If you’re a fan of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal then the name of Spider would bring a tea drinking, Boogie loving quartet from Liverpool to mind. However, for those with more of a penchant for North American Pop Rock, the New York-based outfit fronted by Amanda Blue will be your musical arachnids of choice.
Although only releasing two albums in their short career, they still managed to leave their mark. While the group’s debut single, ‘New Romance’ (It’s A Mystery)’ reached #39 on the Billboard Hot 100, further chart action was limited. Which was odd, given that both the 1980 issued self-titled debut album and its successor, 1981’s ‘Between The Lines’, offered a plethora of potential chart smashes. However, Spider’s greater success was achieved through a wealth of other artists covering their songs rather than through the original (yet still equally as great) versions.
The support network that Spider had was pretty impressive though. Managed by the legendary Bill Aucoin, who had of course guided KISS to stardom, they also had the backing of uber songsmiths/producers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who had signed them to the shiny new Dreamland label.
However, the quintet’s story begins not in the lofts of Manhattan but in Cape Town, South Africa. This was where three young musicians (namely guitarist Keith Lentin, drummer Anton Fig and vocalist Amanda Blue) took their first footsteps on what would be an often amazing journey.
Once a 12 year old Keith Lentin, already a fan of The Shadows and Elvis Presley, had discovered The Beatles there was no stopping him in his pursuit of a career as a guitarist. Anton Fig, a budding drummer, had also been possessed by the Fab Four and had actually started gigging in Cape Town by the time he was 8!
“I always loved the sound of the drums and was always playing,” he once told me in correspondence I’ve enjoyed over the years with most of the band’s membership while delving into Spider’s history. “I felt like they chose me rather than the other way around.”
Anton and Keith had started out together in a band called The Hawks. There then followed spells with such marvellously named acts as Beathoven’s Five, Bryan Miller’s Destruction and also The Looking Glass (no relation to the American group of ‘Brandy’ fame). Keith also played with the Ronnie Singer Sound (fronted by vocalist/ organist Ronnie Singer) and The Alpha Set. Around 1969 Lentin and Fig found themselves playing together in a band called Coloured Rain, but it was with HAMMAK that the duo would begin to take huge strides forward in achieving their musical dreams. “Mike Faure, Anton Fig, Midge Pike, Henry Barrenblatt and I had a jam session with a view to forming a band,” recalls Keith. “I seem to remember it was Anton’s idea to get together with Midge. It was then a no- brainer to call André De Villiers, who Anton and I played with in Coloured Rain. Mike Faure was an obvious choice from all the playing we had done with Ronnie Singer. We had all seen Henry playing around town, so he was quickly recruited. Shortly thereafter, I remember sitting in Mike's truck tossing around ideas for a name. Anton may have been with us. We were parked in Greenmarket Square one evening in Cape Town. Mike still has the cigarette box where we wrote down various ideas, eventually settling on HAMMAK - Henry, André, Midge, Mike, Anton, Keith.”
The band started playing gigs in earnest, mostly at the Art Center in Green Point. A lady called Susan Pike was responsible for those bookings. “Susan Pike had a lot to do with making it happen in a promo sense and booking us at the City Hall,” notes Keith. “She was hooked up with the whole ‘art-scene’ in Cape Town. We quickly got popular and had many rocking evenings there. Mike’s solos were pivotal to this energy. This was prior to Amanda Blue and Nicky Pike joining.”
For Amanda Blue, then known as Mandy Cohen, a love of music took her into a world of great bands, great musicians and great people. From playing guitar at local orphanages to being a Blues/Rock runaway at 16, she met Keith after appearing at the Hout Bay Hippie Festival. Amanda was singing in another group, Wakeford Hart, at the time. By his own admission, he quickly ‘poached’ her to join HAMMAK, with flautist Nicky Pike following soon after.
“Keith heard me sing and suggested I come and iron his mother’s shirts and stuff for room and board,” explains Amanda. “We ended up together and he brought me into the band. Some say he planned the whole thing, but I think it was just meant to be. His mother Merle was my best friend until she passed in 1997. She and Keith took me in and HAMMAK took off soon after.”
“We had some truly great musicians in HAMMAK,” she enthuses. “These guys could really play and they could ROCK! Those Cape Town folks knew it at the time. We had a real trip! It was the beginning of my music education.”
However, whilst HAMMAK became hugely popular in Cape Town, they seemingly had little opportunity to make any impact on the equally thriving Johannesburg music scene.
