Satchel (musician)

Russell John Parrish (born November 24, 1970), better known as Satchel, is an American musician and songwriter. He is a guitarist for the comedic glam metal band Steel Panther.

Satchel
Satchel performing in June 2017
Background information
Birth nameRussell John Parrish
Also known as
  • Rikki Ratchet
Born (1970-11-24) November 24, 1970
Redwood City, California, U.S.
OriginLos Angeles, California, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Musician
  • songwriter
InstrumentsGuitar, bass
Years active1992–present
LabelsUniversal Republic
Associated acts

Early life

Russell John Parrish was born in Redwood City, California, on November 24, 1970. He graduated from the Guitar Institute of Technology at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood in 1989.

Career

After graduating, Parrish became an instructor through the early 1990s while playing with Racer X offshoot Bad Dog with vocalist Jeff Martin and The Electric Fence[1] with Martin on drums and Paul Gilbert alternating guitar and bass. When Paul Gilbert joined Mr. Big, Parrish rented a room in Gilbert's Los Angeles home and house-sat for him when Gilbert would go on tour, simultaneously recording demos in Gilbert's home studio.[2] He has worked extensively with Gilbert and has writing credits on several Paul Gilbert tracks.[3] Parrish is seen playing bass (alongside Jeff Martin on drums) in the tuning section of Gilbert's "Terrifying Guitar Trip" video.

He played guitar for Jeff Pilson's band, War & Peace, appearing on the Time Capsule album, a collection of demos released on Shrapnel Records. After the breakup of War & Peace, Parrish was playing in a Thin Lizzy cover band when 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.[4][5]

Upon exiting Fight he joined Cleveland's Outta The Blue, a local glam metal band that closed their show with Racer X covers, and who later became The Szuters. In 1995, Parrish played guitar in Kevin Gilbert's touring band in support of Gilbert's Thud album. He can be seen performing with Gilbert on Welcome to Joytown – Thud Live at the Troubadour, a DVD and CD released in 2009, documenting the band's 1995 concert at The Troubador in Los Angeles. In 1996, Parrish played guitar with Sebastian Bach on the song "Rock Bottom" for an Ace Frehley tribute album, Spacewalk (A Salute to Ace Frehley).[6] From 2002 to 2006, he also played guitar in a Van Halen tribute band with Ralph Saenz called The Atomic Punks. Around the same time, he was in a Rush cover band called Moving Pictures with Atomic Punks drummer Scott Patterson. Russ Parrish also appeared with Corey Taylor in the Ronnie James Dio tribute album entitled "This Is Your Life" on the track "Rainbow In The Dark". In the early 2000s, he was the leader of his own band, The Thornbirds, with Darren Leader, Jeff Duncan, and Dean Cameron.

In 2000, Parrish was simultaneously playing in various bands and acting in the production "Rockalypse Now", a play written by future Thornbirds bassist and occasional Steel Panther songwriter Dean Cameron.[7] 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.[8] 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 Travis Haley on bass and 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.

Equipment

In his early days, Parrish used a white Ibanez RG770 with sharktooth inlays as his primary guitar. During the Fight era, he primarily played a Heartfield/Fender Talon and was endorsed by Fender alongside Vinnie Moore, John Norum, Richie Sambora, and Joe Holmes.[9][10]

Since his work in Steel Panther, Parrish endorses Kramer Guitars. He plays Kramer Pacer guitars into EVH 5150 III 100 watt amplifiers which go through EVH Cabs. He runs his Kramer Pacer to his amp through a Line 6 G90 Wireless Relay system. For pedals, he is currently using a Boss TU-3 Tuner, a Boss Turbo Distortion, and an MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay Pedal – all powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power. In the past, he used Marshall JCM 2000 (both TSL and DSL) amps, and both Peavey 5150 and Triple X amplifiers. He also occasionally uses Yamaha THR amplifiers offstage. He uses custom printed Tortex TIII 1.14mm picks.

The Kramer Pacers that Satchel plays are made with US-manufactured parts rather than off-the-shelf Kramer Pacer guitars manufactured in Korea and/or Indonesia. The most noticeable difference is the bubinga skunk stripe on the back of the necks on all of his guitars. He currently uses a Seymour Duncan JB TB-4 pickup in the bridge, and a Seymour Duncan 59' in the neck, and an original Floyd Rose tremolo with an EVH D-Tuna is fitted to all his guitars. As of 2016, he has stopped using the D-Tuna and instead has a single dedicated guitar for Drop D tuning. He uses D-Addario EXL Super Light (.09 -.42) gauge strings tuned a half-step down to E flat(Eb).

