Small early gigs led to big ones. Big chicks led to hotter ones. And before long the gigs got bigger and the chicks even hotter. Entire communities of hot chicks moved to LA. Steel Panther shows were like their Mecca. It was in this era, in which the dream that led to the 1959 invention of spandex was finally realized, that many of the band’s once and future classic songs developed, like the mission statement “Eye of a Panther” and the burning “Asian Hooker.”

By 1987, not even the record business’ most revered tastemakers could ignore the band that put the “strip” in Sunset Strip, and a fierce bidding was about to erupt. Every major label was involved. Competition to get into their big showcase gig so intense that entire A&R staffs were left in tatters; many label reps were reduced to returning to their college studies in hopes of eventually taking teaching positions in their hometowns.

But this is where the mystery of Steel Panther becomes mysterious: The band never showed for that big showcase. Rumours abounded as heavy metal’s finest minds pondered the whereabouts of the Steel Panther and the great “lost” album they were rumoured to have recorded.

But what really happened is that when you rock hard and live hard, you can tear something else – the fabric of time. “It’s so fucking awesome,” Michael says, “we didn’t pay attention to the clock or anything. When you can have all the blow and the strippers you want, why would you want to stop that?”

“It was never easy to get the band together to get together to talk about songs and rehearse,” Satchel admits, “Because they were all mostly high in the ‘80s. And the ‘90s.” Band rivalries and tensions heightened, especially between Satchel and Michael Starr, ultimately resulting in a tighter bond between the two, and for Satchel, a criminal record. Then, one day, Universal–Republic President Monte Lipman found a Steel Panther package on his desk. Only this time, it was a box with an album inside. Could it be? Had the legendary metal band actually recorded those songs that shook the LA Basin to its core? One play confirmed it was true: The Panther roars again.

Always innovators, they set upon making Mondays the night to rock in Hollywood. Mission accomplished: Their weekly show at the Key Club is considered the longest–running Monday night heavy metal show in the world, a record the band hopes the Guinness people will soon certify.

The club is packed to the rafters every week, drawing the Hollywood in–the–know and celebrities alike to bask in the band’s sui generis covers and stirring originals. On any given night, you can see the likes of Pink, Jessica Simpson, or Vince Vaughn onstage rocking with The Panther.

“The music, the art form, for me hasn’t really changed,” Satchel says resolutely, “Heavy metal is all about looking killer, wearing bitching clothes and sex with really hot girls – not just really, really hot like she’s hot for the bus stop, or I’d–put–her–in–a–video hot, but the hottest girls you can have sex with. We live in Los Angeles, there are a lot of hot girls here, and we have sex with some of the hottest.”

The same bravado that created the legend of Steel Panther, that forged the template from which so many other heavy metal bands were stamped, still courses unalloyed through the veins of the band. From Michael Starrs’s golden vocal chords to Lexxi’s frosted tips, rocking out is simply in their DNA, samples of which are so often available to fans after the show.

Get ready. As Michael Starr says, “Now it’s time to let the cat out of the cage.”