Satchel
Satchel is featured on the songs:
- Reprise (bonus track)
Steel Panther​
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Russel John Parrish (USA 1970), better known as Satchel, is the lead guitarist for the comedic glam metal band Steel Panther. After graduation from the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood in 1989, he became an instructor, while playing with Racer X offshoots Bad Dog and The Electric Fence with Jeff Martin and Paul Gilbert. Jeff Martin introduced him to Judas Priest singer Rob Halford, resulting in Parrish joining Halford's band Fight and recording the War of Words album.
From 2002 to 2006, he also played guitar in a Van Halen tribute band with future Steel Panther bandmate Ralph Saenz aka (Michael Starr) called The Atomic Punks.
Around this time, he and Ralph Saenz started glam metal cover band Metal Shop as the characters Rikki Ratchet and Michael Diamond, respectively, and appeared in a Discover card commercial as "Danger Kitty", a fictional one-hit-wonder band that spends all their royalty money on opulence and goes bankrupt. In 2003, Metal Shop (now renamed to Metal Skool) released their debut album, Hole Patrol, and began incorporating original songs into their live sets. The "classic" Steel Panther lineup was also cemented by this point, with Lexxi Foxx (real name Travis Haley) on bass and Stix Zadinia (real name Darren Leader) on drums, and with the Rikki Ratchet and Michael Diamond aliases being replaced with Satchel and Michael Starr, respectively. Six years later, the band renamed to Steel Panther and released their first album under the name, entitled Feel the Steel. They have become successful worldwide, with numerous celebrity fans and selling out arenas and festivals.
Despite Satchels long career in music I only know him from Steel Panther. Despite their 'Spinal Tap'-image I recognized them all as fabulous musicians. I'm an absolute fan of Satchel's playing, he is incredible.
When I had written the song 'Shake me to the floor' I thought that Satchel would be THE candidate for this and I guessed that I would have a chance in getting him due to Covid, which kept him home from touring.
I tried many ways to get in touch but failed through the regular channels. So finally I 'bought' a chat with him on Cameo, which allowed me to chat 10 sentences with him. I had to make my point quickly, he got it and did it. In no-time his solos dropped in my mailbox.
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What happened then is that Keith and I decided to change the arrangements and certain parts of 'Shake me to the floor' which kind of squeezed Satchel's parts out of the song, since they did not fit anymore. I felt bad about this and did not want to bug Satchel to re-do the whole song, so for 'Shake me to the floor' I asked Joey Concepcion for the re-work.
For the solos that Satchel did, I wrote the instrumental song 'Reprise', to not waste his efforts and do him right. It's a bit of backward and forward re-engineering of the initial version of 'Shake me to the floor'.
'Reprise' will be featured as a bonus track on the CD version of 'Here to Stay' so that the CD buyers really have something special!
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Next to his incredible playing, I also LOVE Satchel's sense of humor. When in Holland I always go and see Steel Panther and he makes me laugh my ass off every time. See for yourself here: