How Jefferson Airplane Became Jefferson Starship - And Then Just Starship REDDIT RCA / Grunt Records / Paradise Artists Between synthesizers, drum machines, and MTV, it’d be hard to pick a single veteran rock act that managed to get through the ’80s without being forced to change their sound to some extent. But where acts like Heart and Chicago may have alienated longtime fans by indulging in extra hairspray and buying a few power ballads from outside writers, Starship paid the highest price of all, trading in the Summer of Love ideals espoused by their original incarnation, Jefferson Airplane , for a handful of Top 40 hits. The change didn’t happen overnight. Jefferson Airplane actually folded following the release of 1972’s ‘Long John Silver’ album, morphing into Jefferson Starship for 1974’s ‘Dragon Fly’ LP. To say these were transitional years would be an understatement; the Airplane’s lineup had frequently been in a state of flux, and so it was with the Starship, with substance abuse, personal conflicts, and disagreements over musical direction frequently polluting the mix.

Singer Grace Slick was forced from the group in 1978 after drunkenly taunting the crowd during a German concert, followed shortly thereafter by guitarist/vocalist Marty Balin, leaving co-founder Paul Kantner to find a new lead singer. Watch Jefferson Airplane Perform ‘Somebody to Love’ Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on That role would be filled by former Elvin Bishop Group singer Mickey Thomas , who’d earlier risen to prominence after being invited to assume lead vocal duties for the eventual hit single ‘Fooled Around and Fell in Love.’ Jefferson Starship’s next release, 1979’s ‘Freedom at Point Zero,’ boasted the Top 20 hit ‘Jane,’ which pointed the way toward the radio-friendly love songs they’d eventually pursue full-time; with modern-sounding keys, guitar power chords, and Thomas’ elastic voice high in the mix, it fit right in with hits of the day from groups like Toto and Boston .

The fact that this direction was more or less a 180-degree turn from the counter-cultural stance of the Jefferson Airplane’s early records wasn’t at all lost on the members of the band, but times were changing, and the Airplane’s flower-powered political ideals had fallen out of favor about as rapidly as their messily unpredictable (but rarely dull) original sound. It’s hard to argue with hits, however, and for at least a little while, Jefferson Starship managed to find a middle ground that kept the band’s old guard happy while still capitulating to FM trends. Watch Jefferson Starship Perform ‘Jane’ Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on In fact, for a brief period of time, it seemed like some members of the famously contentious Jefferson nucleus might actually find something like long-term harmony. Slick returned for some vocal cameos on 1981’s ‘Modern Times’ album, singing a duet with Thomas for ‘Stranger’ and adding backgrounds to a handful of songs; fittingly, the record included a Top 40 hit (‘Find Your Way Back’) as well as a ‘Stairway to Cleveland,’ a profane kiss-off to fans who’d complained about the shift in style.

That balance was too fragile to hold, however. Kantner in particular grew increasingly frustrated with the band’s singles-driven focus; as he told author Jeff Tamarkin for his Jefferson biography ‘ Got a Revolution! ,’ “I think we would be terrible failures trying to write pop songs all the time. … The band became more mundane and not quite as challenging and not quite as much of a thing to be proud of.” Things eventually got so bad that, while producer Ron Nevison was prepping 1984’s ‘Nuclear Furniture’ for release, Kantner absconded with the master tapes, holding them hostage in his car for several days until he could get the rest of the band to agree to a different mix. Shortly after the album was out, so was Kantner — and he took the ‘Jefferson’ part of their name with him, part of an out-of-court settlement reached after he quit.

Following Kantner’s exit, multi-instrumentalist/singer David Freiberg (who’d co-written ‘Jane’) was also out of the lineup, leaving the five-piece band — with its moniker freshly whittled down to simply Starship — to soldier on with its next LP, 1985’s ‘Knee Deep in the Hoopla.’ Hired to continue the band’s quest for radio relevancy, producer Peter Wolf (not of the J. Geils Band ) brought in stacks of material from a roster of outside writers that included Bernie Taupin , Michael Bolton , and Katrina and the Waves singer Kimberley Rew; only one track, ‘Private Room,’ bore the writing stamp of any Starship members. It may have been music made to order, but the buying public responded in droves — ‘Hoopla’ broke the Top 10, spinning off a pair of No. 1 hits (‘Sara’ and the dreaded ‘We Built This City’) plus a third Top 40 single (‘Tomorrow Doesn’t Matter Tonight’).

