A songwriter who built an empire out of satire, spectacle, and six strings.
Bill Spooner grew up in Phoenix, Arizona before heading west to the San Francisco Bay Area, where two local bands — The Beans and The Red, White & Blues Band — merged in 1972 to become The Tubes. From that moment, he became one of the central creative forces behind one of the most theatrical and musically adventurous bands of the era.
Bill's songwriting credits include some of The Tubes' most iconic numbers: the anthemic "White Punks on Dope," the pop breakthrough "She's a Beauty," the new-wave tilted "Talk to Ya Later," and dozens of deep cuts that blurred the line between hard rock and musical theater.
Beyond The Tubes, Bill has continued to write, record, and perform — channeling fifty years of experience into solo work, collaborations, and an ever-growing catalog.
Bill likes one-paragraph bios and three-page album reviews. When we told him this one was meant to reach a few million people, he grudgingly filled in the background. Some of it we may have made up. Sort of.
Bill was born and raised in Arizona with a detour through Lubbock, Texas — the kind of place where 12-year-olds get bussed hours across a blizzard to play football. He hit his full growth by 8th grade, which in Texas means one thing: you're playing football whether you asked to or not. Good training, it turns out, for two decades of touring.
Eventually Pete and Vi Spooner packed the family back to Arizona — much to the relief of Bill and his sisters, and (retroactively) of Tubes fans everywhere. Phoenix became the nursery for the guitar playing that had already been earning him trophies as a kid. With the knees saved from football, a Gibson Melody Maker in his hands, and a brand-new Fender amp, a different kind of career started.
The XL's · Beatles covers · Christown MallBill's first real band was The XL's — a Beatles cover act that played bars and battle-of-the-bands gigs all over Phoenix. The name came from Vi Spooner, who would only let the guys rehearse in her living room on one condition: she got naming rights. Fair enough.
They won the Christown Mall Battle of the Bands week after week, and not entirely on musical merit. Bass player Mike Cross worked days at Avis Rent A Car — which at the time had a We Try Harder promo running. Somehow several boxes of Avis buttons migrated out of the lot. The band silkscreened XL's over each one and handed them out at the Mall. When it came time to vote: "Well, must've been the XL's — I'm wearin' their button." Consider it the first Spooner marketing campaign.
1970 · CaliforniaBill always dreamed of California. In 1970, he moved the Phoenix band he'd been running — The Beans — to San Francisco. Not long after landing, The Beans merged with another Phoenix transplant outfit, the Red, White & Blues Band, and out the other side came The Tubes.
He was guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter in a band built on wacky, unpredictable music and a stage show that ranged from "strange" to "what did I just see." His job, as he tells it, was to write songs that illustrated the outrageous characters Michael Cotten, Prairie Prince, and he himself were cooking up in the rehearsal room.
"I was writing songs to illustrate outrageous characters — and I'm still surprised some people consider them classics. I'm not complaining. Just mystified."
Those songs include "White Punks on Dope," "Mondo Bondage," "What Do You Want From Life?" — plus, later, "Talk to Ya Later" and the Top-10 hit "She's a Beauty." Twelve-ish albums. Nineteen years of touring.
1989 · The clean breakAfter nineteen years on the road, Bill was mentally and physically cooked. In 1989, he left The Tubes in search of his sanity. The hardest part wasn't the band — it was giving up his share of the 24-track automated recording studio he'd talked his "partners" into buying.
"It would've been awkward, to say the least, to keep working there while the rest of the guys were slogging through W.P.O.D. or She's a Beauty at some Onion Festival. It had to be a clean break."
Sponge Mummies · SNAFU · Mall to MarsA few years of decompression followed. Then a couple of deliberately weird experiments: Sponge Mummies, an anti-environmental satire group, and SNAFU, a paramilitary-rock outfit. Neither blew up commercially, but they got Bill writing again. Some of those songs landed on Mall to Mars (1996) — a space-themed solo record first released on Visible Records and reissued on RDK, with a few genuinely great rock moments buried in the concept.
1998 · The Folk-UpsIn 1998 Bill teamed up with Alex Guinness to form The Folk-Ups, an acoustic rock-folk trio that eventually found its shape when upright bassist Mark Skowronek joined. They became a Bay Area fixture — Slim's, the Noe Valley Ministry, Cafe Amsterdam, the Sweetwater — and opened for Dave Davies of The Kinks, Freedy Johnston, and local faves Liar and Storm & Her Dirty Mouth.
NowBill is currently finishing a solo record with his son Boone producing and engineering. After a recent gig opening for his former Tubes bandmates, father and son are eyeing an acoustic duo — schedule permitting.
A Bill Spooner-written ballad from The Completion Backward Principle (1981) — and proof The Tubes had more than one speed. It became one of the band's biggest chart hits.
Bill co-founds an art-rock band in Phoenix. They move west.
The Beans →The Beans + The Red, White & Blues Band merge in the Bay Area.
"White Punks on Dope" lands. Produced by Al Kooper.
"Talk to Ya Later" becomes a staple of early MTV.
"She's a Beauty" hits #10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
New material, solo records, collaborations.