Life Aboard the STARSHIP • An Exclusive Interview with MICKEY THOMAS

On Saturday, October 11^th legendry rock icons STARSHIP featuring Mickey Thomas and Foghat will be making a highly anticipated appearance at The Dow Event Center theatre for an evening of timeless hits, high-energy performance, and epic rock ‘n roll energy delivered right in the heart of Saginaw.

Known for delivering some of the biggest anthems of the ’70s and ’80s, STARSHIP will light up the stage with classics like “We Built This City,” “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” and “Sara”, along with classics dating back to the group’s original Jefferson Airplane days when they first emerged as one of the iconic San Francisco bands to blossom nationally during the Summer of Love back in 1967.

In advance of their Saginaw appearance, recently I had the opportunity to interview STARSHIP vocalist Mickey Thomas, who prior to joining Jefferson Starship was a member of Elvin Bishop's band as a backing and occasional lead vocalist who hit the jackpot as lead singer on Bishop's best-known song, "Fooled Around And Fell In Love".

Possessing a powerfully soaring voice, Mickey Thomas propelled STARSHIP through the decade of the 80’s. and with his soulful and compelling vocals established himself as one of Rock Music’s most recognizable stars. In 1979, Mickey joined Jefferson Starship as their lead vocalist after the departure of Grace Slick and Marty Balin, recording a string of hits including “Jane”, “No Way Out”, “Find Your Way Back”, “Stranger”, and “Layin’ It on the Line”.

The group was renamed STARSHIP in 1985 and went on to record three #1 hit songs including “We Built This City”, “Sara”, and “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, from the film, Mannequin, which also was an Academy Award nominee. Their hit “It’s Not Over ‘Till It’s Over” became Major League Baseball’s theme in 1987. Mickey’s stellar voice and video charisma on STARSHIP’s video classics such as “We Built This City” and “Sara” also became staples on MTV and VH1.

REVIEW: It's really a pleasure to do this interview with you. Coming out of Georgia and eventually joining one of the most memorable bands to surface from San Francisco during the Summer of Love, like many artists back in the early 1960s  apparently catching a live performance by The Beatles in 1965 was like a gateway drug experience for turning you on to music, but at what point did you decide to pursue it as a career?

Mickey Thomas: Well, as you mentioned, the first thing that interested me was The Beatles. I was a huge fan and like so many other people of my age during that time, I was caught up in Boodlemania and I did get a chance to see The Beatles perform live in 1965, which was quite an overwhelming experience.  It was exactly like all the old black and white newsreel footage that you see from the time - you know, complete pandemonium.  So I thought, this is pretty cool!  My best friends who went to the concert with me said, “Man, we’ve got to see if we can't at least try to emulate our heroes, and so we got together a little high school band and started learning songs of our own from different 45-singles, playing Beatle records with our cheap guitars and trying to figure out the chords. We started our band when I was 15-years old. We were in high school and we were pretty terrible, but we had fun trying. 

At that point in time, I never thought of music as being something that I would do for the rest of my life. At that point in time it was all about just having fun and trying to emulate our heroes and trying to get girls to notice you. The first time where I realized music might be something that I could really have a career at was when I joined the Elvin Bishop Band back in 1975.

REVIEW: How did that happen?

Mickey Thomas: It started back in 1975.  I  met a  gospel singer by the name of Gideon Daniels, who lived in San Francisco, and was good friends with Elvin, and he introduced me to him. Whenever Elvin was performing locally in San Francisco, we'd go around to sit in and jam, so I got to know Elvin through Gideon. Elvin invited me to sing background vocals on some of his albums back in the early to mid 70s, and that went really well, so ultimately he invited me to join the band in 1975.

REVIEW: And then you guys had that amazing hit single, Fooled Around & Fell In Love, that hit the jackpot and took you straight to the top of the charts.   Do you have any recollections of what that period was like? It must have been pretty crazy.

Mickey Thomas:  Yeah, it was crazy. We were recording the Strutting My Stuff album in 1975 at Criteria Studios in Miami Beach, which is a famous recording studio where a lot of great music was created. Derek & the Dominos recorded Layla there, Crosby, Stills & Nash - just a ton of great stuff. 

We were working with a great producer, a guy by the name of Bill Szymczyk  who produced a lot of famous music in the 1970s for Joe Walsh and tons of bands, and ironically Fooled Around was almost an afterthought.  It was the last thing we recorded for the album, and Elvin was originally going to sing it; but after a few tries he decided maybe his voice wasn't particularly well-suited for  that song, given the lyrics were structured as more of a tender love ballad. Elvin was more accustomed to singing the kind of raunchier and Bluesy stuff, you know?

So he asked me to give this song a shot and we were able to capture some magic in the studio on that one,  It was the first time I’d ever heard my voice on the radio, and it was a song that really changed everything for me, opened up all the  doors, and ultimately led to me being able to get into Jefferson Starship and also do some solo work.

REVIEW: How long did you perform with Elvin and at what point did the doors open to Jefferson Starship?