An increasing number of fans who remembered the Jefferson days wondered how their band of rock revolutionaries could settle for mechanized pop songs and corporate-sponsored tours, but as far as Slick was concerned, it was just a gig — albeit one very different from the old days. “For me, the ’80s incarnation of Starship … felt entirely opposite from the 1969 version of Airplane,” Slick explained in her autobiography, ‘ Someone to Love? .’ “It was almost like having two different occupations. The two bands had different focuses, purposes, and conduct; one was a circus, the other a musical shopping mall. Starship was a working band: do the albums, do the videos, do the road trips. … I cut my hair, smiled for the cameras, answered press questions, watched the charts, made the records, and kept my ass out of jail.” Watch Starship Perform ‘We Built This City’ Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on Slick had done enough time in the trenches to treat rock ‘n’ roll like a 9-to-5 occupation if that’s what she wanted, but Starship’s trajectory continued to cause lineup attrition.

Before the band entered the studio for the follow-up to ‘Hoopla,’ 1987’s ‘No Protection,’ bassist Pete Sears would find his name added to the lengthening list of former members. “One day, I’m standing onstage, and I’m playing this keyboard around my neck, which I hate,” recalled Sears later. “I’m looking at Mickey, who’s lying down on a park bench onstage, with a lamppost as a prop, like Las Vegas or something. I thought, ‘What in the hell am I doing here?'” Sears’ absence had little impact on sales for ‘No Protection,’ which sent the record to No. 12 on the charts in advance of another No. 1 hit (the ‘Mannequin’ soundtrack anthem ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’) and the Top 10 single ‘It’s Not Over (‘Til It’s Over).’ But changes were on the horizon yet again: citing Thomas’ increasing control of the group, including his decision to cut the vocals to a planned duet (the AC hit ‘Set the Night to Music’) by himself, she walked away at the end of the ‘No Protection’ tour.

Although Thomas later speculated that Slick may have just wanted him to “look at her more onstage,” Slick was fairly unequivocal about her reasons for letting her contract with the band expire, admitting that being in Starship “got “boring after awhile” and saying , “There’s no use beating a dead horse. And it was a dead horse as far as I was concerned.” This left Thomas, guitarist Craig Chaquico, and drummer Donny Baldwin as the last men standing for what would prove Starship’s final album of new material for many years: 1989’s ‘Love Among the Cannibals,’ released August 15, 1989. Pilloried by resentful Jefferson Airplane fans and criticized by former bandmates, Thomas couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to use the name of the new release as a veiled dig at his detractors. “The love generation was really a bunch of cannibals to me,” he shrugged when asked about the title.

“That’s where I came up with the idea of a bone through the heart for the cover art.” ‘Love Among the Cannibals’ might seem a little snarky in that context, but Thomas was clear-eyed about which side his bread was buttered on — as well as Starship’s struggle to maintain momentum. “Because of the association with Jefferson Airplane and the music of the ’60s, any commercial success we achieved in the ’80s was viewed by some critics and older fans as a sign of selling out,” he later argued . “I’ll personally take the hit singles because that, more than anything, has allowed me the opportunity to have a long career.” “Sure, we took a lot of criticism for songs like ‘We Built This City’ and ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,’ but what we created with those songs was a very conscious effort,” he pointed out in a separate interview .

“We set out to re-invent the band to make it more commercial, and we succeeded in doing exactly what we had set out to do.” Ironically, as the Starship prepared for its next flight, the classic Jefferson Airplane was busy reuniting for its own album, which ended up including a number of pop concessions of its own — including the arguably heavy hand employed by producer Ron Nevison, who later lamented bringing in so many session players to augment the group. “We probably should have just stayed with it, as bad as it was, because technically, the Airplane was never a great band,” he pointed out. “I think that if I had paid more attention to it, it could have been better.” Jack Casady concurred, adding , “They had a keyboard player play what he thought was a modern ’89 bass part for me. Everybody would go off in their little corner…” In the end, ‘Love Among the Cannibals’ was nominally the more successful of the two releases, reaching No. 64 on the album charts (behind the No. 12 hit ‘It’s Not Enough’) while ‘Jefferson Airplane’ stalled out at No. 85.

But while the Airplane used the album as fuel for a well-received reunion tour, Starship saw dwindling crowds on the road in ’89 — and to make matters worse, their tour ended shortly after it started, when a post-show argument between Thomas and Baldwin following their Sept. 24 gig in Scranton ended in a violent assault that left Thomas so badly beaten he required major facial reconstructive surgery. “He was one of my best friends in the world until that crazy night,” Thomas told the Marin Independent Journal in 2012. “It had to do with being on tour together for so many years in the crazy environment of the road. Being on the road is crazy enough without getting some other factors mixed in there, like resentment and alcohol and drugs. It was a very unfortunate incident that got out of hand. I’m sure each of us would love to go back and retrace our steps that night and make it different, but you can’t do that.

