TESLA bassist Brian Wheat has again pushed back against the "hair metal" tag often applied to his band, telling Japanese broadcaster Masa Ito on TVK's "Rock City" that the label is used condescendingly to suggest a group is all image and no substance. He argued TESLA's blues-based, working-class rock style has more in common with acts like THE BLACK CROWES and BAD COMPANY than with the glam-associated bands the term is usually meant to describe, even though TESLA has long toured alongside acts such as MÖTLEY CRÜE, RATT and POISON.

Wheat expanded on comments he made in a February 2025 interview, saying the "hair band" label used to genuinely irritate him but that he has grown more relaxed about it over the past decade, so long as people still come to shows. He questioned the term's historical accuracy too, noting that when RATT's debut album appeared in 1984 there was no such genre label yet, and pointed to VAN HALEN and the SCORPIONS as contemporaries who had long hair but weren't tarred with the same brush. TESLA, he said, continues to play 60 to 100 shows a year regardless of how the band is categorised.