I'm doing a pilot for Comedy Central with the band Steel Panther. They're faux heavy metal. They started as kind of a tribute band out here, or a cover band, and they're funny guys, and they just sort of morphed into their own thing.
I was in a rock band; I was my own folk singer; I was in a death metal band for a very short time; I was in a cover band, a jazz band, a blues band. I was in a gospel choir.
Hopefully people can look at our band and see that we're a heavy rock band. We're definitely not a metal band, but we're a band that focuses on meaningful lyrics and melody.
With Pantera, we lived through so many trend-of-the-day situations - when grunge was huge, we were still a heavy metal band; when hip-hop started getting incorporated into metal, we stuck to our guns and remained a heavy metal band very purposefully.
I never thought of us as a punk band, a metal band, or a new wave band. Just as a band band.
The misunderstanding out there is that we are a 'hard rock' band or a 'heavy metal' band. We've only ever been a rock n' roll band.
There's nothing sadder than being in a tribute band - especially a tribute band for your own thing you did originally.
I had my first band. it was kind of a progressive metal band kind of thing. I just started writing songs that required more and more challenging vocals, and I just did them. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? So I just sort of did what I had to do to make the songs sound the way I wanted them to.
The band? No way! There ain't no band. The band is not 'the band' right now. It's just three guys.
When I started out as a cover band, I was obsessed with Keith Urban and Jason Aldean and Eric Church; those are the songs I chose to sing as a cover band.
I pretty much built a band out of the most incredible guys I could possibly find. I didn't really want a six-piece band, but it just ended up being a six-piece band because these guys are all awesome.
The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.
When I was a kid, I was playing in various bands - amateur bands, garage bands, weekend bands, you name it, around the area. At some point, I just wanted to try the whole 'Beatle tribute band' thing, so I found a local band that was doing that.
Every good band in the world was a cover band first. The Beatles were and the Stones were. Everybody was a cover band.
I remember being inspired by this band Godflesh, actually. They were a really heavy metal band, really nihilistic.
One thing people would be surprised about is that although hard rock and heavy metal are without question 90% of what I listen to and my passion, there are other things I enjoy. My first ever favorite band in my life before KISS was a power-pop band called The Raspberries.
It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.