“We were more of a Cape Town thing”, comments Keith. “We were not part of the JoBurg scene at all. We knew some of the players – for me in particular it was Trevor Rabin – but they had much more actual ‘business’ going on. HAMMAK was huge in Cape Town but never played JoBurg. We did do some of the coastal cities later on – Port Elizabeth and East London – but none of it compared to the original line-up at the Cape Town City Hall.”
“We were the band in Cape Town,” adds Anton, “and it felt great!”
After HAMMAK released a now very rare live album on the Cameo imprint in 1971 (limited to a mere 500 copies), Keith and Amanda moved to London, England, where Amanda would record a solo album. Titled ‘Medusa’, it emerged through Warner Brothers in South Africa during 1973.
“Keith put together a great small group of musicians. This began my love for studio work,” states Amanda. “London was amazing, especially for a small town white African girl who knew nothing about nothing of the world. I even got a job at a fish and chip shop!”
“We shared a flat with George Wolfaardt, who had been a bandmate in Coloured Rain, and his wife Jenny, in East Finchley,” adds Keith. “My recollection is that the ‘Medusa’ album was always intended to be Amanda’s project and not really a group, as such. It’s just the three of us – Amanda on vocals, George on bass and drums and me on guitar and maybe a bit of piano. I can’t recall all of the songs we did, but I know I wrote one of them – quite a naive little ditty called ‘Son Of Aries’. We did it in a little London studio.”
After briefly returning to South Africa, the couple married, but would soon be on the move once more, this time to Boston. It was here that Keith and Amanda would team up with Anton Fig again. The drummer had gained a placement at the New England Conservatory of Music, while Keith would attend the Berklee College of Music. After a short stint in San Diego, the trio had relocated to New York by 1977. Anton had joined a band called Topaz, who were signed to CBS and had released an album that year. With Fig having replaced Rick Marotta on drums, Topaz was also now in need of a new guitarist...
“Anton arranged an audition for me,” recalls Keith. “Our dream had always been to start a band in the USA and he felt that the Topaz gig could get me to NYC and facilitate the three of us starting our project. We put that together while he and I were touring with Topaz.”
“We were writing songs all the time,” adds Amanda. “Anton moved to New York immediately after graduating, Keith and I followed soon after. We got this big loft on Franklin Street in Soho. Keith and Anton built dividing walls for bedrooms, so we could all have our rooms. There was this huge open space at the back of the loft where the band set up and rehearsed. Every day we shook the foundations of that building. It’s a miracle we didn’t get kicked out.”
The three South African ex-pats in the Big Apple were soon augmented by the talents of bassist Jimmy Lowell and keyboard player Holly Knight.
“Anton and I were playing the final Topaz gig at The Bitter End in NYC. Howie Wyeth (a well-known session musician who had played on the Topaz album) was in the dressing room and he introduced me to Holly Knight, even suggesting that we should get together,” recalls Keith. “When I told Amanda about Holly, she was very keen to meet as soon as possible. She loved the idea of two women in the band, so Holly became our keyboard player almost immediately and she brought in Jimmy Lowell, who was then in the band Riff Raff. Holly had an extensive classical background and had already been writing her own music. She was a big ‘Progressive’ fan and was also into all kinds of interesting, quirky Pop at the time. Jimmy, meanwhile, was a total natural talent who could lay down funky slapping bass lines along with the very best. He had a very all-encompassing sphere of musical influences and interests. He would sit for hours singing along with the most esoteric improvisations, which he seemed to have memorized note for note.”
Holly Knight, in her late teens when she joined the group, had long embraced all forms of music, from Broadway musicals and Ska through to Hard Rock.
“As far as a career, I always assumed that I would do something to do with music,” she offers. “When I was 14 I went to see the Beach Boys play and I was right at the front of the stage. I mimed to the lead singer, Mike Love, that I wanted to come up and play. God bless him, he pulled me up and led me over to a keyboard. They were playing ‘Good Vibrations’ and I looked out at the audience... I knew then that I wanted to be in a band!”
Whilst putting the group together Anton was also actively pursuing session work and always networking. As a result he toured Europe with Robert Gordon and Link Wray, prior to getting the break that would be of huge importance to his future career when, in 1978, he was hired to play drums on KISS guitarist Ace Frehley’s first solo album.
By now the quintet had decided to adopt the band name of Siren and Frehley even designed the newly christened band’s logo for them.
“We were auditioning bass players and Larry Russell came by (to audition). He said he had this friend Ace from KISS who was looking for a drummer for his solo record and recommended me,” recalls Anton. “I went up and played with him a couple of times and he decided to use me. I did not know that much about KISS at the time, but he was the first seriously big Rock Star that I came into contact with. At the same time we were talking to Eddie Kramer for our own project and he was going to produce Ace’s record, so whether that may have had some bearing too, I don’t know.”
