Captain Kirk Is Recording a Metal Album
When he was captain of the Starship Enterprise, Captain James T. Kirk's mission was to boldly go where no one had gone before. Now William Shatner, the actor behind the iconic Star Trek character, is going somewhere he's never gone before. The 94-year-old is releasing an album of metal music.
Few details about the album, which is supposed to come out later this year from Cleopatra Records, have been revealed, but it will be a collaboration with "35 handpicked metal icons."
"Metal has always been a place where imagination gets loud. This album is a gathering of forces — each artist bringing their fire, their precision, their chaos. I chose them because they have something to say, and because metal demands honesty," Shatner said in a press release.
"I’ve spent a lifetime exploring in both reality and fiction,” Shatner explains. “Now I am stepping out into the unknown once again with my new project in heavy metal. I am covering Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden, as well as a number of new songs written by my team.
Shatner's pivot to metal music didn't come completely out of nowhere. He recorded a spoken-word intro piece for the metal supergroup Nuclear Messiah. That experience prompted him to make a whole metal album of his own.
When Nuclear Messiah came to life, something clicked,” Shatner recalls in the press release. “It wasn’t just a track—it was a doorway. It made me want to go all the way in, bring in the best metal players I could find, and create something fearless.”
This Is Hardly William Shatner's First Musical Moment
While obviously best known for playing Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series, Shatner has a fairly robust discography. His recording career started in 1968 with his debut album The Transformed Man, which features dramatic spoken-word covers of popular songs. He has released more than a dozen albums since.
Perhaps Shatner's best-known (and most infamous) musical moment was a spoken-word cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man' at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. The performance has been widely parodied since, but it is undeniably something to behold.