You change one thing and you may change the whole course of your life.” Watch Starship Perform ‘It’s Not Enough’ Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on It definitely altered courses for Starship, as the group’s promotional campaign for ‘Cannibals’ tumbled to pieces following Baldwin’s firing and Thomas’ long period of rehab from his injuries. At a moment when they needed to reassert their relevancy more than ever, the band members were forced to sit idly by while the momentum they’d built up since the mid-’80s vanished. By 1990, Chaquico was the only remaining band member who’d been part of the original Jefferson Starship, and he could no longer avoid the writing on the wall. “Everyone I had enjoyed playing and writing with over the many years with Starship had left the band, except for Mickey,” he recalled . “It became like Mickey Thomas is our star and everything is going to be about him.” Under certain circumstances, having a group’s name function as a sales-boosting vehicle for de facto solo records from the last remaining member isn’t the worst idea — it’s worked well for certain other “bands” in the past.

But by the time RCA commissioned a best-of compilation for the spring of 1991, Starship had really ceased to be — not only as a band, but in the minds of record buyers. The fans who’d followed them over from the Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship days were mostly gone, and although their mid-’80s singles had found traction at radio, they were cobbled together from such anonymous-sounding ingredients that they could have been recorded by almost anyone. Perhaps fittingly, given how many hirings, firings, and lawsuits the group had seen over the years, the end of Starship came down to an executive decision. “I essentially fired the band,” stated longtime manager Bill Thompson. “There had been the incident with Mickey’s face, plus we weren’t selling tickets.

I told RCA that we were done.” Of course, band breakups only hold until someone with a claim to the name starts using it to make music again, and by the early ’90s, Thomas was back on the road with a new version of the group, which he dubbed Starship featuring Mickey Thomas — not to be confused with Kantner’s Jefferson Starship: The Next Generation, which eventually settled back on good old-fashioned Jefferson Starship. Despite their similar monikers, the bands occupy wildly different ends of the spectrum; Kantner’s group hearkens back to Jefferson Airplane/Starship’s progressive days, while Thomas’ crew continues to tour and record in the vein of the band’s big ’80s hits — something for which Thomas still makes no apologies. “‘Love Among The Cannibals’ is my personal all-time favorite Starship album. I think it still holds up today,” Thomas later reflected . “I think there were a number of factors why the album was a disappointment. It was the first album after the departure of Grace Slick. There was some backlash from the string of hit singles.

Also, right after the release of the album we had a serious crisis in the band involving a violent fight that prevented us from touring and promoting the album. It was a huge disappointment, but it’s still my favorite.” Starship | New Music And Songs | Starship About Starship Starship was a band created by the settlement of a lawsuit. Notwithstanding this curious beginning, the group went on to a series of hits in the mid-'80s, including the chart-toppers "We Built This City," "Sara," and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" in a polished, mainstream pop/rock style before splitting up in the early '90s. Starship was the remaining sextet of musicians that, with Paul Kantner, had made up Jefferson Starship until the rhythm guitarist/singer's exit from that band in June 1984. Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, the precursor to Jefferson Starship, had also helped found Jefferson Starship in 1974. Ten years later, Kantner decried the band's tilt toward commercial rock and decided that it was time for the group to dissolve.

His bandmates disagreed, and Kantner sued over money and the ownership of the band's name in October 1984. The suit was settled in March 1985, resulting in a cash payment to Kantner and the agreement that the name "Jefferson Starship" would be retired, while the band would change its name to simply Starship (with that name owned by singer Grace Slick and manager Bill Thompson). Thus, at its inception under its new moniker, Starship consisted of Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), co-lead singer Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), guitarist Craig Chaquico (born September 25, 1954), keyboardist David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938), bassist Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), and drummer Donny Baldwin. Freiberg, however, then dropped out. The newly christened band, freed from Kantner's ties to their old sound, quickly entered the studio.

The first product of their efforts was "We Built This City," written by Dennis Lambert, Martin Page, Bernie Taupin (Elton John's lyricist), and Peter Wolf (not the former singer of the J. Geils Band), who co-produced the track and played keyboards on it. The song did two things that no Jefferson Airplane or Jefferson Starship single ever had: it hit number one in November 1985 and it went gold, proving a strong calling card for the first Starship album, Knee Deep in the Hoopla, which reached the Top Ten and went platinum, a better showing than any Jefferson Starship album since 1978. Starship followed with a second number one single, "Sara," written by Wolf with his wife Ina and also featured on the album. A third single, "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight," made the Top 40. The record sales established Starship as a separate entity with a new audience. The group was reduced to a quartet with the departure of Pete Sears prior to their next recording, a song from the movie Mannequin.

