In 1967, a year after graduating from Phoenix, Arizona’s Cortez High School, The Spiders – an Anglophile garage band based around cross-country lettermen Vince Furnier (vocals), Dennis Dunaway (bass) and Glen Buxton (lead guitar) – grew tired of being big fish in a small pool. After they brought in rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, their second single, Don’t Blow Your Mind, had given them a local hit, reaching the dizzy heights of No.11 in Tucson. They were on the radio and in demand on the South-West club circuit, but Tinseltown beckoned.
“It was like Dorothy landing in Oz,” Dennis Dunaway recalls of the band’s arrival into Los Angeles. “We were young, had a vision, so just jumped in a van and drove there.”
