Los Angeles band Steel Panther combine the glam-rock mockery of Spinal Tap with a serious approach to heavy metal. (Universal Music Canada)

Last year's documentary Anvil: The Story of Anvil charmed audiences and critics for its earnest and often hilarious portrayal of the group's tribulations over the past three decades. Toronto's Anvil was an '80s heavy metal band that inspired heavyweights like Guns N' Roses and Slayer, but self-sabotage and dumb luck combined to deny Anvil the stardom that everyone thought would come.

The lyrics are juvenile and often borderline obscene, but that's what makes Steel Panther so hilarious, even subversive.

The film was at its best when it showed the band taking itself too seriously, which was a key reason for why Anvil never really took off. Anvil's story was somewhat funny for the audience, but ultimately sad for the band members.

On the flip side, there's Steel Panther, a heavy metal band that succeeds precisely because its members take themselves seriously. Much like Anvil, that's also what makes them so funny. The difference is, the guys in Steel Panther are in on the joke.

As their fictional backstory says, the L.A. quartet was tearing up the Sunset Strip in the early '80s along with spandex-clad, hair-sprayed contemporaries such as Motley Crue, Poison and Warrant. Steel Panther — which consists of lead singer Michael Starr, lead guitarist Satchel, "lead" bassist Lexxi Foxx and "lead" drummer Stix Zadinia — were set to play a showcase gig for a host of major record labels. Instead, they pulled the most rock 'n’ roll of moves: they didn't bother showing up. No one knows what happened to them, and the ensuing record deal instead went to a little band called Jane's Addiction. The rest, of course, is history.

In reality, Steel Panther’s members boast a strong metal pedigree, having collectively spent time in glam outfit L.A. Guns, Judas Priest singer Rob Halford's band Fight and Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson's War & Peace — not to mention a Van Halen cover group called Atomic Punks. Steel Panther came together in 2000 and played the Strip under various names, including Danger Kitty, Metal Skool and Metal Shop, perfecting their parody of the glam genre along the way. But make no mistake — underneath the eyeliner and frizzed-up hair, these guys can play. Along with their own songs, they do pitch-perfect covers of the likes of Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses and AC/DC. After the boys finally settled on the name Steel Panther, Universal Records came knocking.

(Universal Music Canada)

To return to their fictional story, Steel Panther emerged from hiding last year with the supposedly long-lost album Feel the Steel, a dozen tracks of blistering glam rock that wouldn't be out of place on a Whitesnake or Def Leppard album. Indeed, some of the song titles — Eatin' Ain't Cheatin' and The Shocker — seem plucked from the same innuendo-laced playbook as Whitesnake's Slide It In and Slip of the Tongue.

But where their contemporaries only toy with sexual innuendo, Steel Panther goes right for the crotch. In one sugary ballad, Starr croons to his sweetheart that while "My heart belongs to you," his penis is community property. In another track, he asks an ugly groupie to "Turn out the lights, I think I'm gonna hurl/Jesus Christ, I hope that you're a girl."

The adolescent humour, coupled with true musical ability and bang-on send-up of the genre, seems be to working. The band plays weekly gigs in L.A. and Las Vegas, many of which are sold out thanks to locals who come to see them again and again. Feel the Steel's debut track, Death to All But Metal, grabbed "single of the week" honours on iTunes in November.

The lyrics are juvenile and often borderline obscene, but that's what makes Steel Panther so hilarious, even subversive. By getting right to the point rather than dancing around it, the band exposes how ridiculous some pop music is. While T-Pain recently rapped about being in love with a stripper, in Steel Panther's Stripper Girl, Starr gets honest about why up-and-coming musicians actually get involved with exotic dancers: "Stripper Girl, heaven sent/Pay my phone bill, pay my rent."

It's all done without a knowing smile or a wink. These guys seem to really believe in what they're doing. On a recent swing through Canada, where Steel Panther played shows in Toronto and Vancouver, I was warned in advance that the band never breaks character. True enough, our "interview" was more of a finely honed comedy routine.

Satchel, who does most of the talking, gets antsy when the topic of Spinal Tap comes up. Zadinia had just got a splinter from the counter he was leaning on, leading to discussion of whether the band had a backup, as Spinal Tap famously did to cope with its strange bout of spontaneously combusting drummers.

Sarah Silverman plays a high-school principal in the Steel Panther video Death to All But Metal. (YouTube)

"Spinal Tap was a joke band. They joked around a lot. This is a serious band," Satchel says in earnest. "We’re not screwing around here. We're going to go out there and do songs that come from the deepest parts of our souls."

"I'm the drummer, dude, and I'm not going to explode," Zadinia adds.

The band gets particularly animated when discussing who was the better Black Sabbath singer: Ozzy Osbourne or Ronnie James Dio. Their vote splits evenly down the middle, but Satchel again supplies the wisdom: "Dio has more power per square inch, because he's only like 3 foot 9, but the guy sings so good and so powerfully that he moves my testicles."

And then there's the important debate over whom the band members would rather have sex with: one of the little people from The Wizard of Oz or one of the female Na'vi from Avatar. Starr opts for Avatar, but Satchel makes him think twice: "Think of how small you would look."

The backstage banter carries over to their performance, where between songs the band members take turns belittling each other. Satchel tells Starr that he looks like a "fat David Lee Roth or a skinny Bret Michaels" (the respective singers of Van Halen and Poison), while everyone repeatedly questions Foxx's sexuality. Foxx himself is oblivious to all this, as he fixes his long, blond hair in a hand-held mirror.

Steel Panther has also amassed a fan base among celebrities — Sarah Silverman appears in the video for Death to All But Metal, and the band has been joined on stage by the likes of Drew Carey, Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne. In a fake VH1 Behind the Music video put together by the band, Dave Navarro recalls going to see Steel Panther back in the '80s, and then calling up his friend Perry Farrell.

"We were sitting in the audience and we looked at each other and we were like, 'This is it.' It blew our minds. From that day forward, we decided to form Jane's Addiction," he says.

Unlike Anvil, Steel Panther's trajectory is aimed upward. And if they can continue to ensure their drummer doesn’t explode, all the better.

Peter Nowak writes about technology for CBC News.