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Starship starring Mickey Thomas

May 30th, 2008 Posted in Music

One of the most recognizable voices in Rock & Roll, Mickey Thomas, was first elevated to national acclaim for his performance of lead vocals in the song “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” with the Elvin Bishop Group. The song went to #3 and cemented Mickey’s place among top tier musicians.

It wasn’t until 1979 however, when the winds of change would truly blow for Mickey and set him on the fast track for legendary rock status. Shortly after losing their key lead singers Marty Balin and Grace Slick, the band that once existed as Jefferson Airplane, (then informally as Jefferson Starship) was at a profound loss for lead vocals. That’s when Mickey got the call and the new Jefferson Starship was born. Eventually as other members of the band came and went, the band dropped “Jefferson” from their moniker, performing now as Starship starring Mickey Thomas.

Setting up a string of hits through the 80’s and 90’s, the group etched several songs into America’s hearts and minds. Grace Slick came back for a time from 1985-88 and the most commercially successful of any of Starship’s incarnations took place. Most famously producing “We Built This City” (on Rock & Roll), Starship created a song that still remains at the pinnacle of rock anthems and the music of the times. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” was another huge hit for the band, as well as “Sara” and “It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s Over).”

Since then, Mickey has carried on the banner for Starship, keeping in touch and working with some of the musical stars from the 80’s rock scene and keeping the band in top notch form for dates from public venues to the corporate and special events markets.

Mickey has obviously seen some incredible successes in his life, but a more humble and personable guy is still hard to find. Far from the stereotypical rock star head case, Mickey is polite, unassuming and grounded. He will be the first to tell you he would have never become famous based on raw talent alone. He says the turns that have led him on his incredible career are due as much to being struck by lady luck than anything else.

“I was living in South Georgia, where I grew up, and there was an African-American Gospel singer named Gideon Daniels who was traveling through the area and happened to be specifically looking for a white, southern, male tenor to join his all-world band in San Francisco. He really believed in having multi-racial and multi-cultural presences in his band and when I met him I just happened to fall into the niche he was looking for. That was like a bolt from the blue – a complete chance occurrence.”

Mickey says that even at this point, singing as a career hadn’t really struck him; he looked at the whole thing as more of an adventure than anything else. “Even then, my main impetus was really just wanting to go to the west coast… to California. I thought ‘Wow, this is my chance!’ Being a child of the sixties, I knew there was something going on in California and that it was big and important. So I really just went for the experience of traveling the country more than thinking ‘Oh, this is my big chance to have a music career (laughs)!’”

Soon after, Mickey was lucky enough to meet Elvin Bishop. “One thing led to another and Elvin asked me to do some background vocal sessions on a couple of his albums and that went well, so he asked me to join the Elvin Bishop Group. “Fooled Around and Fell In Love” came along and it was like being in a dream. I feel extremely fortunate and its kind of funny, because you hear a lot of stories of people pursuing the music business for their whole lives and in a way, I feel like the business sort of pursued me. All these things just sort of fell into my lap; maybe it was just ‘meant to be’ as they say.”

Nothing but the same could be said when the call coming from Jefferson Starship about recruiting a new lead male vocal. “I was 28 when I left the Elvin Bishop Group to pursue a solo career with the gentleman who had produced Elvin’s band. The call from Jefferson Starship was really a bolt from the blue again. I was living in the San Francisco area and didn’t really know anyone from Starship and didn’t really follow their music, but I did know who they were obviously, through the tabloid drama focused on them.”

Mickey knew enough about them at the time to know this was a significant turning point for his career. “I thought ‘Wow, why me? How is this going to work?’ I was just coming out of the Elvin Bishop Group, which was heavily influenced by blues and R&B and here I am getting a call about what I was thinking of as this sort of spacey cross between science fiction and folk rock (laughs). I was a little unsure at first but I thought it was maybe just odd enough to give it a try.”

