Forming in the late 80s but never finding success until the release of their debut “Feel the Steel” due to infighting, substance abuse and “fucking the other band member’s bitches” (the biggest problem, apparently) Steel Panther are itching to bring metal back and generally just itching, due to their many wild and wanton flings with women worldwide. The glam metal superstars direct from the famous Sunset Strip in LA are finally finding their way to Australia, playing at the Soundwave Revolution alongside their heroes Van Halen and Alice Cooper. The fast-talking, mirror-gazing and wise-cracking bassist Lexxi Foxxx (the extra “x” stands for “sex”) passionately explains their “metal” mission, uncovers parts of their murky history as well as their plans after finally “driving” down under.

Hey Lexxi, how’s it going?

Hey man, how are you?

Good! What are you doing at the moment?

Right now I’m getting some clothes made for my fuckin’ Australian tour and playing with Van Halen! I’m so stoked man, I can’t wait to come out there.

How many clothes do you plan to wear when you’re here?

Well, shit, I’ve been working out a little bit so I’m not gonna wear that many clothes but the stuff I will wear will be like…well, I’m getting new jackets done, some new leather spandex done, I’m getting different basses made, I’m just stoked to fuckin’ come down there and rock it out, man.

Shit, it’s taken us a long time, I wish we were out there a long time ago. It’s about time, I’ve never been to Australia. I can’t fuckin’ wait.

You’ve never been at all?

Never been at all!

That’s a shame.

I know, I can’t wait, man!

Looking at your history, the band has only burst on to the scene recently but you’ve been around since 1988. What happened during then and now?

Yeah, we’ve been around for a long time and I’ll sum it up for you…I’ll say substance abuse; I’ll say miscommunication; I’ll say fighting; I’ll say fucking other band member’s bitches; I’ll say spending too much money from the label on hookers and blow and strippers; I’ll say more fighting and I’ll say more fucking the other band member’s girls. That’s what’s been happening.

I can’t believe we’ve all put it together as long as we have and now we’ve finally calmed down a little bit. We quit doing as many drugs so we’re able to go out and actually function as a band and a unit and bring heavy metal back. We’re sorry it took so long, but we’re the only ones out there that are doing it and I think that’s kind of a payoff for it at the same time.

I was going to ask, you’re trying to bring heavy metal back – how did you manage to make metal sexy again? Metal went through a period where it wasn’t sexy for a while and now it's getting sexier again. How did Steel Panther contribute to that?

Tom, I want to thank you very much for that question. [pauses] Well, me personally I like to tan, I get a lot of plastic surgery and I like to eat right; I like to bring the long hair back. I know a lot of people call us faggy and stupid, people call us gay and stuff like that but I know there was a time where we looked like girls and shit like that and all that kind of stuff; but I dunno – If you have to look like a girl to get a girl then we’re doing a good job out of it.

That brings me to another point – old rockers like Bruce Dickinson and Bon Jovi cut their hair but you’d never do that, right?

[curtly] Fuck no! You know, I have to say…no. If you cut your hair to fit in to what rockers are doing today like that shaggy, over one eye and that frog fuckin’ shit, that’s fucking crap. That’s crap! They suck and they just look like donkeys and that’s not fuckin’ metal. Metal is about having your hair fuckin’ long and fuckin’ bitchin’.

If you have to wear a wig, wear a wig! It’ll look bitchin’, you know? Bring back fuckin’ bitchin’ metal!

Hell yeah! I agree, man.

Like fuck, let me give you a good example. Like, Kevin DuBrow [the late Quiet Riot vocalist] (may he rest in peace)] looked bitchin’ and he had a wig on since 1980. But he looked fuckin’ bitchin’, who gives a fuck? The same goes with Gene Simmons too! Just have long hair and don’t look emo and bring heavy metal back.

Talking about Gene Simmons, there’s reports you worked with Gene on the new album.

