By Aaron Small

It’s 8:30am on a Tuesday morning and STEEL PANTHER drummer Stix Zadinia is driving en route to shoot the video for ‘If You Really, Really Love Me’ from his band’s brand new album, Balls Out, due in stores October 31st in The UK and November 1st in North America. Stix readily admits, “I would normally be just going to bed, but we played our show in LA (at the House Of Blues) last night and we’re shooting a video today. So I had to try and get three hours sleep and then look good for a video.”

In The UK, ‘If You Really, Really Love Me’ is the first single from Balls Out, however in North America ’17 Girls In A Row’ is the first single. Confused? “The reason we’re shooting the ‘Really, Really Love Me’ video is because there’s really no music channel for ’17 Girls’ to go on. I guess the record company… fuck dude, I don’t know what their logic is, but that’s what we’re doing; so fuck it.”

Filming videos is nothing new for Steel Panther as they shot a pair from their first album, Feel The Steel, for the songs ‘Death To All But Metal’ and ‘Community Property’. “Both of those videos had a story, kind of a threading through that tied into the song,” says Stix. “I think this one, without giving too much away, is going to be not one of those; if that doesn’t give it all away. I’ll give you the exclusive dude – I’m going to a fucking warehouse in downtown LA. We’ve got to shoot at this time of day because of the light. So we’re going to do a performance thing and then they’re going to fucking have some b-roll of us just doing what we do. They’re not going to be able to put anything too tawdry in there.”

‘If You Really, Really Love Me” deals with all the things a woman can do to prove adoration for her man. When asked what the craziest thing a girl has ever done to prove her love for him was, Stix replied, “Ah Jesus man, you’re actually making me fucking reach right now… I’ve had chicks be with other chicks just to make me happy. It was awesome. That’s a no bullshit answer. They weren’t too happy about it I don’t think, but I was.”

Given the brilliance that is Feel The Steel, it seemed almost an insurmountable task to top the success of their debut album. But Stix, along with vocalist Michael Starr, guitarist Satchel and bassist Lexxi Foxxx dug deep into their bag of dirty tricks and came up with an instant classic in Balls Out. “I’m really, really happy that you guys – the press and media – seem to be reacting to the record generally that way. We took a long time to do it ‘cause we wanted to do a good second record. We don’t take it lightly that we have the opportunity to do it. We had to put the best record out we can. One of the biggest criticisms after the hype of the first record died down was, ‘ok, we get it, they like to fuck girls and get high, and they like metal; what’s next?’ This was our answer; you know what, fuck you. This is what’s next. These are the songs we wanted to put forward. Hopefully people enjoy ‘em like you do.”

There isn’t a song named Balls Out, but as an album title it’s simultaneously funny and an attitude statement. “It is! We were talking about what to call this record? We could have gone with Smells Like Number Two, or Dropping The Deuce. Those are funny, but really what our band is, the way our live shows are, we just want people to get stoked on heavy metal. The title really suited everything. Those two words together really encompasses what Steel Panther is.”

Balls Out features an eye-catching cover with a voluptuous chick wearing a rather revealing swimsuit, flashing the shocker sign nonetheless. “Yes! She was a fucking champion!” With other bands, the following question would be inconsequential, but with Steel Panther it’s more than justified; what did this model have to do to get the job? “Honestly dude, she just had to fucking look hot. I don’t want to say anything ‘cause she’s got a boyfriend and I don’t want to bum him out, but she earned it, let’s just leave it at that.” Was the competition to grace Steel Panther’s album cover fierce? “Funny enough, there was 17 girls to choose from. The art director, a guy named Joe Spix who actually put it together, got to give props to Joe; he fucking nailed it. It’s one of those records you would have found in your Dad’s record collection that you kind of weren’t supposed to find. Once you see the cover, you’ve got to hear this fucking record. He had narrowed it down from 1,000 girls to 17, and we got to look at 17 chicks. There were girls as pretty, but she had the features that were just – you’ve seen the record cover, she’s fuckin’ smokin’ on that thing.”

Speaking of ’17 Girls In A Row’, rumour has it Satchel was actually the guy who nailed 17. “Yes, it’s sort of true. There was 17 girls, they were in a row and he fucked 15 of them, but he got blowjobs by two of them, ‘cause two of them were on the rag dude and they didn’t want to fuck. So, should it have been 15 Girls In A Row? If you’re talking about boning, yes. But 17 Girls In A Row has the right amount of syllables – and he did get two blowjobs.” The odds of Satchel doing 17 Girls In A Row without a little, or perhaps a lot of chemical stimulation, are slim to none; is he a Viagra or a Cialis man? “I think he’s probably both. He’s a, whatever he can get his hands on kind of guy; as am I. I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve popped Cialis, Viagra, whatever’s around. ”

