Michael Starr recently discussed collaborating with Chad Kroeger on Steel Panther’s ‘It Won’t Suck Itself’ track from 2011’s ‘Balls Out’ album.
“The most surprising [collaboration we have done], I would have to say, would be Chad Kroeger from Nickelback, because he used to come to our shows and hang out with his brother and stuff, and he always used to say, ‘Man, I wish I could write songs and be as dirty as you guys, but we can’t,’” Starr recalled in a chat with WRIF radio Detroit’s Meltdown.
“And I remember we were doing our second record and he reached out and he said, ‘Hey, I have an idea for a song. You guys should come up here to my studio, and we’ll work on it.’ And we’re, like, ‘All right.’ So, we had a show in Vancouver. We went to his place, and he goes, ‘I’ve got an idea for a song.’ We’re, like, ‘Okay, what is it?’ He goes, ‘‘It Won’t Suck Itself.’’ I was, like, ‘All right.’ And so we started working on it in the studio.”
The singer continued, “We finished the song that day, made a demo of it, and he played drums on it with Stix [Zadinia] and also sang on it. And then we really recorded it in a studio with our drums and everything — and put it out. And we’re actually putting it in our set this coming tour right now because it turned out to be one of the most killer heavy metal songs written with Chad Kroeger. So, it was very surprising and an amazing experience.”
The song, also featuring guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, was the sixth track on the fourteen-track sophomore album, which debuted at number 40 on the Billboard 200, selling 12,000 copies in its first week in the U.S.
Steel Panther released their sixth studio record, ‘On The Prowl,’ in February 2023. The band is actively touring to promote the album, with an upcoming show scheduled in Huntington, New York, on November 20.