the F*CKERS

Legendary Star Trek actor William Shatner made his live debut with new backup band the Fuckers over the weekend for a pair of performances in Chicago, Illinois, where they performed Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica tunes to tease a forthcoming metal album. Shat’s first metal set was Saturday night (September 19th) at Park West in Chicago, Illinois. The 95-year-old performed a six-song set that began with his take on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” After delivering a bit of madman cackling (“Does this sound insane,” he quipped), he gave the metal classic a dramatic spoken word line reading to, not unlike past Shat curios like his late Seventies “Rocket Man” performance at the Saturn Awards. Also aboard the setlist on Saturday night were covers of Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” and Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” while the Fuckers also performed original songs “Rage,” “Sky” and “One Fear.” Yesterday (September 20th) found Shatner and the Fuckers popping up at Riot Fest, where they delivered a similar set for the crowd at Douglass Park. There, he added a few details about his impending LP. “So, a little while ago, Brian Perera at Cleopatra Records said to me, ‘Why don’t you do a heavy metal album?’ Because I had done five albums with him. And I said, ‘What the fuck is heavy metal?’ And that’s the name of the album that will come out in the wintertime — it’s called What the F is Heavy Metal.” You’ll find highlights from both sets up above and down below. What the F Is Heavy Metal? — which follows his Where Will the Animals Sleep? kids album from 2024 — is set to feature a mix of originals and covers. It also apparently netted “35 hand-picked metal icons,” with those confirmed so far including Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, Queen’s Brian May, Zakk Wylde, former Slayer skinsman Dave Lombardo, Henry Rollins and more. A due date has yet to be locked in, but it will appear sometime in the winter via Cleopatra Records. View this post on Instagram