William Shatner Makes Heavy Metal Debut at Riot Fest — SkimNews
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- William Shatner made his heavy metal debut Saturday at a Riot Fest Chicago after-hours gig at Chicago's Park West, performing with his new band the *uckers ahead of their first official show Sunday at Riot Fest.
- The six-song set included covers of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," Metallica's "Enter Sandman," and Motörhead's "Ace of Spades," alongside three tracks from his upcoming album "What the F Is Heavy Metal?"
- Shatner's upcoming album features guest appearances from Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi, Queen's Brian May, Judas Priest's Rob Halford, and Slayer's Dave Lombardo.
- Shatner announced the metal venture on social media, saying: "I have explored space. I have explored time. Now … I explore distortion."
- Shatner told Billboard heavy metal is "an energy that permeates your body and lifts you up," calling it "the rhythm of life," and said he was having custom earbuds made for the performances.
- The 95-year-old previously explored spoken word, blues, country, Christmas, and children's music before declaring heavy metal his latest frontier.
Why it matters: At 95, Shatner is commissioning custom earbuds for live metal performance and recruiting genuine genre legends (Iommi, May, Halford, Lombardo) for his album — positioning this as a serious collaboration with active rock royalty rather than a celebrity novelty stunt, and marking a continuation of his decades-long genre-hopping recording career into metal's loudest register.
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