{"id":480882,"date":"2026-02-21T00:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480882\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T00:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T00:36:06","slug":"william-shatner-is-making-a-heavy-metal-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480882\/","title":{"rendered":"William Shatner is making a heavy metal album"},"content":{"rendered":"

As he nears a century on Earth, William Shatner continues to boldly go where William Shatner<\/a> has never gone before. Earlier today, Brooklyn Vegan<\/a> reported that Shatner will bring his enigmatic talk-singing vocal stylings to a 35-song heavy metal album. Described as \u201ca heavy metal extravaganza powered by a veritable army of metal stars,\u201d the album will feature performances from artists hand-selected by Shatner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMetal has always been a place where imagination gets loud,\u201d Shatner says. \u201cThis album is a gathering of forces\u2014each artist bringing their fire, their precision, their chaos. I chose them because they have something to say, and because metal demands honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shatner\u2019s latest headbanging endeavor comes on the heels of his contributions to the upcoming album by Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland\u2019s band, Nuclear Messiah. \u201cWhen Nuclear Messiah came to life, something clicked,\u201d Shatner said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a track\u2014it 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.\u201d While full details have yet to be released, Shatner teased a mix of covers and originals. \u201cI\u2019ve spent a lifetime exploring in both reality and fiction,\u201d he continues. \u201cNow 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. The whole project is destined for this year. I hope you will join me in the exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shatner has had a long and interesting side career in music. His unmistakable staccato style became an indelible part of his celebrity, with his version of \u201cLucy In The Sky With Diamonds\u201d from his 1969 album, The Transformed Man, adding to his idiosyncratic legend. Over the years, he\u2019d again make more pop songs his own, including his beloved covers of Elton John\u2019s \u201cRocket Man\u201d and Pulp\u2019s \u201cCommon People.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s hardly the first sci-fi and fantasy luminary to make a late-in-life pivot to metal. In 2010, 88-year-old Christopher Lee, a classically trained singer with a booming baritone in his own right, who had worked with the likes of Manowar during his career, released his first symphonic heavy metal album, \u200cCharlemagne: By The Sword And The Cross. In 2012, he became the oldest person to ever enter the Billboard charts with \u201cJingle Hell,\u201d a metal Christmas carol<\/a>. A sequel to the album\u200c, Charlemagne: The Omens Of Death, and more Satanic Christmas carols soon followed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he nears a century on Earth, William Shatner continues to boldly go where William Shatner has never…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-480882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}