Metal fans were a bit surprised when parody rockers Steel Panther ended up on the very mainstream “America’s Got Talent” television franchise. The band appeared earlier this year and narrowly missed out on advancing to the finals of the talent show competition.
The glam-rockers brought “Eyes of a Panther” to season 18 of the long-running TV show back in May, which earned them a standing ovation from all four judges – Sofia Vergara, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Simon Cowell.
After their exit, the band shared a social media post saying: “Huge thanks to all the fans who voted for us on America’s Got Talent! It wasn’t in the cards this time BUT, don’t you worry… like a bad case of herpes, you can’t get rid of us that easily. The battle rages on and we will NEVER stop flying the banner of Heavy Metal!”
In a recent interview with WGRD 97.9 radio, Steel Panther drummer Stix Zadinia talked about how the band ended up on the show.
Simply put: “They called us, if I’m being totally honest with you,” he said. “They called us a couple of years in advance and asked us if we wanted to do it. We didn’t know that they allowed for professionals on the show. And they said, ‘Yeah, we opened it up.’ So we couldn’t get the schedule right until the next season.”
The band, known for its raunchy lyrics and videos, also had to clean up their tunes and presentation some for network television.
“And then we had to have a conversation of, ‘Man, we’re a pretty edgy band,” Stix said. “We’re not network-style. So we’re gonna have to change some stuff. Do we mind doing that?'”
“And at the end of the day, we felt like it was worth going and playing by the rules on TV, because we know what we do. We just took it as an opportunity to make more people aware of what we do, because we’re proud of it. We were on twice as much as I thought we were gonna be on, and then we ended up losing to a three-legged dog.”
