The Spiders (American rock band)
| The Spiders | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Phoenix, Arizona, United States |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1964–1968 |
| Associated acts | Alice Cooper |
| Past members |
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The Spiders were a 1960s garage rock band, featuring Vincent Furnier (later known as Alice Cooper) on lead vocals. They consisted of Furnier, Dennis Dunaway, Glen Buxton, John Tatum, John Speer and Michael Bruce. Formed by Furnier and Dunaway, both high school friends at Cortez High School in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1964, they would later evolve into the band Alice Cooper, which, in turn, Vincent Furnier would eventually take to be his stage name.
In 1964, 16-year-old Furnier was eager to participate in the local annual Letterman's talent show, so he gathered four fellow cross-country teammates to form a group for the show: Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, John Tatum and John Speer. They named themselves The Earwigs. They dressed up in costumes and wigs to resemble the Beatles, and performed several parodies of Beatles songs, with the lyrics modified to refer to the track team: in their rendition of "Please Please Me", for example, the line "Last night I said these words to my girl" was replaced with "Last night I ran four laps for my coach". Of the group, only Buxton and Tatum knew how to play an instrument—the guitar—so Buxton and Tatum played guitars while the rest mimed on their instruments. The group got an overwhelming response from the audience and won the talent show. As a result of their positive experience, the group decided to try to turn into a real band. They acquired musical instruments from a local pawn shop, and proceeded to learn how to play them, with Buxton doing most of the teaching, as well as much of the early songwriting. They soon renamed themselves The Spiders, featuring Furnier on vocals, Buxton on lead guitar, Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dunaway on bass guitar, and Speer on drums. Musically, the group was inspired by artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Doors, and the Yardbirds. For the next year the band performed regularly around the Phoenix area with a huge black spider's web as their backdrop, the group's first stage prop.
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