Spider

Once South African musician’s guitarist Keith Lentin, drummer Anton Fig and singer Amanda Blue ended up in New York they got together with bassist Jimmy Lowell and keyboardist Holly Knight. Initially called Siren, the change to Spider was made and, thanks to a lucky meeting between Holly Knight and famous songwriter Mike Chapman at an industry party, they ended up signed to Mike Chapman and his songwriting partner Nicky Chinn's record label Dreamland. Another stroke of luck occurred when drummer Anton Fig was asked to play on Ace Frehley's first solo album, a connection to KISS that continued for him, including the fact that their manager Bill Aucoin became Spider's manager.

Their first album came out in 1980, and despite selling in numbers that today would be viewed as very healthy (150,000), the chart placing (#130) was a disappointment in those heady days of huge album sales, and they went back to the studio to create 'Between the Lines'. Clearly under pressure to produce a big hit single, Holly wrote 'Better Be Good to Me' with Mike Chapman, an obvious hit it seemed. In fact, it was later a huge hit for Tina Turner but sadly not for Spider. Amazingly, despite a promotional visit to Europe and some dates with Alice Cooper and The Joe Perry Project, this album didn't fare as well as the debut and eventually Holly left the band to focus on songwriting with Mike Chapman (writing 'Love Is A Battlefield' a hit for Pat Benatar, and the massive hit 'The Best' for Tina Turner). Spider without Holly continued as Shanghai but the two Spider albums can now be appreciated and seen in a positive way as glorious AOR/pop rock offerings that really should have put the band in a much stronger position leading to greater recognition at the time.