“We had approached Eddie Kramer and he expressed interest in producing us,” notes Keith. “He was about to do Ace’s solo KISS album. There was a possibility of Ace doing a song of ours called ‘Live My Way’, which was written by Amanda and me. He ended up not doing it but asking Anton to do the record with him.”
Fig’s work with Frehley quickly led to a firm friendship between himself and the guitarist (which consequently led to, at the time, ghost work on KISS’ ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Unmasked’ albums), as well as Ace also establishing a good rapport with Anton’s band mates. By now the quintet had decided to adopt the band name of Siren and Frehley even designed the newly christened band’s logo for them.
“We liked the name Siren,” states Keith. “We had two women in the band and it had those mythical connotations. When we started to get a little known, we became aware that there were several other ‘Sirens’ in existence. One of them even offered to sell us the rights to the name. Between the band and our manager, we figured it was not worth the effort and expense. We became Spider.”
“Siren was a perfect name,” comments Anton. “Unfortunately the band was on the receiving end of a lot of record business bullshit and the name change was one of them. None of the names we had after that were as good.”
By this time, Bill Aucoin had added the five-piece to his management stable. “Ace was always a very good friend, amazing fun to hang out with. A lovely heart... a real rascal too,” laughs Amanda. “He discovered us, came down to see us at CBGB’s. He brought in the rest of the guys. I would bet it was Gene Simmons who got Bill Aucoin to sign us, but I do not know that for sure. Gene was a big influence for me at that time. He tried to impart his business knowledge and advice. He later managed me in the early 90’s. He was always very supportive and generous. Gene’s a good man, he’s a business man and I’m a bit of a dreamer, still am. Music was never about business for me. I had this idea that I was part of some movement that was going to help change the world through Rock music and poetry. I grew up a late 60s child. You can’t take the hippie rebel out of a hippie rebel!”
“Originally we were signed to Bill’s production company via a torturous courtship (for us), but he became more and more involved,” adds Anton. “I remember listening to our first album in his limo and him being ecstatic with the record.”
Spider’s eventual record deal with the newly launched Dreamland Records had occurred primarily thanks to Holly Knight’s keenness for label boss Mike Chapman to hear the band’s music. Australian born Chapman had made his name throughout the 70s, alongside songwriting partner Nicky Chinn, penning hits for the likes of Sweet, Mud, Suzi Quatro and Smokie. Chapman also began to exert his influence as a producer. Having already left his mark on records by the aforementioned Sweet, Mud and Suzi Quatro, he would also gain credits working with Nick Gilder, Exile and, ultimately, Blondie, The Knack and Pat Benatar.
“I wanted the band to check out Chapman,” Holly notes. “I had told them about him because at the time we were also talking to Eddie Kramer about producing, and as much as I am a huge Jimi Hendrix fan (who Kramer had worked with), I was more impressed with Mike because he really knew about songs and I loved the records he was producing at the time. I gave our tape to Mike at a Keith Richards’ New Barbarians after show party, and when he finally listened to it he said he wanted us to sign to his new label Dreamland. We didn’t know he had a label, I only gave him our demo tape in order to entice him into producing our debut record!”
Dreamland would mainly focus on female artists, with the label’s roster being added to in its all too brief lifespan with Suzi Quatro, Shandi and Holly Penfield, although ex-Silverhead and Detective frontman Michael Des Barres released his New Wave flavoured ‘I’m Only Human’ through the label too. The only other group signed to Dreamland, Nervus Rex, consisted, like Spider, of male and female band members.
Spider had actually recorded a fair bit of material prior to signing with Dreamland in 1979 (Amanda, in particular, recalls putting: “this great tape together of live songs we recorded in the loft in Soho. That stuff really kicked ass!”), and they were actively encouraged to continue writing new material.
“Mike and Nicky, being the ‘song men’ they are, wanted us to still keep writing,” recalls Keith. “So even during the two week pre- production period, once we got to Los Angeles, we were still writing and submitting songs. I have a feeling that ‘New Romance’ was completed during this period. Holly and Anton started it in New York and finished it up in L.A.”
“We certainly had songs that we performed live that didn’t make it to the record, even a few fairly ‘Progressive’ ones. Holly had one called ‘Look For The Spotlight’ that I can still play. Tons of snappy rffs! There were some good ones that Amanda, Anton and I had even recorded before Spider. They were on the original demos that got us business interest. Several of the songs on the record were written while recording.”
