At 82, actor and musician William Shatner is still going strong. The former Star Trek captain recently released his fourth album Ponder the Mystery, a primarily spoken word album with producer Billy Sherwood.
"This album pushes the envelope a little," says Shatner. "The melding of spoken word and music so that they're intertwined in such a way that they're inseparable."
Shatner discussed how his career in TV and movies made the recording process different from your average musician. "A lot of musicians lock themselves into a studio. They go into the studio with nothing in mind and emerge with a brilliant, or not so brilliant, record," says Shatner. "My discipline in writing scripts...the finger comes and points at you and says, 'You're on now.' Time is money in the movie game. [You have to] prepare material. I've spent weeks trying to find the right word to express what I mean and that's what we had here."
Watch the interview above and check out our favorite Shatner track—his 1998 anti-love screed with Ben Folds (as experimental pop group Fear of Pop)—below.