January sucks. All the fun of winter without Christmas to look forward to, it goes on forever and everyone's skint. But seeing as hibernation isn't an option, you've got to make the best of it – and what better way than glorying in the ridiculous excesses of The Greatest 1980s Hair Metal Band Ever – Steel Panther!
If you're unfamiliar with The Pantheon Of Panther, we're talking massive riffs, massive solos, massive hair, completely over the top, gleefully absurd sexist lyrics.. and it works because we're all in on the joke. It's what we all imagine life on the Sunset Strip in 1987 would have been like, where life was one long non-stop hedonistc party without there ever being a hangover. It's completely daft and utterly glorious because of it!
However, although the personas the band adopt might be a joke, their musicianship most certainly is not, and Satchel (nee Russell John Parrish) is one HELL of a guitar player! So as is customary, a brief potted history and I advise the reader to use this opportunity to limber up, because you're going to need it!
If Steel Panther lore is to be believed, the band originally formed in the early 80s and pioneered the combination of bandanas, Spandex and men wearing makeup that would define an era – and their success would result in them spending the 90s and 00s high (presumably for tax reasons) before finally returning to earth long enough to record their first album, 2009's “Feel The Steel”, and I would dearly love that story to be true.
Further
investigation reveals, however, that Parrish graduated the legendary
Los Angeles Guitar Institute Of Technology in 1989 and worked there
as an instructor and became good friends with the equally legendary
Paul Gilbert, frequently house sitting for him when Pablo was out on
tour and his first break seems to have come in 1992 when he was
introduced to ex-Judas Priest singer Rob Halford and joined his
nascent band Fight, recording the War Of Words album in 1993. After
Fight, the next major event came in 2002, forming a Van Halen tribute
called The Atomic Punks, which introduced him to Ralph Saenz (Michael
Starr in Steel Panther), whilst also playing with his own band The
Thornbirds which featured Darren Leader on drums who would become
Steel Panthers' Stix Zadinia. It was also around this time the
Parrish was playing regularly in the musical Rockalypse Now by Dean
Cameron (occasional contributing songwriter for Steel Panther). Saenz
& Parrish filmed this advert for
Discover:
as fictional 80's glam metal band Danger Kitty, and ths seems to have been the catalyst for Steel Panther as the two started the glam metal band “Metal Shop”, soon changing their name to “Metal Skool” and drawing in Steel Panther bass player Travis Haley and his old mate Darren Leader on the drums. The Panther was born. The world drew breath.
Right, I hope you're good and warmed up, because it's time to get to the licks! Parrish cites Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Van Halen, RitchieBlackmore, Tony Iommi and Blue Oyster Cult's Buck Dharma as his main influences so you know we are dealing with one SERIOUS guitar player. With all of these examples, be advised to start slowly and focus ontne and clarity to begin with, let the speed come naturally.. but you knew that, right?
We'll jump in with the pedaltone string skipped outro from the solo to “Asian Hooker” (the intro was in a recent One Minute Lick video) – here Satchel outlines the underlying chords of Fm (adding a b2), Am (add2), D(add2) G(add2), C(Add2) and F#(add2) before launching into a tapped B arpeggio figure played against the open B string, outlining B, Bmaj7 and then weirdly a Baddb6 before resolving to the F# note over the E minor chord, giving an Em9 harmony. This harks back to the influence of one Paul Gilbert...
The second example is from “The Shocker” featuring C# Dorian mode with Satchel extending the lateral range of the lick by adding a tapped root note on top of the phrase, which on the final repetition gets slid up to E, before a blistering run down the C# blues scale.
The humble blues scale is most definitely a favourite of Satchel's, as this third example from “Death To All But Metal” shows – check out the soaring minor 3rd bend that starts it off and the wide interval jump from that note (F) to the root A, and notice how Satchel moves the rhythmic and fingering pattern down across the strings, any “out” notes being swallowed up by his blistering speed.
The final example shows Satchel in more melodic mode, thundering up the B major scale to kick off the solo to “Tiger Woods” and again, notice the way he takes the same melodic “cell” and extrapolates it out across the whole scale to dramatic effect.
This really was SO MUCH FUN and I found myself wishing January was actually longer... and dare I say it, I find myself wondering whether I too could pull off the spandex.... guess that's an extra reason to keep an eye on the YouTube channel then! Back next month with true Rock Royalty...