Mickey Thomas:   I played with Elvin in the band for 3 years and left around 1980. We were just kind of kicking around and I actually was getting ready at that point in time to go back to Miami to record a solo album, but that’s when I got the call from Jefferson Starship asking if I might be interested in coming in to meet with them, hang out, and possibly join the band as vocalist since both Grace Slick and Marty Balin had the left the group at that point in time.

REVIEW: Those were some pretty big shoes for a vocalist to fill. How did you approach it?

Mickey Thomas: Well, yeah - it was a daunting task. In the beginning I was very hesitant about joining the Jefferson Starship and one of the reasons was because of having to kind of fill the void that had been left by both Grace and Marty leaving the band at about the same time. I was thinking to myself, ‘Who’s going to be able to fill those shoes?’  I also thought I might be biting off a little more than I can chew, plus I was getting ready to do a solo album.  With my musical background coming from the Blues, R&B, Soul, and Gospel music,  I was wasn’t sure how that was going to fit in with the Jefferson Starship sound. 

But then I thought, what have I got to lose?  I’ll go and meet the guys and hang out and see if we can have some fun and find out what happens. They started jamming on a rough version of  the song Jane, which was the first thing they played for me. And when we started working on that I thought this was not what I expected musically from Jefferson Starship, so that genuinely piqued my interest to the point I thought this might actually work.  Jane is what convinced me to join the band and that was the first song that we recorded and it also became our first hit single, so that was our calling card for the new Jefferson Starship.

REVIEW: What do you feel is the biggest challenge for an artist in terms of evolving their music and not becoming repetitive? Most groups have a lifetime to create their first album and then a year or two to create their second.

Mickey Thomas: That happens quite often that the first album is a masterpiece, or what’s better known as the one-hit-wonder syndrome. At the same time, on the flip side of that, as you do more albums you learn more about the recording process and how to make records and what to do and not do, so hopefully you evolve as a recording artist by learning the process along the way. I think it was more like that for me. Every album was like a new adventure for me, especially when we did the transition from Jefferson Starship to Starship. That was a real turning point. As far as how we made records, the process of recording music changed a lot.

REVIEW: Do you have a certain process with your songwriting? Do you develop a strong hook or melody line first or do you shape the music to fit the lyrics?

Mickey Thomas: Most of the songwriting I’ve been involved with is more focused on developing lyrics and melody, and usually the musical songwriting is done by whomever I’m collaborating. With Starship in the beginning I worked a lot with guitarist Craig Chaquico, who would come up with the music and then I’d come up with the words and then we’d develop the melodies together.

REVIEW: When you look over the expanse of your career, which is pretty formidable right now, are there any memorable moments or highlights that stand out most in your memory?

Mickey Thomas: Oh yeah. The one that always jumps to mind first is performing at the Academy Awards for the Oscar Ceremony in 1988, mostly because I'm a huge movie  fan and I love the movies and I love actors, so that was a real amazing experience for me to perform at the Oscars and see a lot of famous actors and actresses I've loved over the years and getting to see a lot of them in person and up-close, so performing at the Oscars was amazing, as was performing at the Grammys.

REVIEW: You’ve got an amazingly strong voice. What is your octave range and what is the secret to longevity for a vocalist? So many vocalists have to either lower the key or pitch of the song so they can still hit the high notes.

Mickey Thomas:  Oh, God, I don't even know. Maybe 3.54 octaves, something like that.  I'm lucky that I'm able to perform live. I perform all the songs in the original keys that they were recorded in, so I feel really lucky and fortunate that I'm able to do that. And I don't really have a secret.  I try to take good care of myself. You know, I try to eat right and I try to try to get enough rest, which is not always easy to do on the road.

My biggest vice is Chardonnay. I love to drink my wine, but that's about it.  I think more than anything in my case, it's probably I'm lucky that my parents gave me the right genes and the right vocal cords that have held up and lasted through the years and gave me the opportunity to keep my voice and continue to sing all these songs in the original key.

REVIEW: Your live shows cover a lot of territory. Apart from the many hits you’ve generated with Starship you also touch upon classics from the Jefferson Airplane days, so I’m curious if you have any new Starship material coming down the pipeline, or is the focus pretty much on live performances right now?

Mickey Thomas: Pretty much on live performance. I am working on documentary about my life  that's been in the works for a couple of years now.  We're working on that kind of in bits and pieces whenever we have the time to do it, and hopefully I'll be finishing that up next year. I think the working title is Mickey Thomas •  Don't you remember?

I’m also working on a couple of projects here and there and might be putting together some Christmas shows this year. I'd love to do that. I have a Christmas album that came out last year. I'd always wanted to do a Christmas album and I finally got around to doing it, so hopefully I can work in some shows around the holidays.

The musicians in Starship have been with me for a long, long time. My drummer Darnell Verdusco  and keyboard player Phil Bennett  have been with me for over 30 years and my bass player Jeff Adams for over 25 years; and my guitarist  John Roth is at 15 years, while vocalist Chelsee Foster handles all the female vocal parts, so it's a great live band and very high energy.

I think sometimes people are surprised at  how energetic, the show is and how much fun one can have when you’re inspired. Yeah, man, we love it!

STARSHIP and Foghat will be performing at The Dow Event Center on Saturday, October 11^th at 7:00 PM.  Tickets are available by clicking this link.