Brian May has confirmed that he plays on William Shatner's heavy metal album — and in the same breath revealed that Tony Iommi is joining it too.
Speaking to Zoe Ball on the U.K.'s Greatest Hits Radio, the QUEEN guitarist described meeting the 95-year-old actor over Zoom. "He wasn't a friend of mine, but he is now. We've met on Zoom. What a great guy. He's 95. And he's full of life and vitality and ambition and anger and all this stuff. He's like a kid. I really enjoyed meeting him, and I insisted that I do, 'cause I just worked on his track remotely and I said, 'Look, I gotta play this to Mr. Shatner and see his face when he hears it.' And he loved it, so I'm really pleased."
Then came the part that changes the record's shape. "Yeah, it's a heavy metal album. Here he is, 95 years old, and he's full of rage, rage against the dying of the light," May said. "Well, it's not… I don't call it heavy metal; I call it rock, really. But it will probably be a heavy metal album because I think Tony Iommi's gonna play on it now as well. Tony's really my best mate, so it's easy for me to pick up the phone to him. And Tony's like me — he loves a challenge."
When we covered May's involvement on September 8, we noted that the title, release date and remaining guest appearances were all still blank. The title has since surfaced, and it is a transcript of Shatner's own first reaction: "What The F Is Heavy Metal?"
"Cleopatra, the label that I work with frequently, said to me, 'Why don't you do a heavy metal album?' And I said, 'What the F is heavy metal?'" he told Michael Moynihan on "The Moynihan Report". "Then I heard 'Patience', the song 'Patience' [by GUNS N' ROSES]. So we write a song called 'Impatience'."
By his own account he has approached the genre as a complete beginner, and says so without embarrassment. "You gotta start with the premise that I really know nothing. I'm inquisitive. Apparently, I'm inquisitive, and I'm reading and looking up all the time, stuff. So I began to experiment. I fastened on to emotions. I thought heavy metal has gotta be about emotions — violent, passionate… Not violent — passionate emotions."
The confirmed guest list now runs to Iommi, May, JUDAS PRIEST's Rob Halford, DISTURBED bassist John Moyer and former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo.
Shatner also has a band to play it with. THE *UCKERS — Marcus Nand on guitar and serving as musical director, Phil Soussan on bass, Britt Lightning on guitar and Fred Aching on drums — make their live debut at Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglass Park on Sunday, September 20. The set will work through Shatner's musical catalogue while previewing material from "What The F Is Heavy Metal?".