Released as a single in January 1987, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond, became Starship's third number one hit in April and eventually was certified as their second gold 45. The second album, No Protection, released in July 1987, was prefaced by the single "It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)," which reached the Top Ten as the album peaked at number 12 and went gold. At the start of 1988, Grace Slick left Starship, reducing the band to the trio of Thomas, Chaquico, and Baldwin. They added two new members, keyboard player Mark Morgan and bassist Brett Bloomfield, and in the summer of 1989 released their third album, Love Among the Cannibals, which boasted the Top 20 hit "It's Not Enough" but sold disappointingly. The band was set to tour from mid-August to the end of September, but on September 24, Thomas was involved in a fight that left him severely beaten, suffering serious facial injuries that required surgery.

Although no charges were filed, it eventually emerged that he had been beaten by Baldwin, who immediately left the band. While Thomas recovered, Chaquico also departed in 1990. In the spring of 1991, the band's label, RCA, released Greatest Hits (Ten Years and Change 1979-1991), which featured one new track, "Good Heart," written by Martin Page and performed by Thomas, Page, Wolf, and guitarist Peter Maunu. Released as a single, it reached number 81. With that, Bill Thompson declared Starship to be inactive. In 1992, Thomas organized a band that began playing dates billed as "Mickey Thomas' Starship" or "Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas." Although Thomas did not own the right to use the name "Starship," Thompson and Grace Slick, the co-owners of the name, took no action to stop him, and he continued to perform using the name.

In 2003, the Brilliant label issued an album credited simply to Starship called Greatest Hits on which a Thomas-led band re-recorded Starship's biggest hits and some songs from Thomas' tenure in Jefferson Starship as well as "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," the hit Thomas sang with the Elvin Bishop Group in 1976. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi Hear more of Starship’s Biography — Free listening, videos, concerts, stats and photos at Last.fm Listeners Biography Starship is an American pop / rock band best known for their hits " Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now " and " We Built This City " that operated from 1985 to 1989, reforming in 1992 although featuring just vocalist Mickey Thomas . In 1984, singer-songwriter Paul Kantner left the San Francisco, California group Jefferson Starship . His former bandmates wanted to continue with that name, but Kantner, as the last founding member of Jefferson Airplane , took legal action over the "Jefferson" name.

Kantner settled out of court and signed an agreement that neither party would use the names "Jefferson" or "Airplane" unless all members of Jefferson Airplane, Inc. (made up of Bill Thompson , Paul Kantner , Grace Slick , Jorma Kaukonen , and Jack Casady ) agreed. The band then took the name "Starship". Keyboard player David Freiberg, who had been increasingly marginalized, left as well. In contrast to Paul Kantner's more experimental and progressive rock direction, Starship moved towards a sleek arena rock direction reminiscent of contemporaries Foreigner and Journey . In 1985, the band, based primarily around dual vocalists Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick , released ' Knee Deep in the Hoopla ' and immediately scored two #1 hits. The first was " We Built This City ", written by the team of Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert, and Peter Wolf (producer), which was inspired by Bay Area rock n roll station KSAN-FM. That song was trashed at the time by Kantner and later criticized by co-singer Grace Slick, and it was later declared to be the "worst song of all time" by Blender magazine.

VH1 also named it the number-one "Most Awesomely Bad Song" on a top-50 countdown co-sponsored with Blender. However, it became something like a ' signature song ' for Starship and has continued to receive major airplay. The band's second #1 was " Sara "; no previous incarnation of Jefferson Airplane/Starship had had a #1 hit. ' Knee Deep in the Hoopla ' itself reached #7, went platinum, and spawned two more singles: " Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight " (#26), and " Before I Go " (#68). In 1987, " Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now " was featured in the film 'Mannequin' and hit #1, although only Slick and Thomas (plus Craig Chaquico's guitar solo) appeared on it. This song made Slick the oldest female vocalist to sing on a number-one Billboard Hot 100 hit, at the age of 47 (a record that she held until Cher broke it at age 53 in 1999 with " Believe ".) The following year, with the new members Mark Morgan (keyboard) and Brett Bloomfield (bass) added.

the band's song " Wild Again " (which reached #78 on the Billboard singles chart) was used in the movie 'Cocktail' . By the time ' No Protection ' was released, bassist Pete Sears had left. The album went gold and featured the hits " Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now " (#1), " It's Not Over ('Til It's Over) " (#9), and " Beat Patrol " (#46). In addition, the last song on the album, " Set the Night to Music ", would later become a huge hit when re-recorded as a duet between Roberta Flack and Maxi Priest. Grace Slick left Starship in 1988, having become disillusioned with the band's drift towards a strongly commercial pop image and swearing never to perform with them again. The revamped Starship lineup, featuring Mark Morgan (keyboards) and Brett Bloomfield (bass), released ' Love Among the Cannibals ' in 1989. Finding their commercial prospects waning, the group finally disbanded the following year. In 1992, vocalist Mickey Thomas revived the band, originally using the name "Mickey Thomas' Starship".

