Starship (band)

Starship
Starship in 2010
Background information
Also known as	Starship featuring Mickey Thomas (1992–present)
Origin	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Genres	Arena rock, pop rock, AOR
Years active	1984–1990, 1992–present
Labels	RCA
Associated acts	Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship
Members	Mickey Thomas Phil Bennett Darrell Verdusco Jeff Adams Stephanie Calvert John Roth
Past members	Donny Baldwin Craig Chaquico Pete Sears Grace Slick Brett Bloomfield Mark Morgan Kenny Stavropoulos Max Haskett Melisa Kary T. Moran John Lee Sanders Bill Slais Jeff Tamelier Bobby Vega Christina Marie Saxton Erik Torjeson John Garnache Mark Abrahamian

Starship is an American rock band established in 1984. Although it was initially a continuation of Jefferson Starship, its change in musical direction, and subsequent loss of key Jefferson Starship personnel and enforced name change ultimately led it to become a separate entity from the original band.

In June 1984, Paul Kantner, the last remaining founding member of Jefferson Airplane, left Jefferson Starship, and then took legal action over the Jefferson Starship name against his former bandmates. 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. (Bill Thompson, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady) agreed. The band briefly changed its name to "Starship Jefferson" while legal proceedings occurred, before settling on the shortened name "Starship." David Freiberg stayed with the band after the lawsuit and attended the first studio sessions for the next album. He became frustrated with the sessions because all the keyboard work in the studio was being done by Peter Wolf (who had played on the sessions for Nuclear Furniture and briefly joined the band on the road for the follow-up tour) and that was the instrument Freiberg was supposed to be playing. He left the band and the next album was finished with the five remaining members, consisting of Slick, co-lead singer Mickey Thomas, guitarist Craig Chaquiço, bassist Pete Sears, and drummer Donny Baldwin. In 1984, Gabriel Katona (who had previously played in Rare Earth and Player) joined the band to play keyboards and saxophone on the road with them through to the end of the 1986 tour.