Star Trek hero William Shatner had by no means listened to prog earlier than he began work on 2013 album Ponder The Thriller (which he revisited a decade later). Impressed by Billy Sherwood (earlier than his full-time return to Sure) the pair created an album dripping with heavyweight visitor expertise. It led to the actor’s discovery of a connection between progressive music and science fiction, and a file that moved him to tears.
“Yearly Tom Hanks has a Shakespeare studying to lift funds for faculties,” says William Shatner, demonstrating his potential to spin an amazing movie star yarn. “He will get all his mates collectively – of which I’d like to contemplate myself one – and we do a studying of one in every of Shakespeare’s performs. The most recent one is The Two Gents Of Verona. Paul McCartney goes to sing some songs, and I’m going to do Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds with him.”
That $1,500-per-seat occasion came about at a sold-out Broad Stage Theater in Santa Monica. Hanks, Macca and Shatner had been joined by Val Kilmer and Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander, amongst others, to lift cash for varied good causes.
With its tempo modifications, Mellotron intro and marshmallow skies, Lucy is a fairly proggy piece of labor. Shatner’s outstanding tackle it was the spotlight of The Remodeled Man, his debut album – launched in 1968 as the unique Star Trek collection was getting into its third and ultimate season. “My understanding is Paul discovered my interpretation ‘fascinating!’” the actor laughs. “That’s the phrase he used!”
William Shatner does. Now and again. Communicate in. Staccato bursts. Additionally, he has a figuring out, nearly English sense of irony about himself. He’s properly conscious that many individuals would possibly discover him – or a minimum of his musical endeavours – faintly absurd. And but he’s pleasant, articulate and, along with his 83rd birthday arising, nonetheless in possession of extra marbles than many Hollywood stars start with.
“He’s simply an incredible, down-to-earth man and an incredible artist,” says former Sure guitarist Billy Sherwood. “He’s able to going to the Bahamas and retiring, however he desires to proceed along with his artwork, and I respect that.”
Sherwood has collaborated with Shatner on his fourth musical enterprise, Ponder The Thriller. They had been launched by Brian Perera, founding father of Sherwood’s common label Cleopatra, which additionally launched Shatner’s daffy 2011 covers album In search of Main Tom.
“Brian advised I meet Billy,” says the actor, “and so they requested what I’d do. I mentioned, ‘Nicely, I might take a time period: there’s a man on a seaside who’s in despair an hour earlier than sundown. The solar units, and thru the fantastic thing about what he sees, he regains his pleasure of life.’
”They mentioned, ‘Uh, okay!’ They didn’t actually know what I used to be speaking about – and in a method, neither did I. I started to put in writing new lyrics about twilight, sundown and the sounds of the evening, and earlier than we knew it we had 15 songs.”
I conceived the concept that progressive rock is to music what science fiction is to literature
William Shatner
“I believed it was an unimaginable inventive expression for a person in his place,” says Sherwood. “I mentioned, ‘Let’s go at this like a severe progressive rock file. Let’s attempt to make an fascinating piece of artwork right here, not fear about what persons are anticipating and simply do what we need to do.’
“He was into that and ran with it. I waited for him to present me lyrics; I obtained the vibe, harmonically talking, and bounced off of these.” He cites and instance: “He wrote So Am I about his canine dying, and equating it to himself and mortality. It was melancholy, so I wrote music with nearly a church-like ambiance.”
Although maybe not for everyone, the idea works properly for individuals who to go along with it. Shatner’s spoken-word existential enquiries are set to Sherwood’s extremely efficient symph-prog rock preparations, on songs equivalent to The place It’s Gone… I Don’t Know, I’m Alright, The place Does Time Go? and I Assume. Musically and vocally, Sherwood – “a bloody genius,” in line with Shatner – does the heavy lifting. His layered harmonies and rock tones are an astringent counterpoint to the Star Trek hero’s distinctive, what’s-it-all- about recitative.
I knew there’d be individuals who would get it, and others who had been ready to listen to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Billy Sherwood
Musically, jazz is Shatner’s past love; and he admits that, earlier than hooking up with Sherwood, he’d by no means been an enormous progressive rock fan. “However after I got here up with this concept, I went again and listened to all these nice bands like Pink Floyd, to get the cohesiveness of the idea. I inform ya, I’m getting myself into deep water right here! I appear to have lurched into this space by osmosis.