Gaining some praise for his live performances, he changed the name to " Starship featuring Mickey Thomas ". Lately, the band often refers to itself simply as "Starship", though with Thomas being its only consistent member. In September 2013, the group released their first new studio material in over two decades, putting out the tune " It's Not the Same as Love ". Their official website can be found at . Jefferson Starship - Biography | Billboard Jefferson Starship 1974 Members: Darby Gould Slick Aguilar Cathy Richardson Marty Balin Grace Slick Pete Sears Papa John Creach Paul Kantner Mickey Thomas Aynsley Dunbar Craig Chaquico John Barbata Jack Casady David Freiberg Jefferson Starship was among the most successful arena rock bands of the 1970s and early '80s, an even greater commercial entity than its predecessor, Jefferson Airplane, the band out of which it evolved. Many Jefferson Airplane fans decried the group's new, more mainstream musical direction, especially after Airplane singers Grace Slick and Marty Balin departed in 1978.

But with shifting personnel, Jefferson Starship managed to please its new fans and some old ones over a period of a decade before it shifted gears into even more overtly pop territory and changed names again to become simply Starship. Jefferson Airplane, the seminal San Francisco psychedelic rock band of the 1960s, noted for its hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit," began to fragment in the early '70s.

Lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady increasingly were preoccupied with their spin-off group Hot Tuna, while the band's other creative axis, rhythm guitarist/singer Paul Kantner (born Paul Lorin Kantner in San Francisco, CA, March 17, 1941) and singer Grace Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), having become a romantic couple, had their own musical and political interests, and singer Marty Balin (born Martyn Jerel Buchwald in Cincinnati, OH, January 30, 1942), the odd man out, had become sufficiently disenchanted with the band he himself had formed that he quit Jefferson Airplane at the end of a tour over the Thanksgiving weekend in 1970. The following week saw the release of Blows Against the Empire, Kantner's debut solo album, which he had recorded with a long list of musician friends from Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, among others.

To pay tribute to this loose-knit studio ensemble and refer to the album's science fiction theme, Kantner co-billed the album to "Jefferson Starship," even though there was, as yet, no such permanent entity. Nevertheless, the album featured performers who would be members of Jefferson Starship when it was established as a real band, in particular Kantner, Slick, and Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938). A year later, in late 1971, Kantner and Slick released a duo album, Sunfighter. One track, "Earth Mother," was a song written by Jack Traylor, a high-school English teacher and friend of Kantner's, and on lead guitar was teenager Craig Chaquico (born September 26, 1954), a student of Traylor's and a member of his band, Steelwind. Jefferson Airplane gave what turned out to be its final performance in September 1972, by which time Freiberg had joined the group.

The next album out of the Jefferson Airplane troupe was Baron von Tollbooth & the Chrome Nun, credited to Kantner, Slick, and Freiberg, and released in the spring of 1973, an album that featured the other members of Jefferson Airplane in subsidiary roles, and on which Chaquico also appeared. Many of the same musicians appeared on Grace Slick's debut solo album, Manhole, released in early 1974. When it became apparent that Kaukonen and Casady were not interested in reconvening Jefferson Airplane, Kantner decided to form a permanent touring band without them. The name "Jefferson Airplane" was co-owned by Casady, Kantner, Kaukonen, Slick, and the band's manager, Bill Thompson. So, Kantner determined to call the revised unit Jefferson Starship.

The new band began with the remaining elements of the old one: Kantner on rhythm guitar and vocals; Slick on vocals; Freiberg on vocals and keyboards; Papa John Creach (born John Henry Creach in Beaver Falls, PA, May 18, 1917; died February 22, 1994) on electric violin; and John Barbata (born in Passaic, NJ, April 1, 1945) on drums. Chaquico, still a teenager, but at least out of high school, was the logical choice for lead guitarist. Jorma Kaukonen's brother Peter (who had appeared on Blows Against the Empire, Sunfighter, and Manhole) was brought in on bass. The band began rehearsals in January 1974 and opened its first tour in Chicago on March 19. The tour ran through April, after which the band prepared to go into the studio. Peter Kaukonen did not work out, however, and he was replaced in June by British veteran Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), who had worked on Manhole.

During the recording sessions in July, Kantner reunited with Marty Balin to write the power ballad "Caroline," which Balin agreed to sing on the album. Kantner and Slick hedged their bets by putting their names on either side of the name "Jefferson Starship" on the cover of the album, Dragon Fly, when it was released in October 1974. They needn't have worried. Even though the single "Ride the Tiger" petered out at number 84, Dragon Fly just missed the Top Ten and went gold within six months, selling as well as Jefferson Airplane albums generally did. Balin joined the band on-stage at its performance at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco on November 24 (four years after his final Jefferson Airplane appearance) and then agreed to join Jefferson Starship as a permanent member.