Mickey says it took some getting to know the right people and experimenting with each other, but eventually it became clear that there was chemistry. “We hung out and jammed some and got to know each other, which was a gradual process. It took about six months to get to know them, and they had a significant gap in their force. The only reason I even had the opportunity that I did was because Grace Slick and Marty Balin both left the group at just about the same time. There was some question about whether or not Starship would even go on at that point, but the remaining embers of that fire wanted to stick it out and see if they could make it burn again.”

Mickey says the main thing that piqued his interest was the unique opportunity that Starship presented; in being a band that could utilize its name recognition, but also in being able to jump off with a completely fresh start. “That’s where we came up with the name for the first album, Freedom At Point Zero. We got to come out with a harder edge, rocking a little bit harder than the band had done in the past few years with softer, slower songs like “Miracles,” “Runaway” and “Count On Me”. We figured we’d come right out of the gate and hit ‘em over the head with something like “Jane.”

This raw-edged, hard-rocking tune gave Mickey that chance to really rip into rock & roll in a big way. “I kind of liked the idea of rocking a little bit harder and me being able to apply my Gospel-tinged high-end vocals over a nice rock & roll base. We thought it just might work, and it did.”

Around 1985 Starship decided to reinvent itself again and boldly explore new musical galaxies for itself. “In the mid 80’s there was a completely new revolution of making music in the studio, involving more machines and electronics, sampling, sequences and other things. That was really exciting to us, you know. We wanted to apply some of these new creative devices to our music and come out with an original new sound for Starship.” Within an 18-month span Jefferson Starship had released two albums containing 3 #1 singles, including “We Built This City” and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us”.

Now the entire Starship catalogue is available with Mickey and the band for private dates in the corporate market. With a winning attitude Mickey comes in and takes all due considerations into mind when serving special client’s needs. “The whole corporate experience has become really fun for us; we really enjoy it. The people are great; they just want to come and have fun. The venues and production are always really nice and well done and the locations are great. We always check out the groups we will perform for. What kind of people are they? Where is the event? What is the mood? What are the goals of the event planner etc.? In this way we can pick the best set of hit Starship songs, along with some covers that will get the crowd pumped up.” Attention to details always makes for memorable performances, and Starship isn’t too important to be diligent.

Not only can Starship starring Mickey Thomas be a great selection for your entertainment, but also the most special attractions with Mickey are perhaps the “Starship & Friends” performances. Maintaining relationships with some of the biggest rock stars of the 80’s, Mickey can bring along some of these special friends to come on stage and sing their songs with the band. This program can turn out to be an all-star special. “We currently do about 30 corporate dates a year and at least half of them are what we call ‘Starship & Friends.’ Basically it is a concert in the style of an old R&B review, where you have one house band that plays for five or six feature performers. So, we may do 20 or 30 minutes of Starship’s biggest songs, followed by some of our buddies from our favorite bands singing their songs backed by the Starship band. Some of the people that have participated include Jimi Jamison from Survivor, Bobby Kimball from Toto, Jack Blades of Night Ranger, Mike Reno of Loverboy and lots more. That format works really well and we have so much fun with it. We really are all friends, so we kind of feed of off each other and have some great shows. The audience eats it up because we start playing a cover they love and they don’t even believe what’s happening at first. They think we are simply doing a tribute or have a look-alike of these guys, but it’s the real deal and when they realize that, they go crazy. We typically will play with 3 or 4 artists like that, but have a huge pool we draw from depending on availability. It’s great.”

Starship has new material in progress and hopes to have an album out by the end of the year. “We would love to have a new CD out by the end of the year or early next year. We are really busy right now and will have tons of tour dates over the spring and summer, so we have to find time between traveling and gigs to get in the studio and get it done. It’s a good problem to have though I suppose (laughs).”

Starship won’t mind if you keep them out of the studio just a little bit longer to come and put on one heck of a show for your next event’s guests. Consider bringing this classic rock icon to your next show and get your audience pumped up and rockin’.

BOOK IT!
Jim Lenz
Paradise Artists
(805) 646-8433