Shatner Folds Five?

William Shatner is scheduled to release his new album, Has Been, on Oct. 5 on Shout! Factory Records.

Co-written with Ben Folds, the album also features a slew of other guests including Aimee Mann, Joe Jackson and Henry Rollins.

With the exception of the Nick Hornby/Folds collaboration, "That's Me Trying," Brad Paisley's "Real" and Pulp's "Common People," all the tracks were co-written by Shatner and Folds.

"These are thoughts and experiences of mine that very few people have heard before," Shatner explained. "I wanted to share them with my loved ones."

Shatner and Folds have worked together before on the latter's solo album, Fear Of Pop, Volume 1, and the two have appeared together in numerous Priceline.com commercials.

As well as the aforementioned guests, Folds recruited drummer Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Fiona Apple), bassist Sebastian Steinberg (Soul Coughing) and guitarist Jon Auer (The Posies) for the project. And longtime engineers John Painter and Joe Costa were at the controls.

Folds played piano and bass, and produced the album. "If I thought," he said, "that there were heaps of artists who were willing to be as honest, vulnerable, creative and as trusting with their producer as William Shatner has been with me, I'd just be a producer."

This is the first solo album Shatner has released since 1968's Transformed Man, though you can hear him croon covers of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" on The Golden Throats' The Great Celebrity Sing Off album (1988).

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