William Shatner Lets Slip a Coachella 2027 Booking on CNN

The line between earnest revelation and accidental leak blurred during a recent CNN interview with William Shatner and his daughter, Melanie Shatner Gretsch. Asked what excites him most right now, the 95-year-old didn’t pause. “My heavy metal!” he said, steering the conversation toward his new band, The *uckers. Running through the group’s schedule, including a live debut at Chicago’s Riot Fest in September, Shatner added they’d also play “the one in the desert.” Anchor Elex Michaelson interjected, “Coachella?” and both Shatner and Gretsch answered in unison, “Coachella,” as if reading from a shared calendar.

No official lineup exists for Coachella 2027, and organizers have not commented. If the slip holds, Shatner would head to Indio, California, in April fresh from Riot Fest. The booking, however strange, fits a pattern: Riot Fest spent years jokingly campaigning for Shatner, eventually unveiling him with a deliberately absurd rider that included fire breathers, a DeLorean, and adoptable puppies backstage.

Formed this year, The *uckers bring together guitarist Marcus Nand, bassist Phil Soussan (Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol), guitarist Britt Lightning, and drummer Fred Aching. The group pulls from Shatner’s musical catalog and previews material from an upcoming debut album, What the F Is Heavy Metal. A new spoken-word project is also due in August. For Shatner, who has released a dozen studio albums since 1968’s The Transformed Man, the metal turn is less a novelty than a continuation—an extension of a parallel career built on earnest, often surreal performances alongside collaborators from Ben Folds to Iggy Pop.