William Shatner, 95 years old, played his first-ever concert with a heavy metal band on Saturday night (September 19) at Park West in Chicago — a Riot Fest aftershow that doubled as the warm-up for his main festival slot at Douglass Park the following evening.
The band is called THE *UCKERS, and the lineup is not a joke: Marcus Nand, who has worked with Mike Tramp and Candice Night, on guitar and as musical director; Phil Soussan on bass; Britt Lightning of VIXEN on guitar; and Fred Aching of KINGS OF THRASH and DEAD GROOVE behind the kit.
The set reworked material from across Shatner's long and famously unclassifiable recorded output while previewing songs from his upcoming album What The F Is Heavy Metal?. It also included covers — fan-filmed footage from Park West captures renditions of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train", MOTÖRHEAD's "Ace Of Spades" and METALLICA's "Enter Sandman".
Soussan, for his part, was not playing it cool beforehand. "I'm excited to play with one of my childhood heroes," he said. "I was a huge 'Star Trek' fan, so this is kind of a bucket list type of event." Shatner's own framing, posted to social media, was shorter: "I have explored space. I have explored time. Now… I explore distortion."
Riot Fest's organisers said in a July announcement that they landed him "after years of persistent letter writing." Shatner, in turn, laid out conditions in a video: "Don't forget my bowl of sauerkraut, if you please!" The rider also reportedly called for fire breathers — "many of them" — a Montreal Canadiens sweater signed by John Stamos, four feet of Polish sausage, and an assortment of adoptable puppies from a local animal rescue.
The album behind all this has been assembling in public for most of the year. As we have reported, its guest list includes QUEEN guitarist Brian May, BLACK SABBATH's Tony Iommi, JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford, DISTURBED bassist John Moyer and former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo. The title came straight out of Shatner's mouth when Cleopatra Records first pitched the idea. "Cleopatra said to me, 'Why don't you do a heavy metal album?' And I said, 'What the F is heavy metal?' Then I heard 'Patience' by GUNS N' ROSES. So we write a song called 'Impatience'."
He has been open about approaching the genre as a beginner. "You gotta start with the premise that I really know nothing," he said earlier this month. "I began to experiment. I fastened on to emotions. I thought heavy metal has gotta be about emotions — violent, passionate… Not violent — passionate emotions."
Shatner was diagnosed with stage 4 malignant melanoma in 2023, which spread to his lungs and brain; after two years of immunotherapy and surgery he is cancer free. He has also said he will play a half-hour set at Coachella in spring 2027.