Gene is a fuckin’ gene-genius – see, I used the same word. We were gonna start to collaborate with him as of right now, we don’t have anything on the record but in the future that might happen. We might do a documentary show thing but Gene hasn’t done anything on the record this time. But that’s not to say that it won’t happen. Things are just taking a lot longer than they thought they were.

Never say never, that’s what I say.

When’s it coming out?

Well we just handed it into the label and the label has it. We have a couple more guest stars we wanna put on the record so they’re coming into the studio this week or next week. The label has it and they’re gonna get back to us and give us a release date – and what’s also awesome is that as you know, we’re going to be playing a couple of our new songs in Australia.

I think your Aussie fans will be pleased to hear that.

Oh man, I feel so stoked that we have Aussie fans and that they love the fact we brought back heavy metal. When we find out how many fans we have in Australia it’ll be so awesome. We never know, we’re from LA and we don’t know about what happens on the other side of the fuckin’ world from Austra- from that…from, that other country – you know what I’m sayin’ – that people would love what we’re doing and it just rules. I wanna bang an Australian bitch so bad.

Talking about that, how much ass, or rather, in our language, arse, are you planning to chase while you’re here?

Oh, I’m going to be hunting every night after our show. At the meet and greets I’m gonna grab the hottest one and show her my penis.

Awesome. Because of the legendary flings and the ‘arse’ you get all over the world, are you scared you might not be let in because of strict quarantine?

I don’t know! That’s why we have to get all this shit done and get all of our police records in order to come into your country and we are fuckin’ scared shitless that all of our minor convictions and mishaps might, you know. But we should be okay because we have a high priced attorney to fix some of that shit up for us. I don’t want to worry about it, I just want to go over there and rock out.

You have some songs on Feel the Steel about semi-biographical stuff – would you ever write a song about an Aussie girl and work in the food element as well like on "Thar She Blows?" Perhaps 'Fur Pie' and 'Chips' or 'Victoria’s Bitter' or something?

Fuckin’ A, that’s a really good idea. We only write out of experience but when we come down there we will have an experience like that and write a song about an Australian girl. Because that’s the thing, it’s a new experience – like when we’re in the UK, it’s a different adventure, it’s different people and everybody’s different. I wanna explore different girls from a different country and the foods and all that shit. But if we bring food or something into it then we’ll write a song about it.

I’ll tell Michael [Starr, vocalist] and Satchel [guitarist] what happens and they can write a song about it. That’s usually how songs get written.

Remind me to give you a plate of chips at the meet and greet so you can just go for it.

That’s what we’ll do, that’s exactly what we’ll do.

Why did you take up the bass and say not the vocals or guitar?

I’ll tell you why – I have a tendency to not be able to sing good? The guitar has fuckin’ way too many strings on it and I thought to myself: I like to flip around and flip my hair a bunch, I like to do spins, and throw my guitar a bit and I figured if I did that on another instrument it might sound like shit. But on the bass, there’s only four fuckin’ strings on it, and I don’t even use all of them, I just use the one on the top, man. I’m not even in the band to be the most bitchin’ fuckin’ bass player – fuck that! I’m in the band to get pussy. That’s all I give a fuck about! I mean, I love the jams, that’s pretty cool too.

I mean the bass is so easy I just press one button at a time – who can’t fuckin’ do that?

For me, I’d rather look good and not hit that many notes – they don’t even have to be good notes! I don’t give a fuck! I don’t care if they put my bass on mute – but they aren’t gonna do that. We’re not gonna do that. I just care about lookin’ bitchin’ and getting bitches and it takes too long to learn the guitar and I don’t fuckin’ sing good, that’s why.

I took up rock writing because I couldn’t play the guitar, maybe I should play the bass?

Yeah yeah! Get the bass and grow your hair out! If you can’t do that just put on a good fuckin’ wig, strap on a bass guitar and get your penis sucked.

I would get it sucked so much.

You would! I know you would!

