Spider Stacy

Peter "Spider" Stacy (born 14 December 1958 in Eastbourne) is an English musician. He is one of the founding members of London Irish band The Pogues.

Stacy got his start in music in London's punk scene during the late 1970s as frontman for The Millwall Chainsaws (latterly featuring a young Shane MacGowan on guitar) who later changed their name to The New Republicans. He is said to be the inspiration for Young Ones character Vyvyan. In 1981, he teamed up with Shane MacGowan again, Jem Finer and James Fearnley to form The Pogues and is credited with naming the band. Initially, his role was confined to co-vocals. As Shane became more confident as a front man, Stacy learned to play the tin whistle, which remained his role until the departure of MacGowan left him with lead vocal duties. He is unusual in that his playing style owes little if anything, to the traditional Irish approach.

Stacy was with The Pogues until they disbanded in 1996, having provided lead vocals on The Pogues last two albums. During this time they had their biggest American single with the Stacy-penned Tuesday Morning (song) which peaked at no. 11 on the Billboard Rock Chart. It was the highest placed single that The Pogues had on their own in the UK charts hitting no 18 in 1993. Their higher placed singles had guest musicians Kirsty MacColl and The Dubliners.

He has done very little touring outside The Pogues claiming not to enjoy anything as much as the Pogues live experience. He appeared playing whistle on "Fairytale of New York" and singing back up vocals on "There's a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis" at Kirsty MacColl's last ever show at Shepherds Bush Empire, London in October 2000. He played the odd show with Boz Boorer (Morrissey), Alabama 3, Shane MacGowan & The Popes and a couple of small tours with The Vendettas in the late 90's. He has played a handful of shows in the states in 2004 and 2008 as sometime member of the Filthy Thieving Bastards and appears on the I'm A Son Of A Gun album. (2007)

He rejoined the Pogues when they reformed in 2001, and has been with them ever since.

Outside of the Pogues he performs with current Pretenders guitarist James Walbourne regularly, and they have supposedly been recording an album for the last five years.

In 2005 he appeared with Patti Smith at the Festival Hall in London during her Meltdown season. He sang "Joe Hill" with her band and accompanied her on whistle whilst she sang a 17th century murder ballad.

In June 2006, Stacy appeared on the soundtrack of an art exhibition in Lyon, France. The soundtrack was composed by Susan Stenger with contributions by Robert Poss, Alan Vega, Alexander Hacke, F.M. Einheit, Will Oldham, Kim Gordon, Bruce Gilbert, Ulrich Krieger, Warren Ellis, Jim White, Jennifer Hoyston, Andria Degens and Spider Stacy. Conceived by Mattieu Copeland.

In 2007, along with Ronnie Drew, Stacy appeared on the album version of "(F)lannigan's Ball" from the Dropkick Murphys album The Meanest of Times. It reached No. 20 on the Billboard charts. He appears on stage with them regularly.

James Fearnley of The Pogues and Stacy guest appeared with the Shout Out Louds in October 2007 at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles, singing The Pogues' "Streams Of Whiskey". He has since played whistle live with them in London in 2008 and 2009.

In 2007 "Love You Til The End" a Pogues single from the 1995 album Pogue Mahone with Spider on vocals was used throughout the romantic comedy P.S. I Love You starring double academy award winner Hilary Swank. This led to a wave of new, mostly female fans turning up to shows in the United States and is fast becoming one of the most popular Pogues songs.

He took part in Tom Morello's Justice Tour in 2009 duetting with Steve Earle on their 1988 collaboration "Johnny Come Lately".

Most recently he has appeared on several releases by experimental musician Neil Campbell's "Astral Social Club". They have also performed live together in London.

He was closely involved with Jean MacColl's "Justice For Kirsty" campaign until December 2009 when it was incorporated into The Music Fund For Cuba, a cause close to Kirsty MacColl's heart at the time of her death in 2000. Spider and the Pogues continue to support her and her family through this charity.

The Biography appearing in this section is attributed to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Stacy. Portions of this Biography may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 or any later version, available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. Additional terms may apply. See Wikipedia Terms of Use for details.