Starship brings 1980s hits and more to Binghamton

The long and winding journey of Starship resembles few other bands in the history of rock ’n’ roll.

With roots in the San Francisco Summer of Love vibe of 1960s psychedelic act Jefferson Airplane and its spinoff Jefferson Starship in the 1970s, Starship launched the ‘80s pop-rock hits “Sara,” “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and “We Built This City.”

Today, Mickey Thomas is the lead singer and last remaining original member of Starship, which he joined in 1979 when it was still Jefferson Starship. He’s keeping the legacy alive in the 21st century with a new Starship lineup, which lands Friday night at Magic City Music Hall in Binghamton: Stephanie Calvert (vocals), Phil Bennett (keyboards), Darrell Verdusco (drums), Jeff Adams (bass) and John Roth (guitar).

In an interview last week from his home in Palm Desert, California, the 66-year-old native of Cairo, Georgia, discussed his early inspirations, his first hit singing Elvin Bishop Group’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” and whether some new Starship recordings are on the horizon.

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QUESTION: You got into music at a pretty young age — you saw The Beatles, you absorbed R&B from living in Georgia. How do you think those early years influenced your decision to get into music as a career?

THOMAS: The Beatles were the big catalyst. That was the initial thing that really got me. I was 15 years old and went to see The Beatles in Atlanta, Georgia. Me and my core group of best friends that all went with me to the concert, we were all huge Beatles fans — but once we saw it live in the flesh, that sealed the deal for us to think that we had to try it.

The week after we saw The Beatles, we went back home to our tiny south Georgia town, got out our Beatles records, got some cheap guitars and started learning some chords and harmonies. That started my first band in high school.

Once then I got into music a little deeper, I started gravitating to all the great soul singers of the ‘60s, who were very, very popular in the South when I was in high school. I found myself falling in love with Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett and Sam & Dave and Aretha Franklin and Jackie Wilson and all those great singers.

I figured out pretty early on that my strength was not in my guitar-playing but probably more in my singing! [laughs] So I put the guitar aside and focusing more on singing, and that’s when I started trying to emulate the vocal styles of the great soul singers of the era.

Q: What was it like working with Elvin Bishop?

THOMAS: My time with Elvin was a great learning experience. It was like training camp. We had a great band — there was Elvin and second guitarist Johnny Vernazza, and then drums and bass and keyboards, and quite often we’d bring a four- or five-piece horn section with us and a couple more background vocalists.

It was a big band, and we worked a whole lot. It wasn’t uncommon for us to be on the road 250 or 300 days a year. I made my bones with the Elvin Bishop Band!

Q: Three hundred days a year seems a bit extreme. You forget what your home looks like!

THOMAS: You truly are living on the road, and the road feels like home. When you go home, it’s almost awkward. I used to joke that back in those days, I was going to convert my bedroom at home to look exactly like a Holiday Inn room, so when I got home I would still feel like I was in my element! [laughs]

Q: The big song that was a hit with Elvin Bishop was “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.” When you record songs like that, do you know they’re going to be hits or do some of them surprise you?

THOMAS: “Fooled Around” is one of those songs that I had a really strong gut feeling about from the get-go. I thought it was a special song and that it had all the elements of being a hit, but there’s always circumstances that are beyond your control. There’s a lot of luck and timing involved.

After we do our part as artists and give it to the record company, a lot of other people have to do their jobs just as well too, to be sure that the song gets the exposure that it needs and deserves. But everything came together with “Fooled Around,” and it was a huge hit for us. That song opened a lot of doors for me, to allow me to do so many things beyond the Elvin Bishop Band.

The beauty of “Fooled Around” is that it’s still around because it’s appeared in so many movies over the years. Every two or three years, it seems to reappear and have a new life, as it did a couple of years ago with “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Some of the other later hits, we knew that they were hits. When I brought in the demo for “We Built This City,” I really loved the song and thought it was a quirky, romantic protest song, if that makes any sense. [laughs] It was a protest song, but in the sweet sense of the word. I never imagined it as a single or becoming the gigantic single that it became. I didn’t see that one coming.

“Sara,” when we were recording it, we all thought it would be a hit single — and in my mind, it probably would have been the first single from “Knee Deep in the Hoopla,” but when we finished “We Built This City,” a great A&R guy from RCA Records listened to it and said, “Oh, this is your first single.” We said “Really? ‘We Built This City’?” He said, “Yeah, this is the one.” Boy, he was right!