“I conceived the concept that progressive rock is to music what science fiction is to literature. There’s in science fiction a need to additional the creativeness, to take what exists and go additional to discover the boundaries, the horizons. In progressive rock you push the music to the sting and uncover new methods of doing issues.
“Possibly this album is a brand new method of doing issues – I don’t know, however in my expertise that is new. It tantalises you with new concepts of how music and the spoken phrase – the music of language itself – can mix.”
The oddest, most avant-garde tune on the album should be Rhythm Of The Night time. Hawkwind’s Nik Turner provides sax to an evocative, shiny slab of AOR- inflected prog that’s intriguing and enjoyable, with Shatner’s love of wordplay on the fore. “I had the concept for the road, ‘The cricket is the ticket to the rhythm of the evening / The cadence of the hawk is obligato to the nightfall.’ Billy took the rhythm of my phrases and put them to music.”
Sherwood provides: “I needed that in an odd meter – to have the rhythms transfer round. So I performed the drums loopy on that one. It’s a cool tune. My primary problem was to ensure after I performed one thing, he was digging it. He was actually accepting of the compositions; it grew to become very pure. Most of the tasks I do, we begin getting in a stream and so they change into simpler over time.”
I’m used to music in its conventional type; this was extra like prog rock theater. I’m singing, doing my factor, and Invoice’s studying and doing his
Billy Sherwood
Via his Prog Collective and quite a few tribute albums, Sherwood has a confirmed monitor file for eliciting nice performances from a galaxy of prog stars. Ponder The Thriller is energised by visitors together with Steve Vai, Edgar Winter, The Doorways’ Robbie Krieger, Foreigner’s Mick Jones and Tangerine Dream’s Edgar Froese.
When Al Di Meola heard Shatner was doing a brand new album, he referred to as him up straight and requested to be part of it. The actor had by no means heard of the jazz fusion guitarist – however Sherwood leapt on the possibility to get him concerned. Rick Wakeman has been a Sherwood ‘pal and ally’ for years so he’s added some nimble elements. The album is notable for that includes a few of the final recorded work by the late keyboard nice George Duke, whose overdubs had been despatched to Sherwood’s studio simply days earlier than he died.
The theme of mortality is a significant side of the work. Shatner’s robust second album, 2004’s Has Been – produced by Ben Folds – contained some intense moments such because the hauntingly sparse What Have You Finished, impressed by the tragic 1999 loss of life of his third spouse, Nerine Kidd-Shatner. “That’s what I tuned into,” says Sherwood.
“It was very heavy; it was actual. I knew there’d be individuals who would get Ponder The Thriller, and others who had been ready to listen to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – there’s nothing we might do about that, so I made a decision to roll the cube to get folks pondering slightly than ready for the joke. I’m very very happy with what we’ve give you.”
They launched the album with three small membership dates in LA, the place Shatner was backed by Sherwood and his common band Circa, that includes Tony Kaye. “I’ve by no means executed a present like that,” says Sherwood. “I’m used to music in its conventional type; this was extra like prog rock theater. I’m singing, doing my factor, and Invoice’s studying and doing his, and the combination created a novel expertise.
“One evening he informed a narrative about how musicians, if one thing’s improper, give one another a glance – he’d realised the battery pack for his in-ear screens wasn’t even on. I mentioned to him afterwards, ‘Dude, you’re supposed to inform me this stuff so I can come over and repair it!’ In rehearsal we musicians is perhaps getting just a little tense; he’d be simply sitting there, smiling by all of it. I’d inform him, ‘It’s essential screw one thing up so I can yell at you just a little bit!’ It was all so humorous, and so surreal.”
If Sherwood’s primary precedence was to maintain his captain completely satisfied, he actually achieved that. “I’ve by no means had a extra artistic, pleasant and spectacular time with anybody in anywhere,” says Shatner of his co-writer. “There are such unbelievable gamers on the album.
“I’d fearful there’d be a sameness to the songs – however they’ve lent their uniqueness to them. There are songs on right here that transfer me to tears regardless of how usually I hear them. It’s been fantastic.”