No doubt because the label was based in Los Angeles, Chapman took the decision to have the band record there rather than in New York, delegating Peter Coleman to produce it rather than doing the job himself. The band had hoped that Chapman would’ve taken the reins. However, due to other engagements he wasn’t able to and it was a great disappointment to all...
“Absolutely,” confirms Keith. “He had a lot of chart action at that time and we definitely wanted him to produce us. I think though that besides Mike’s other very lucrative commitments, he and Nicky saw us as an opportunity for them to move Peter Coleman into a production role, as up to that point he had been Mike’s engineer, although he had produced (most of) ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ for Pat Benatar.”
“I personally was extremely disappointed because I had been trying to get in touch with Mike from the beginning to produce us,” furthers Holly.
Recorded at MCA Whitney Studios in Glendale, California during October and November 1979, the group’s debut album arrived in 1980. Although every band member made spectacular writing contributions, it would be Holly Knight’s writing that would particularly catch Mike Chapman’s ears. “I think what I brought to the band, although it wasn’t immediate, is great songs,” she reflects. “To be truthful, I barely thought of myself as a writer until I joined Spider, but I fell very naturally into it with my background of equal parts Classical and Rock.”
So how was Peter Coleman’s approach in the studio?
“At that time, Peter was definitely an engineer and didn’t really get involved musically in a deep way,” offers Keith. “Speaking for myself, I had done quite a bit of local New York production and really wanted Mike’s songcraft to captain the ship. Peter was good, in that he really took care of the sounds and had a necessary ‘take care of business’ work ethic. He was very pragmatic, and I was more artsy-fartsy. There were plenty of fun sessions with him.”
“I agree with everything Keith just said,” states Holly. “Peter was a sweetheart and a very good engineer, but we needed a real full-on producer and I felt we got passed off onto one of Mike’s engineer/ protégés.”
Still, regardless of the band’s feelings towards Chapman being unavailable and delegating the first album on his new label to Peter Coleman, the results were quite superb. ‘Spider’ offered a perfectly compiled album that mixed cutting edge Pop Rock (‘New Romance (It’s A Mystery)’, ‘Little Darlin’’, ‘Burning Love’ and ‘What’s Going On’) with some pretty astounding, Progressive Pomp (‘Shady Lady’, ‘Brotherly Love’ and the ballad ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’).
Although ‘Little Darlin’’ was later covered by French chanteuse Sheila on her album of the same name (as well as by the female fronted 80s Seattle based Hard Rock outfit Widow and also by Rachel Sweet) and ‘Burning Love’ was later re-appraised by Maryland Hard Rock outfit Kix (on an album, ‘Cool Kids’, that Keith Lentin actually had a hand in on the production side), the most enduring song on the album is ‘New Romance (It’s A Mystery)’. It’s been covered by the aforementioned Widow, soap actress Lisa Hartman, Holly Woods & Toronto and ‘T.J. Hooker’ star Adrian Zmed! A bright and refreshing number with a very memorable chorus, it certainly deserved more than its #39 chart peak.
Promotion of the album led Spider to Europe, where Holly recalls they performed on some TV shows in Germany and Holland. Once back in the States they found themselves opening for Alice Cooper before venturing out on their own tour of high profile clubs.
“We did tour quite a bit up and down the East Coast, as well as that national tour opening for Alice Cooper,” confirms Keith, “but our record company was going through all kinds of upheavals and distribution stuff at the time.”
“Our first single, ‘New Romance’, cracked the top 40, but as we were following that up the Dreamland promo man, Michael Dundas, was killed in a car accident,” adds Anton sombrely. “Everyone was shattered and aside from the tragedy to his family, which is of most importance, it could not have happened at a worse time for a breaking band because they were unable to operate at full force after that.”
Still, recording began, with Peter Coleman in L.A. during late 1980 on ‘Between The Lines’. “The debut had sold about 150,000 copies and they considered that enough to proceed with the second one,” explains Keith. “They also knew that they had ‘dropped the ball’ on the first one with an uncoordinated promo/sales effort. So everyone, including Aucoin Management, had resolved to get it together this time around. Unfortunately, the problems were worse, as Dreamland had massive problems building with RSO their distributor.”
Was the band comfortable with the recording arrangements?
“We were somewhat comfortable. However, there was some frustration. Speaking for myself I felt we needed more of a hands-on music and song-based producer to captain the recordings. Peter was a great engineer, but I wanted a more artsy approach. He was awesome in an organizational sense, but I felt creatively restricted. I know the rest of the band agreed.”