I know! I’m totally into it. Moving on is Steel Panther a metaphor for a creature too rare to live yet too weird to die?

Oh wow, that’s fuckin’ bitchin’ – that should be our metaphor – I don’t even know what a metaphor is! We came up with the name because Steel is the hardest substance known to man, you can’t bite through steel. You can’t put a bullet through it. So nothing kills steel.

A panther is one of the fiercest fuckin’ ... marsup-…creat-…one of the most bitchin’ animals in the world. We put the most bitchin’ animal and the most bitchin’ substance together and we came up with steel panther.
If that’s a metaphor, that’s what we did.

What was wrong with the name Metal Skool or Danger Kitty? Danger Kitty sounds pretty fierce.

Fuck that – how fucking stupid does Danger Kitty sound – no one is gonna be scared about a kitty. That’s dumb. Metal Skool is just stupid, Metal’s cool – well, yeah – metal’s cool and all, I just isn’t as fuckin’ bitchin’ as…look at it this way. If you get a bitchin’ animal in your name you’re already cool, like check it out: White-snake. White Lion. I could go on and on and on with names I just can’t think of them now. Some bands had bitchin’ names. White Snake Lion! Def Leppard! I’ve never seen a deaf leopard but maybe there was. I dunno! Maybe there is a steel panther out there, who fuckin’ knows?

That’s why we took ourselves seriously and put out a record that went nationwide with the most bitchin’ name ever and it was Steel Panther.

What was the first reaction in the band when you heard you were touring with Van Halen and Alice Cooper?

We were fuckin’ stoked! Because first of all we’re playing with Van Halen and they’re the most bitchin’ fuckin’ band. Second of all, we’ve never been to Australia and we think we’re gonna have a great success over there and we’ll get to keep going back, too. For us, breaking into a new market is a big deal, but fuckin’ Australia? That’s fuckin’ bitchin’, dude! We’re fuckin’ driving to Australia? I just can’t wait, man. I know it takes a long time but I know we’re gonna make it fuckin’ rock. The only thing I’m gonna be thinking of when we’re driving there is that ‘we’re bringing heavy metal back, we’re bringing heavy metal back.’

I think Australia is overdue for that. I think you’re coming out at the right time to do that. I don’t wanna tell you how to suck eggs, but Australia needs it – it craves it.

Good! I hope we get a bunch of new fans from doing these shows and I really wanna meet some new people out there and do meet and greets and all that shit.

Yeah, a lot of the kids are into the battle jackets and leather now. It won’t be too far removed from home. Except for the light switches – to turn them on you have to flick down, not up.

Wow. Is day, like…night? That’s fuckin’ weird, dude.

Yeah man. There’s a lot of subtle differences you have to watch out for. It happened to me when I went to LA.

Is that right? When were you in LA last?

End of 2009.

So you were out here – what were you out here for?

Just doing some work, doing interviews and stuff.

Awesome.

It was a good place, I loved it.

Yeah man, it’s fuckin’ fun. I can’t wait to get into some booze and parties and I think we’re gonna have a couple of days off too. Hopefully we’ll meet some chicks and hang out.

Here’s a suggestion – you should take the chicks to the wildlife sanctuaries we have here and they can stroke a panther while they’re “stroking a Panther.”

That would be fuckin’ awesome – I would love to do that! Love to.

Get your manager to tee it up, man. It’ll be an awesome experience.

He’s coming down with us so I’ll tell him to hook something like that up. That sounds fuckin’ awesome. I’m gonna write that down.

Well Lexxi, it’s been a pleasure. Good luck and we’ll see you in September.

Thanks man, it’s been awesome. Hopefully I’ll get to meet you and all the Australian fans down there. Hopefully we’ll make the trip more often because we fuckin’ wanna bring heavy metal back all over the world, we’re so super stoked to come there and thank you for taking the time.

Steel Panther will be touring nationally with the Soundwave Revolution.