With Balin aboard, the eight-member Jefferson Starship went back into the studio in February 1975 to record its second album and came out in June with Red Octopus, which turned out to be the best-selling album of the entire Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship career, largely due to the presence of Balin's ballad "Miracles," which became a Top Ten hit. (Slick and Sears' "Play on Love" was also a singles chart entry.) The album first hit number one (which no Jefferson Airplane album had ever done) in September, and bounced in and out of the top spot for the next two months. Eventually, it sold over two million copies. (At this point, Creach quietly exited the band.) Red Octopus set a pattern for the next two Jefferson Starship albums.

Balin, whose love songs had dominated the early days of Jefferson Airplane, but who had been shunted aside by the more political and abstract interests of other bandmembers, returned to a major role thanks to the commercial success of "Miracles." Unlike Jefferson Airplane, which valued the individual expression of its members, however bizarre, Jefferson Starship was interested in making commercial music, even if it was written by people outside the band. Spitfire, released in June 1976, was another million-seller, boasting the Balin-sung Top 20 hit "With Your Love." Earth, released in February 1978, also went platinum, spurred by the Top Ten hit "Count On Me" and its Top 20 follow-up, "Runaway." The commercial success masked increasing personnel problems, however, and those problems came out during the band's European tour in June 1978, when Slick, suffering from some combination of illness and substance abuse problems, missed shows and gave substandard performances. She left the tour early, and at its conclusion Balin also quit the band.

After the remaining members returned home to regroup, Barbata was involved in a serious automobile accident that forced him to drop out. This left remaining members Kantner, Freiberg, Chaquico, and Sears to figure out what to do next. In January 1979, they brought in veteran rock drummer Aynsley Dunbar (born in Liverpool, England, January 10, 1946) to replace Barbata. In April, Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), who possessed the soaring tenor voice behind the Elvin Bishop Group's 1976 hit "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," was drafted in to replace both Slick and Balin. This revamped sextet went into the studio in June 1979, and in October the pointedly titled fifth Jefferson Starship album, Freedom at Point Zero, was released. Critics carped that, with Balin and Slick gone, and Thomas installed, the band's sound was indistinguishable from that of arena rock stalwarts like Boston, Foreigner, and Journey.

But, of course, those bands were selling in the millions, whatever the critics thought, and Chaquico even took the comparisons as a compliment. The album spawned a Top 20 hit in "Jane" and, while it did not match the success of its predecessors, it reached the Top Ten and went gold, validating the new version of the band, at least in commercial terms. Kantner addressed the criticisms on the next Jefferson Starship album, Modern Times, released in the spring of 1981 in a song called "Stairway to Cleveland (We Do What We Want)." The album, a gold-selling Top 40 hit featuring a Top 40 single in "Find Your Way Back," was also notable for background vocals by Grace Slick (and a duet with Thomas on "Stranger"). Slick, having overcome her personal problems, had launched a full-fledged solo career, issuing albums in 1980 and early 1981. But when Jefferson Starship toured in the summer, she went along, and soon was back as a full-fledged bandmember.

In September 1982, Aynsley Dunbar left Jefferson Starship and was replaced by Donny Baldwin, another former member of the Elvin Bishop Group. The band's next album, Winds of Change, was released the following month. It sported two Top 40 hits, "Be My Lady" and the title song, and it eventually reached gold-record status. Nuclear Furniture, released in May 1984, enjoyed comparable success, spawning the Top 40 hit "No Way Out." By this point, however, Kantner was no longer willing to defend the band's arena rock tendencies. Feeling that he had lost control of the group, he determined to leave it, playing his last show on June 23 before quitting. He also felt, however, that the band should dissolve without him, and when the other members disagreed, he sued over money and the rights to the name "Jefferson Starship" in October 1984.

Kantner's suit was settled in March 1985 with a cash payment and the compromise that "Jefferson Starship," a name to be owned 51 percent by Slick and 49 percent by manager Bill Thompson, would be retired in favor of "Starship," the name by which the band would continue to work. Starship went on to considerable commercial success in the second half of the 1980s before splitting up in the early '90s. Kantner went on to form the K.B.C. Band, featuring Marty Balin and Jack Casady, which made one self-titled album in 1986, and then to participate in a one-off reunion of Jefferson Airplane in 1989. In 1992, he organized a new band with which he toured under the name Jefferson Starship. (He sometimes billed it as "Jefferson Starship -- The Next Generation.") He did not have the legal right to do this, but neither Slick nor Thompson took action to stop him. In fact, Slick, though she had declared herself retired after the Jefferson Airplane reunion, made occasional appearances with Kantner's band.