In 2014 Kramer released a signature model featuring both a yellow leopard paint and purple leopard paint. It has the same body as a pacer vintage but has one volume knob, a Seymour Duncan SH-4 and SH-2. While endorsing and primarily playing Kramer guitars, Satchel has also occasionally used other guitar brands as well on some occasions, including Pacifica series guitars by Yamaha as well as various acoustic guitars. His primary acoustic guitar is a Gibson SJ-200 in Antique Natural.

Satchel has been seen playing a Charvel guitar since 2016. It has been speculated that Satchel will be shifting his endorsement to Charvel, and that possible signature models may become available. On March 29, 2017, Charvel posted an article talking about his Custom Charvel Dinky Bengal Striped guitar, the new album, and the latest music video.[11]

In July 2018, the "Pussy Melter", a delay toneprint (preset) which had been manufactured by TC Electronic in an endorsement deal with Satchel, was removed from sale and discontinued following criticism of its alleged sexist marketing strategy.[12] In the end however, the preset was renamed "Repeat Offender" but Satchel still released a distortion pedal named the "Pussy Melter".[13] In March 2019, Satchel released a digital delay pedal called the "Poontang Boomerang" (named after Steel Panther's song of the name same.)[14]

Influences

Parrish has cited Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Buck Dharma, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Lifeson, and Yngwie Malmsteen as his main guitar influences.[15]

Discography
See also: Steel Panther discography
Year Album Band Credited as
1993Time CapsuleWar & PeaceRuss Parrish
War of WordsFight
1994Smoke On The Water: A Tribute To Deep PurpleVarious
1996Spacewalk: A Salute to Ace Frehley
2003Hey That's What I Call Sludge Vol. 1
Hole PatrolMetal SkoolRikki Ratchet
2004All the SameThe ThornbirdsRuss Parrish
2009Feel the SteelSteel PantherSatchel
2011Balls Out
2014All You Can Eat
2017Lower The Bar
Under the Covers: Volume IINinja Sex Party
2019Heavy Metal RulesSteel Panther
gollark: Art is becoming automated now, actually.
gollark: Why study things when you can just use Solomonoff induction?
gollark: In some cases you are best off with a bad but technically working thing, in others a robust and good solution is better.
gollark: Actually, you should optimally choose the correct amount to optimize depending on situation.
gollark: Worrying.

References
  1. "Paul Gilbert - Into The Fire". racerxsurgeon. November 7, 2014. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  2. "Amps & Axes #141 - Paul Gilbert". The Amps & Axes Show. November 7, 2016. Archived from the original on April 10, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  3. "Paul Gilbert – Paul The Young Dude: The Best Of Paul Gilbert (CD) at Discogs". Discogs.com. June 3, 2003. Archived from the original on October 31, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  4. "Russ "Satchel" Parrish – Metal Storm". Metalstorm.ee. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  5. "Russ Parrish - Fight - War & Peace". MusicMayhem. Archived from the original on April 9, 2017. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  6. "Kiss Related Recordings; Spacewalk ; A Tribute to Ace Frehley". Kiss-related-recordings.nl. July 1, 1997. Archived from the original on March 27, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
  7. "CRIME SCENE - Rockalypse Now". Sacred Fools Theatre. October 1, 2000. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  8. "Danger Kitty - Love Rocket Discover Card Commercial (Steel Panther)". Archived from the original on April 10, 2017. Retrieved April 9, 2017.
  9. "Fender promotional poster". Archived from the original on April 9, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  10. "Fender promotional poster". Archived from the original on April 10, 2017. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  11. Instruments, Fender® Musical. "Steel Panthers Switch Up A Few Things for 'Lower the Bar' | Charvel Guitars". www.charvel.com. Archived from the original on April 1, 2017. Retrieved March 31, 2017.
  12. Waters, Lowenna (July 11, 2018). "TC Electronic pull 'sexist' guitar pedal following outrage in the musical community". the Independent. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  13. "{title}". Archived from the original on September 1, 2018. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  14. https://store.steelpantherrocks.com/products/the-poontang-boomerang-pedal
  15. "Interview: Steel Panther''s Satchel". Premierguitar.com. May 6, 2009. Archived from the original on May 13, 2014. Retrieved May 19, 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.