Steel Panther’s Michael Starr appeared on Justin Hawkin’s podcast, where Hawkin recalled the time his band, The Darkness, shared the stage with Steel Panther, also reminding Starr of his band using backing tracks during live shows.

Starr said:

“We tried to make the tracks subtle. So you hear them almost subliminally. You expect them to be there anyways. So if you hear just a little taste of the rhythm guitar and a little taste like…

”Some of the choruses are doubled and I’ll sing over them so it gives that double effect. And then some, there’s just blatant cheaters in there where I just lip-sync to. I’m not ashamed of that, man!

“But all joking aside, it just enhances the whole live experience. And we truly thought about, ‘Okay, let’s bring a keyboard player out.’ That way, they can hit one note during a chorus and play the shaker and do all that.

”And then we thought, ‘Well, that’s just going to take out of our bottom line.’ So we just hired a multitrack and just put that on there. It was way cheaper. No per diems.”

More, Hawkin mentioned a guy named Andy Copping who helped Steel Panther book a slot at Download festival. Michael Starr mentioned that Copping helped them keep the show with Motley Crue and Def Leppard, but Crue was against it:

“He still books us. I remember we were doing a Def Leppard [and] Motley Crue tour and MC didn’t want us on the tour.

”But Andy said, ‘No, they’re going to be on the tour. And that’s the end of it.’ And we were on it. […]

“Just because Nikki (Sixx) had Sixx: A.M., they just put out new record and he wanted to have them open up the show.”