“We definitely felt the pressure to come up with a hit. We were all very pleased when Holly wrote 'Better Be Good To Me' with Mike Chapman and the fact that he agreed to produce the track for us. I recall very clearly having a lot of fun with Mike in the studio. He was fearless and inspiring. Of course, the label problems prevented our version from becoming a real hit, even though we had begun to get airplay on it.”
“We wanted to write a song for the band, and then it was just a natural decision that he produce,” offers Holly on the subject of Chapman finally getting more involved. “The difference between Peter and Mike was huge. I loved Peter, but he was an engineer/ turned producer; whereas Mike was a songwriter/producer. To this day I feel there is a very big distinction between the two, plus he had plenty of number-one hits in his pocket, hence the experience. His approach was much cooler, much more creative, less focused on parts and sounds. ‘Better Be Good To Me’ was only two chords, so he really encouraged us to stretch out and be creative.”
“Doing that song was some vocal session for me,” recalls Amanda. “We were recording it and I was thinking it was going pretty well until Mike grunted and seemed very displeased. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen and Holly walked into the control room and she started talking to him behind the glass. I think she finally convinced him, thank goodness! That was the final vocal!”
The band played a few shows after the album was released in 1981, but whereas the first album had reached #130 on Billboard’s album chart, the new record stalled at #185. They also failed to emulate the top 40 singles chart success enjoyed with ‘New Romance’. “We tried to do a better album, though I think everyone was a bit stunned by the first one not doing better,” says Anton. “It was a great effort and should have done well. I felt that we had upheld our side of the bargain, but that’s life and the record business is filled with slightly similar stories.”
Further progress came to a skidding halt when Holly Knight opted to leave the group to initially pursue a hugely successful songwriting partnership with Mike Chapman (resulting in, amongst others, hits for Pat Benatar with ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ and Tina Turner with ‘The Best’ and her cover of ‘Better Be Good To Me’) and, also in this post Spider period, write and record a single, ‘Obsession’, with Michael Des Barres that would later be a huge international hit in the hands of Animotion.
I wondered whether there had been any tension between the group during the recording of the album that had led to her departure, or, indeed, whether Mike Chapman had influenced that decision? “There was obviously a bit of tension because the label was mostly supportive of Holly's songs,” reflects Keith. “After that record Mike really encouraged her to quit the band and move to Los Angeles and write with him. Mike was at the top of his game, so of course this was attractive to Holly.”
“Many things added to the tension around then,” adds Holly, “but, yes, of course Mike Chapman had an influence on my decision, but it was my idea originally to leave, not his. I called him up from the road when we were touring and told him I wanted to leave the band. I thought he’d be upset, but he was quite the opposite. He said that if I was that unhappy I should move to L.A. and he would sign me to a new publishing deal, that we should continue to write together, he would put me with other writers and artists, and he would be producing a lot of records which he would pull me in to write on. And that's exactly what happened. What none of us knew at the time was that he and Nicky were in the process of dissolving their long partnership and Dreamland was about to fold.”
“It wasn't the ‘lure’ of Mike’s offer that caused me to leave,” she continues. “A lot of tension had built up between Amanda and I over the years and it had reached a point on the road where she had called a meeting with the band behind my back. I really felt betrayed; I found out and walked into the ‘meeting’. We nearly duked it out! To be honest, all along I didn’t feel appreciated for my contribution. There was a lot of jealousy because my tunes were getting more attention, and unfortunately, the band had a problem looking at it as a good thing. Had I stayed and had the support to continue writing, who knows? I really believe the band could’ve been huge. Mega huge, but we all followed our own paths and destiny took us where we were supposed to go. I’m very happy with the decision I made. From that point on my career really focused on songwriting and producing. The thing is that it’s all good now (between us). We are all friendly and happy for each other. Keith and I are especially close. I love him to pieces.”
The band subsequently recruited Texan born Beau Hill in Knight’s wake. “We never considered calling it a day,” affirms Keith. “We were very excited to have Beau on board. He was a great player and could sing his ass off.”
“We were definitely fired up to continue the band,” adds Amanda. “Beau can be a really funny guy, he charmed us real Texas style."
Beau Hill had previously been a member of Airborne, a wonderful Pomp Rock band; the subjects of a previous instalment in this series of features (albeit with an incorrect band photo!). After Hill joined, Spider’s decision to adopt the new moniker of Shanghai was swiftly embraced and the five-piece signed to Chrysalis. But that’s a whole different story for another day and, naturally, another feature...
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This article was in issue #101
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