their upcoming appearance at Soundwave, partying with Judas Priest and how true rockstars prepare themselves for tour.

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Steel Panther aren't a joke. Well maybe they are; they may have amazingly crude lyrics, but they back up their provocative content with genuinely talented songs, bitchin' riffs and all out pure metal. Killyourstereo.com caught up with bassist Lexxi Foxx to talk about their upcoming appearance at Soundwave, partying with Judas Priest and how true rockstars prepare themselves for tour.

Hey Lexxi, how’s it going today?

Today’s going fantastic, how’s it going over there?

I’m pretty well, it’s early in the morning here though. Well, 9:30AM, what time is it over there?

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2:30pm, but you know what, you’ve just woke up and so did I so we’re on the same time period just a different day. I don’t really get up any time before 1:00 so that’s why these interviews came at a perfect time. I’m pumping, I’ve had my first Red Bull and my first little spirit and I’m ready to go!

Excellent, that’s the way to do it. Basically, you’ve been to Australia countless times in the past few years, which so far has been your favourite?

I would say my favourite… there’s night time favourite and day time favourite. For me, day time favourite is bitchin’ because we stay in cool hotels and I can sleep a bunch. Except one time I went to the Sydney Zoo and I thought that was bitchin’. Night time favourite, that’s very tough too. We did a couple of sideshows with Alter Bridge, there were some very good party times going on there. Last time we were [in Australia, was] for Soundwave, we partied with the Limp Bizkit dudes so that was another good time. There’s been some other times where they’ve been with Australian women: Sydney, Melbourne. I really can’t go on to talk about those man though, cause if they read this, I’m going to get into a heap of trouble! I’ll keep some really really special times to myself and you can use your imagination. But I love the Australian women, I will say that.

Excellent! Your new album has so many song titles like ‘Bukkake Tears’ and ‘Fucking My Heart in the Ass’, which country are they most relatable to?

It’s very tough because I’ll say this; it’s based on our experiences. Satchel comes to us with song ideas and some of them take place in more than just one place. It’s very tough to say which country they take place in, we spent a lot of time in the UK and we’re coming back to Australia… A lot of these things do happen and we talk about them as a band; that’s how a lot of these songs came about. Saying which song is specific to which country is hard to say exactly. A lot of experiences happen, and when those experiences happen, we’re usually high anyway! That’s why we can’t remember, that’s a good question, but I can’t hit that one on the head.

When you guys are so messed up all the time, how do you manage to write songs? Do you write it down and in the morning go “that’s great”?

That’s exactly what happens. Satchel kind of has this little tape recorder with him all the time. We’ll be partying and anyone of us will come up with an idea based on what we’re using at that time or depending on what country we’re in. He’ll usually put the riff down into the tape recorder, then bring it to us and talk about a specific experience. He might talk about his experience, or talk to Michael about his experience. It might even just be about him delivering pizzas one time, Michael talks to Satchel about that sort of thing; that’s how we actually came up with Gangbang at the Old Folk’s Home. There’s a lot of different ways, but we always use a tape recorder because we’ll have a great song riff or title, then we’ll wake up and go, “dude, let’s listen to this tape recorder and see what we got last night!” It could be at a strip club, it could be after, partying by yourself, anything! We put it in the tape recorder, plus we take a bunch of tapes with us, just in case we lose them. We always have tapes with us.

On the new album, which is your favourite song?

You know what, my favourite song right now is tough to say. There’s a lot of songs we play live and some we don’t. Take Bukkake Tears, we don’t play it live. I like playing Gloryhole a lot, Gangbang at the Old Folk’s Home is another fun song to play, and it’s got a really cool groove. With all the material we have, it’s just fun playing songs off the new record and seeing people enjoy the new songs. We’ve been around the world a few times now and it’s nice to bring people a new product, a new personal experience we have. It’s cool to play anything off the new record but right now I’d have to say Gloryhole.

You’re talking about people enjoying the new material, would you ever bring out an ‘Intimate show with Steel Panther’ where you just play ballads like ‘Fat Girl’, you haven’t played in ages?

We changed around our setlist before this run and we haven’t done Fat Girl in a while. We’re going to put that in. As far as a ballad show goes, we have to do the ones that people want to hear; we obviously do Community Property but we don’t want the set to be too slow. We are going to put some mid-tempo songs in there, we’ll probably do Fat Girl and Community Property. Then we’re going to bring it down with an acoustic set and just do some of the songs we don’t normally do with an acoustic guitar. We’re going to break it down, and it’s going to be a lot different than we’ve done before. Especially since we have an hour this time at Soundwave so we get to do a few more songs than we did last time we were there. That’s cool because we’ve got a heap of new songs to play.

Are you going to be bringing any special guests on stage at Soundwave?

I don’t know if we’re going to do that… We talked about bringing some of the guys that were on the record, but it’s not like an LA club show. A lot of bands have their own schedule, they’ve got interviews. I don’t even know if we would, there were a couple of things we kicked around but if we were going to have somebody, we would keep it a surprise. I think [it's] the element of not knowing who’s coming on stage, like at Download we brought up Corey Taylor who sang on Death to All But Metal. A bunch of people have press though, and everyone’s on a tight schedule so if we work something out that’d actually be pretty cool.

