Mötley Crüe Mistaken for Their Parody Act Foes Steel Panther in Prime Video Doc Poster

No one could blame you for mixing up the horde of hair-heavy, ’80s glam metal bands at first glance – unless you’re Amazon Prime, then people will for sure call you out big time. The streaming service recently committed the highly meme-able sin of not only confusing two bands but two bands from two completely different eras who also don’t have the best relationship.

The mix-up occurred on the poster for the 2020 documentary Rock ‘n Roll Icon: Mötley Crüe, which does not feature a photo of the outfit but rather one of their contemporary hair metal revivalists/satirists, Steel Panther. Though strangely, hovering just above the photo of Steel Panther is a slightly out-of-frame true Crüe photo—hard to tell what the thinking behind that decision was.

The mistake was first spotted by a Steel Panther fan, who posted a video to Instagram that was then reposted by Steel Panther frontman Michael Starr. Steel Panther joked about the mix-up, quipping, “Just to be clear, that new documentary about us on @PrimeVideo is completely unauthorized and full of falsehoods. They didn’t even talk to us.”

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The two bands’ turbulent history adds insult to injury—Mötley Crüe has long slighted Steel Panther for their shtick. The friction likely dates back to a 2011 U.K. tour that featured the Crüe, Def Leppard, and Steel Panther. In a 2017 interview, Steel Panther drummer Stix Zadinia said Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx were not fans of the parody act. “I think they thought we were actually making fun of them directly. And I just gotta chalk that up to their egos being too big because nothing that we do has anything to do with them directly,” Zadinia said.

The beef was then escalated a few years ago when Starr quipped in a 2019 interview with Little Punk People that if he could bring any artist back from the dead, it would be Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil.

While Neil was very obviously not dead, Starr took another shot saying, “I’d bring back the Vince Neil from back in the day because that guy is dead.” The comment clearly struck a nerve with Sixx, who shot back on Twitter, “The singer in steal [sic] panther can go fück himself… wanna be band putting down @thevinceneil?”

Amazon Prime has since updated the cover image to an actual photo of Mötley Crüe. Though due to a lack of comment from the notorious oppositional group it seems there are no hard feelings.

(Photo by Ross Marino/Getty Images)