Marty Balin, Jack Casady, Papa John Creach, and even original Jefferson Airplane female singer Signe Anderson also performed in it at various times. As of the 1995 live album Deep Space/Virgin Sky, the band's lineup was Kantner, Balin, and Casady, plus Darby Gould (formerly of World Entertainment War) on vocals, lead guitarist Slick Aguilar and keyboardist Tim Gorman (both of the K.B.C. Band), and Prairie Prince (from the Tubes) on drums, with Grace Slick as guest vocalist. As of 1999's new studio album Windows of Heaven, vocalist Diana Mangano and keyboardist T. Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs had joined. The two-CD live album Across the Sea of Suns, issued in 2001, featured Kantner, Balin, Mangano, Aguilar, Prince, and keyboardist Chris Smith. Kantner's Jefferson Starship also sells CDs of its concerts on its official website.

~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi Related Artists Starship | Download Music, Tour Dates & Video | eMusic Group Members: Pete Sears & Friends , Pete Sears , Craig Chaquico , Bluesmasters Featuring Mickey Thomas , Mickey Thomas All Music Guide: Starship was a band created by the settlement of a lawsuit. Notwithstanding this curious beginning, the group went on to a series of hits in the mid-'80s, including the chart-toppers "We Built This City," "Sara," and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" in a polished, mainstream pop/rock style before splitting up in the early '90s. Starship was the remaining sextet of musicians that, with Paul Kantner, had made up Jefferson Starship until the rhythm guitarist/singer's exit from that band in June 1984. Kantner, a founding member of Jefferson Airplane, the precursor to Jefferson Starship, had also helped found Jefferson Starship in 1974. Ten years later, Kantner decried the band's tilt toward commercial rock and decided that it was time for the group to dissolve.

His bandmates disagreed, and Kantner sued over money and the ownership of the band's name in October 1984. The suit was settled in March 1985, resulting in a cash payment to Kantner and the agreement that the name "Jefferson Starship" would be retired, while the band would change its name to simply Starship (with that name owned by singer Grace Slick and manager Bill Thompson). Thus, at its inception under its new moniker, Starship consisted of Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), co-lead singer Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), guitarist Craig Chaquico (born September 25, 1954), keyboardist David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938), bassist Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), and drummer Donny Baldwin. Freiberg, however, then dropped out. The newly christened band, freed from Kantner's ties to their old sound, quickly entered the studio.

The first product of their efforts was "We Built This City," written by Dennis Lambert, Martin Page, Bernie Taupin (Elton John's lyricist), and Peter Wolf (not the former singer of the J. Geils Band), who co-produced the track and played keyboards on it. The song did two things that no Jefferson Airplane or Jefferson Starship single ever had: it hit number one in November 1985 and it went gold, proving a strong calling card for the first Starship album, Knee Deep in the Hoopla, which reached the Top Ten and went platinum, a better showing than any Jefferson Starship album since 1978. Starship followed with a second number one single, "Sara," written by Wolf with his wife Ina and also featured on the album. A third single, "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight," made the Top 40. The record sales established Starship as a separate entity with a new audience. The group was reduced to a quartet with the departure of Pete Sears prior to their next recording, a song from the movie Mannequin.

Released as a single in January 1987, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond, became Starship's third number one hit in April and eventually was certified as their second gold 45. The second album, No Protection, released in July 1987, was prefaced by the single "It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)," which reached the Top Ten as the album peaked at number 12 and went gold. At the start of 1988, Grace Slick left Starship, reducing the band to the trio of Thomas, Chaquico, and Baldwin. They added two new members, keyboard player Mark Morgan and bassist Brett Bloomfield, and in the summer of 1989 released their third album, Love Among the Cannibals, which boasted the Top 20 hit "It's Not Enough" but sold disappointingly. The band was set to tour from mid-August to the end of September, but on September 24, Thomas was involved in a fight that left him severely beaten, suffering serious facial injuries that required surgery.

Although no charges were filed, it eventually emerged that he had been beaten by Baldwin, who immediately left the band. While Thomas recovered, Chaquico also departed in 1990. In the spring of 1991, the band's label, RCA, released Greatest Hits (Ten Years and Change 1979-1991), which featured one new track, "Good Heart," written by Martin Page and performed by Thomas, Page, Wolf, and guitarist Peter Maunu. Released as a single, it reached number 81. With that, Bill Thompson declared Starship to be inactive. In 1992, Thomas organized a band that began playing dates billed as "Mickey Thomas' Starship" or "Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas." Although Thomas did not own the right to use the name "Starship," Thompson and Grace Slick, the co-owners of the name, took no action to stop him, and he continued to perform using the name.