Out of the lineup, who do you think in the band will be the one that parties the most and parties the least? You can’t say yourself.

Ahhhh man. I’ll be totally honest, I don’t have the list with me so I’m not 100% sure…

We can just go any band in the world then if you like.

Okay, thank you! Well, I wish Def Leppard were on here because they love to party. Judas Priest, I love those guys, we just got off tour with those guys and I had the time of my life partying with those guys! The guys in Limp Bizkit are fun to party with [too]. Everytime Soundwave is a new experience for us so I’m super excited to see who’s going to be out there. I know there’s going to be bands we’ve played with and bands we haven’t played with. Every time we do a festival it’s always so much fun to hang out with bands we haven’t hung out with before. I’m looking forward to that, then maybe I’ll have a story for you maybe after Soundwave!

You mentioned Judas Priest and they’re on the lineup, how does it feel to be – at this point - where you’re at a similar stature crowd-wise as Judas Priest?

Well 1. I’ll never ever ever say we’re the same, because what we’re doing is totally different to Judas Priest. Judas Priest are the most bitchin’ metal band of all time and just to share a stage with them was an honour and an experience and to find out how amazing and cool they are as people. It just blows my mind that we were able to hang out with them, party with them and hear the stories from them. Touring with them was a blast! 2. We have some good crowds too and we’re still young bucks compared to them, but we’re not far behind. Again just being able to share the stage with them and to find out how cool they were was such a big deal for all of us, so that’s an experience I’ll never forget. Even though there are some nights I did forget because we got so… anyway I’ll let you figure it out.

You said they’re obviously older than you guys, is there any point where you think Steel Panther will stop playing? Or is it just when one of you keels over?

That’s exactly what’s going to happen. One of us is going to have to keel over on stage and that’ll bring us probably more fans next time. Just to hear one of us dies on stage, or whatever happens, that’s just heavy metal. We’re going to have to live and die like that, we’re heavy metal people, that’s how we’re going to be. Or we’re so old we don’t remember what we’re doing or we’re walking around like Mr. Magoo all the time and we can’t find our way to rehearsal or the stage. Whatever comes first, I don’t know who’ll be first . Obviously nobody knows that because none of us have ESP so what I’m saying is what’s going to have to happen is one of us going to have to die for us to quit playing.

Out of the new and old albums, which do you feel like you had more of a part of?

As far as more of a part of, I’ll say this… It’d probably be the second album because I had a lot to do with the photo shoot and we got some pretty bitchin’ pictures of us. This record we didn’t have that long a photo shoot so I wasn’t that much of a part of it. As far as songwriting goes, Satchel does most of that so it’s not that. I play bass on most of the stuff but I didn’t really have that much of a part in anything. I don’t really care about the musical part of what we do, I just care about how I look and how we look as a band and how we present ourselves. That’s about it, and make sure that everybody gets botox before we do our tour, make sure everybody tans. If we need to lose some extra pounds, we’ll do some speed before we go. Whatever we need to do to look good.

[laughs] How do you feel you’ve changed the sort of perception that the lead singer is the most attractive, when you’re the bassist?

Yeah but even if I’m not the most attractive, I like to think I am. That’s why I keep looking to find the best angle I can. Again, what’s cool about our band is we all have different looks. Stixx… he’s got a different look going. Michael is the singer and he’s a bitchin’ looking lead singer and chicks dig him. Satchel, his cheekbones, his chin and his big muscles, come on! We’re all different shapes and sizes in this band, which is good because different chicks dig different things. So that’s what I think is really cool about our band is everybody’s different but we’re all still bitchin’!

For guys who want to imitate your look, how would you recommend they take care of their hair to have the luscious locks like you do?

I would say cut off the split ends, make sure you get the roots done. I get the roots done every two months. You don’t have to wash it as much because the natural oils will help it grow and make it look healthy. I mean, I’ve had bad hair days – we all do – but at the same time just take care of it. Hot oil treatments and that’s it. Just let it grow and it’ll look bitchin’! It’s summertime out there now isn’t it? You could put a bit of Sun-In in there and that makes it look bitchin’!

Just finally, do you have a multiple collection of mirrors that you take on stage or is there one mirror that goes on the entire tour?

What I basically do is I have a bunch of mirrors I have here at home that I take with me. I save every mirror I have, I’ll probably take a picture of it and probably tweet it. Every mirror that I have I keep and if somebody gives me a mirror that day, I’ll use that at night. I’ll bring like two or three mirrors at a time whatever’s closer to what I’m wearing and use those. But if a fan gives me a mirror, for the most part, I’ll use that mirror that night just to show my appreciation for someone giving me a gift that somebody made me for me, it’s such a big deal. Every time I receive a mirror from somebody it’s so nice because it’s a little piece of time that they took to think of me and give me a bitchin’ gift! It’s a little thing they put on the other side of the mirror, then I get to look at myself on the other side. It works for both parties!