Then there’s the other side of the coin. When we were recording “I Didn’t Mean to Stay All Night” for the “Love Among the Cannibals” album, and getting the chance to work with “Mutt” Lange — the famous, historic producer — I thought, “This is a can’t-miss. This is a dead-solid lock.” And then it just didn’t happen, so you never know.

Q: You joined Jefferson Starship during a time of real transition for the band in terms of personnel and style. What was that period like and what led to the switch to a more pop-rock style that we heard in the ’80s?

THOMAS: Joining the Jefferson Starship was a tough decision for me, because I can’t say that I was a fan of the band going in. Of course, I knew of them and I knew some of their hits, but I’m sure I’d never bought a Jefferson Starship album.

When I got the call to possibly join — and it was a time when both Grace Slick and Marty Balin had left the band — making the decision to get into that band, I thought, “This is gonna be tough for me! People are going to ask, ‘Where’s Grace? Where’s Marty? Who the hell is this guy?’”

What made it work and easier for me was that, at that point in time, the remaining members — including [drummer] Aynsley Dunbar, who had recently joined the band around the same time I did — we went into it with the attitude that this is a brand-new band. We’re going to wipe the slate and start over musically with this band.

With that attitude, we came out with “Freedom at Point Zero,” and “Jane” was the first single, and that song became a pretty strong calling card for the new Jefferson Starship sound. Then on the first couple of tours, we never tried to do any of Grace’s iconic songs or Marty’s songs in the live show. We stuck to our guns and said, “No, we’re going to re-establish ourselves.” Then a couple of years later, when Grace rejoined the band, we brought all of her stuff back into the show.

Q: How does the current lineup of Starship honor the legacy of so many different lineups and styles in the convoluted history of where the band has been?

THOMAS: It’s hard to compare the history and evolution of this band to any other band. It’s unique in that sense. But we do include everything that I had a hand in helping to create, from the Jefferson Starship through the Starship.

We have a fantastic female vocalist, Stephanie Calvert, and at one point in the show, Stephanie and I do a little medley as a tribute to the entire history of the band and do some of the older stuff — Stephanie does “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love.” I still do “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” every night.

We try to leave no stone unturned, and the band is very energetic. People are quite often surprised to see the energy and the exuberance that the band displays every night onstage.

Q: What are the range of fans like at a Starship concert today? Are there younger people discovering it through things like song placements in films and television shows?

THOMAS: There are [younger fans], and for various reasons. One thing that I think our generation did was to tear down the walls. It used to be that the music that your parents dug, you couldn’t really like because that wasn’t cool. With classic rock, we broke down that generational barrier because kids in their 20s and 30s all really did ‘70s and ‘80s rock, and they know the lyrics of the songs as well as I do.

In our case, it helps when you do have something like a “Guardians of the Galaxy” or when “We Built This City” appears in “Rock of Ages” or “The Muppet Movie.” I get so many young kids who know about “We Built This City” because of “The Muppet Movie”! It all helps.

Q: Starship put a new album out a few years ago [2013’s “Loveless Fascination”]. What was that experience like, and are there any plans for a follow-up?

THOMAS: I really enjoyed doing that albums. Jeff Pilson, who’s a friend of mine and the bass player in Foreigner, is a great musician and a great songwriter, so he helped me a lot with that album.

I have been tossing around a couple of ideas. What we might do for our next venture is just put out an EP first — which is great now, because you can go back to the good old days of the ‘60s and sometimes put out an EP with three or four songs. In the digital age, it’s a lot easier to try that, because these days people pick and choose what songs they want to have anyway.

I’ve been talking to Ryan Adams — we met on Twitter and I found out he’s a big Starship fan. He reached out to me and said, “Man, I’d love to work with you — I’d love to produce some Starship stuff.’” We’re talking about doing just a four-song EP and putting it out exclusively on vinyl.

So we have stuff like that in the works. I also have a new blues album that I’ve been getting ready to work on — I’ve been getting back into that in the last few years — and I’ve always wanted to do a Christmas album, so maybe one day I’ll get around to doing that.

I always laugh when people ask me about retiring. Why? I’m having a blast doing this, and there are so many other things I still want to do.

Follow Chris Kocher on Twitter: @RealChrisKocher

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If you go

•What: Starship featuring Mickey Thomas

•When: 8 p.m. Friday

•Where: Magic City Music Hall, 1240 Front St., Binghamton

•Tickets: $25 in advance or $30 on the day of the show; call 296-3269 or go online to ticketmaster.com

•More info:www.starshipcontrol.com