In 2003, the Brilliant label issued an album credited simply to Starship called Greatest Hits on which a Thomas-led band re-recorded Starship's biggest hits and some songs from Thomas' tenure in Jefferson Starship as well as "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," the hit Thomas sang with the Elvin Bishop Group in 1976. Starship | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by William Ruhlmann Starship was a band created by the settlement of a lawsuit. Notwithstanding this curious beginning, the group went on to a series of hits in the mid-'80s, including the chart-toppers "We Built This City," "Sara," and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" in a polished, mainstream pop/rock style before splitting up in the early '90s. Starship was the remaining sextet of musicians that, with Paul Kantner , had made up Jefferson Starship until the rhythm guitarist/singer's exit from that band in June 1984. Kantner , a founding member of Jefferson Airplane , the precursor to Jefferson Starship , had also helped found Jefferson Starship in 1974.

Ten years later, Kantner decried the band's tilt toward commercial rock and decided that it was time for the group to dissolve. His bandmates disagreed, and Kantner sued over money and the ownership of the band's name in October 1984. The suit was settled in March 1985, resulting in a cash payment to Kantner and the agreement that the name " Jefferson Starship " would be retired, while the band would change its name to simply Starship (with that name owned by singer Grace Slick and manager Bill Thompson ). Thus, at its inception under its new moniker, Starship consisted of Slick (born Grace Barnett Wing in or near Chicago, IL, October 30, 1939), co-lead singer Mickey Thomas (born in Cairo, GA, December 3, 1949), guitarist Craig Chaquico (born September 25, 1954), keyboardist David Freiberg (born in Boston, MA, August 24, 1938), bassist Pete Sears (born May 27, 1948), and drummer Donny Baldwin . Freiberg , however, then dropped out.

The newly christened band, freed from Kantner 's ties to their old sound, quickly entered the studio. The first product of their efforts was "We Built This City," written by Dennis Lambert , Martin Page , Bernie Taupin ( Elton John 's lyricist), and Peter Wolf (not the former singer of the J. Geils Band ), who co-produced the track and played keyboards on it. The song did two things that no Jefferson Airplane or Jefferson Starship single ever had: it hit number one in November 1985 and it went gold, proving a strong calling card for the first Starship album, Knee Deep in the Hoopla , which reached the Top Ten and went platinum, a better showing than any Jefferson Starship album since 1978. Starship followed with a second number one single, "Sara," written by Wolf with his wife Ina and also featured on the album. A third single, "Tomorrow Doesn't Matter Tonight," made the Top 40. The record sales established Starship as a separate entity with a new audience. The group was reduced to a quartet with the departure of Pete Sears prior to their next recording, a song from the movie Mannequin.

Released as a single in January 1987, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond , became Starship 's third number one hit in April and eventually was certified as their second gold 45. The second album, No Protection , released in July 1987, was prefaced by the single "It's Not Over ('Til It's Over)," which reached the Top Ten as the album peaked at number 12 and went gold. At the start of 1988, Grace Slick left Starship , reducing the band to the trio of Thomas , Chaquico , and Baldwin . They added two new members, keyboard player Mark Morgan and bassist Brett Bloomfield , and in the summer of 1989 released their third album, Love Among the Cannibals , which boasted the Top 20 hit "It's Not Enough" but sold disappointingly. The band was set to tour from mid-August to the end of September, but on September 24, Thomas was involved in a fight that left him severely beaten, suffering serious facial injuries that required surgery.

Although no charges were filed, it eventually emerged that he had been beaten by Baldwin , who immediately left the band. While Thomas recovered, Chaquico also departed in 1990. In the spring of 1991, the band's label, RCA, released Greatest Hits (Ten Years and Change 1979-1991) , which featured one new track, "Good Heart," written by Martin Page and performed by Thomas , Page , Wolf , and guitarist Peter Maunu . Released as a single, it reached number 81. With that, Bill Thompson declared Starship to be inactive. In 1992, Thomas organized a band that began playing dates billed as " Mickey Thomas ' Starship " or " Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas ." Although Thomas did not own the right to use the name " Starship ," Thompson and Grace Slick , the co-owners of the name, took no action to stop him, and he continued to perform using the name.

In 2003, the Brilliant label issued an album credited simply to Starship called Greatest Hits on which a Thomas -led band re-recorded Starship 's biggest hits and some songs from Thomas ' tenure in Jefferson Starship as well as "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," the hit Thomas sang with the Elvin Bishop Group in 1976.

Question: In 1985, the remaining members of which pop band changed their name to Starship?
Answer: JEFFERSON STARSHIP