The party described in ‘Tomorrow Night’ sounds like it could be at the Playboy Mansion. Steel Panther actually played the Playboy Mansion this past August; is there a correlation? “As much as I’d like to say yes, the answer is no. The party in ‘Tomorrow Night’ is definitely not a Playboy party. Yes, at a Playboy party there are celebrities, but at the party in ‘Tomorrow Night’, there’s really fucked-up shit going on. A party at the Playboy Mansion is cool and fun, but it feels like there’s a lot of people there who have their heads on a swivel. It’s like, who’s here? Or, is anyone looking at me? That’s the vibe. It’s cool to be there ‘cause it’s pretty legendary, but it was not inspired by the Playboy Mansion. It was mainly inspired by a couple of freak show circus parties that we’ve been to. Actually, there was a guy, a long time ago… we were at a concert, I think it was an ANTHRAX concert, but chicks were hard to come by at that time. So the concert got out, we were walking to the car and this pack of fucking hot chicks walk by. We started talking to them and they’re like, what are you guys doing? Out of nowhere, my buddy goes, ‘I don’t know, but I know where a party is tomorrow night.’ We all looked at him – that’s the lamest thing, can you say anything more stupid? We had to fuckin’ immortalize that.”

A couple of high-profile guest stars appear on Balls Out, namely Chad Kroeger form NICKELBACK and EXTREME’s Nuno Bettencourt, both lending their talents to ‘It Won’t Suck Itself’. “Yes, we have a fellow Canadian of yours, Chad Kroeger. We went up to his house in Vancouver, at which there exists a hockey rink inside the dwelling. The guy has a hockey rink in his fucking house! I’m not even kidding, it’s freaky dude. I’ve never seen anything like it. But we went up to Chad’s ‘cause he had come to a few of our shows and we got to talking, he’s actually a really cool guy. We got up there and there was a bunch of weed. We went up into his studio and started writing with him; we ended up with ‘It Won’t Suck Itself’. We brought it home, did a little bit of tweaking on it, and then lo and behold, we had fucking Nuno come in. Satchel asked Nuno at one of our shows at House Of Blues in Vegas to play on the song and he was down. Nuno’s been RIHANNA’s guitar player for the past two and a half years. I think he was so excited to play metal again – you’ve heard the solo, that’s a fucking release solo right there. That’s, ‘I’ve got this many bars, I’m going to just annihilate it’ – and it’s killer.”

In December, Steel Panther will tour The UK with DEF LEPPARD and MÖTLEY CRÜE. “I actually have a boner because of that tour. That tour is like fucking Viagra for me. How many opportunities do you get to tour with Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard? One! And that’s only if you’re in Steel Panther. It’s never happened before! Those two bands have never toured together, and I don’t know if they’ll do it again. So to be on that tour is a fucking honour! Our goal on that tour is to go musically rape as many faces as we possibly can in the time we’re allowed to play and just fucking deliver metal like it’s fucking going out of style!”

When they're not hopping the Atlantic, Steel Panther still plays three shows a week: Mondays at House Of Blues Sunset, Fridays at House Of Blues Vegas, and Saturdays at Green Valley Ranch Vegas. “It’s pretty funny because we play more shows than most bands ever. We play all year round. Bands will go out and do a string of dates; then they won’t play for months on end. We’ve made a career so far out of playing live really. It’s a weird thing ‘cause we started playing covers, and in LA and Vegas, those are the only two markets we do that we play any covers any more. When we do shows elsewhere, people buy tickets because they want to come fucking rock to the songs on Feel The Steel and now ’17 Girls In A Row’ and ‘If You Really, Really Love Me’. It’s great! We just sold out a show in Philly, I think it’s in January, but 1000 tickets went in less than 24 hours. It says a lot about people just wanting to go have a great time; I think it’s time for fun metal to come back. There’s a lot of serious bands out there, and I think people are looking for a fucking place to go have fun, look at chicks with giant tits, speaking of which – god damn it, last night this girl got on stage, it’s gotta be on YouTube. She’s a fucking porn star, she got back behind my drums, lifted up her shirt, and fucking buried my face in her tits while we were playing! It was so good, I totally enjoyed it.”

Wrapping up the interview without mentioning the hilarious ‘Just Like Tiger Woods’, would be like getting a massage without a happy ending. “Seriously, I hope Tiger gets his fucking shit back. It looks like he’s kind of getting his game back, but what a fucking stud!” Absolutely love the line, ‘three holes are better than a hole in one.’ “A hole in one is pretty rare in a lifetime, but if you can bust the fucking trifecta on a girl, I don’t know man, I think that’s probably more rare.” In ironic fashion, an official Steel Panther golf towel can now be purchased at this location. “Yeah dude! You know what’s funny is, my buddy Pat Levine, that his company, Play Well. I’ve known him for a long time… this is before he knew we had a song called ‘Just Like Tiger Woods’. He made us a towel and I was telling him fucking KISS has toilet seat covers and ties and all sorts of shit. I told him he should start making band golf towels ‘cause there’s a lot of amateur golfers out there that love metal and love rock, who would fuckin’ buy this shit; so he made that. I think Tiger should fucking have a Steel Panther golf towel on his bag, that would be pretty cool. He just did a deal with Rolex; he should do a deal with Steel Panther.”