THE WAY IT HAPPENED

After getting to know to each other at a common ride to an Anthrax - gig in November 1998 York and Kappe spent several hours at parties talking about their musical faves. Realizing a couple of differences between all the shared love for certain metal-bands (Kappe being a strict 80ies metal fanatic while York actually got a metal & old school hardcore background evolving into all kinds of musical extremes and beyond) York was about to tease his new friend and mentioned Saint Vitus, expecting complete disapproval. To his big surprise Kappe totally got out of his mind, expressing the deepest love and respect for the old doom gods. A time of common worship had begun... While attending a gig of easy listening bar jazzers Dandruff Deluxe in February 1999, York out of a sudden had the idea of forming a Saint Vitus cover-band. As soon as these thoughts came to his mind they had already been expressed to Ingo (who from now on will be refered to as Kaptain), who just answered, "All right, I'm in !". They both knew each other from the local hardcore scene and Kaptain had already been long time friend with Kappe, coming from the same hometown. The dialogue continued... "We gotta ask Kappe, as well" -- "Then we'll have two bass players!" -- "Cool !!!" So while partying on after the gig and being extremely enthusiastic about the new band common friend Jan was kinda being forced into joining in as he wanted to play drums anyway. As drunk as he was there was no will to say no and it sounded like a cool idea to him. The next day York phoned Kappe who was completely overwhelmed and said this gotta be thought-transference as he wanted to do the same. So sometime in March `99 they finally entered the rehearsal room to praise the gods of doom, featuring a dual bass attack and Kappe on vocals. The grade of fun was extremely high, alcohol and partly weed as well... However, after listening to Sleep's century monument Jerusalem a fucking lot the desire to celebrate doom with their own songs got stronger and so after some months the original song writing was about to being started. A common gig with UK grinders Hard To Swallow in September `99 was the first public appearance featuring covers of Patra and Jack Frost plus instrumental versions of two self composed tunes. While the songwriting continued successfully, the vocal part didn't, Kappe himself being unsatisfied and not willing to do the job. So Kaptain suggested to ask Markus, singer of local psycho hardcore fellows Blackspring, whom he had played with before. And after some initial doubts about the very slow songs Markus finally agreed to join in, contributing extreme acid vocals, apocalyptic lyrics and some wonderful song titles such as "Me And My Sword". It was February 2000 and the foundation being developed within the previous 11 months was about to rise...even though the entity that has become Spancer is influenced by lots of different bands and events there are two special acts that had a basic impact on our existence : Saint Vitus and Sleep -- thank you very much !!!