Starship will touch down for concert

July 18, 2013 at 12:00a.m.

Finding its way back to Northeast Ohio is exactly what Starship featuring Mickey Thomas is doing this weekend. The ’80s act is scheduled to play a wet nap-friendly show Saturday at the Eastwood Rib Festival in Niles.

“It’s been so long, I just hope people appreciate the versatility,” said Mickey Thomas, calling from Hamden, Conn. “That’s been a real strong point of Starship. In the mid-’80s, we caught some critical flack with some of the records where we made a conscious effort to go with a different, more commercial-sounding style. The fact we were able to do that and do it successfully, to me was a great accomplishment for Starship.”

Today’s act has quite the storied history filled with drama. Naturally, the band, in theory, has ties to ’60s psychedelic outfit Jefferson Airplane. In the late ’70s, original member Paul Kantner restarted the group under the name Jefferson Starship with new singer Mickey Thomas, who had gained notoriety as the vocalist for Elvin Bishop Band’s hit single “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”

Though Jefferson Starship had a No. 1 song with “Jane,” it wasn’t until Grace Slick returned to the fold and Kantner left that the outfit became a pop-rock sensation with songs “No Way Out,” “We Built This City,” “Sara” and “Nothing Gonna Stop us Now.”

Eventually, Slick left, forcing the band to rename itself Starship featuring Mickey Thomas.

Up next for the act is “Loveless Fascination,” the band’s first new album in more than 20 years. It’s due out later this summer. Thomas said he’s excited about the up-tempo title track, rocker “Technicolor Black and White” and the moody “Where Did We Go Wrong.”

“One of the reasons it’s taken so long is I’ve started and stopped new Starship projects probably half a dozen times over the last 15 years,” Thomas said. “They’d just never come to fruition for one reason or another. It didn’t seem like the direction was right. When you work on something for a long time and then a year goes by, you go, ‘What I really liked six months ago I don’t like now.’’ So I’d never finish it for some reason. This is a Starship record I can stand behind. It captures all of the elements of the band.”

All of those elements of the band will be on display when Starship featuring Mickey Thomas appears at the Eastwood Rib Festival, where, naturally there will be plenty of culinary dishes from which to choose. So what delicious fair-food item does Thomas consider a guilty pleasure?

“I must admit I love the smoked turkey legs,” Thomas said, laughing. “It makes me feel like a Viking.”

When asked how he’d describe his band these days in terms of barbecue sauce — hot, spicy, tangy, sweet — Thomas thought for a moment before he said, “There are probably elements of all of that, but if I had to choose one, it would be three-alarm hot. And wet naps will be needed.”