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clothes. When he first showed up at high
school at 15, wearing eyeliner, other students simply shrugged. They had already
started referring to their classmate as ‘Luke
the rock star.’
Which certainly sounded better than
PK, for preacher’s kid, which was what
Spiller actually was. And therein hangs
another formative tale. He reckons he
either learned or inherited his flashy performance chops from his fire-and-brimstone father, whom he would study every
Sunday when he watched him sermonize
at their local church. What his dad did in
the pulpit wasn’t selfish, he noticed then.
Stirring the congregation with both words
and musical numbers, he says, “had nothing to do with him, it was to do with something else.
songs, but more like an established artist
type, like Neil Diamond,” he says, hastily
adding, “But so do I, as well. But it’s funny,
you know – parents kind of grow up with
their children, and looking back now, I
know that mine probably would have
done a few things differently. But you go
from thinking that a certain type of music
is a bad influence to realizing that, ‘Okay,
my son does this and that, so I guess
there’s something to be learned from all
this.’ So they have always been 100% supportive. Uhh, as long as what I’m doing is
tasteful!”
It was the artist’s mother, in fact,
who made one of the most crucial suggestions for The Struts. Knowing that her son
was a huge fan of classic Queen and its late
foppish frontman Freddie Mercury, she
urged him to get in contact with Zandra
Rhodes, an English designer who once created stage togs for Mercury and his guitarist, Brian May. It was 2014, and The
Struts had just booked the biggest gig of its
career – opening for The Rolling Stones in
Paris, for a crowd of 80,000 – and Spiller
knew that he wanted something to wear
that would make a lasting impression. Or,
photo by Chris Cuffaro
“It was about tapping into something
which requires faith and whatnot. So I
guess he taught me the art of sincerity in
performing, and passion. That’s probably
what I learned the most from him. I wouldn’t say that I consciously studied him,” he
clarifies. “But definitely subconsciously, a
lot of his attributes rubbed off on me. And
he was a guitar player, and he gave me my
first guitar. Then he gave me more guitars,
and some of them were models that he
played when he was my age, like this
beautiful Ovation. But watching him work
was what first introduced me to live music,
and to watching a big band.”
Oddly enough, Spiller’s mom – despite
running a Christian household -- was a
dyed-in-the-wool rock and roller from
way back. She once saw The Who perform
in Bristol, with a then-little group called
AC/DC opening. “She’s not really a hard
rock fan now – she just appreciates good
24 illinoisentertainer.com july 2016
as he puts it, “I wanted to get a couple of
outfits made that really suited the occasion.” Rhodes hadn’t agreed to work with
a musician in years. But she readily agreed
to get her shears out of mothballs for him.
“And she designed four separate outfits
for me,” he marvels. “And I just adore
Queen’s debut album, and I discovered
marijuana around the same time, so you
can guess the kind of journeys I went on in
my psyche with that as the soundtrack.”
Australian designer Ray Brown –
whose work for Cher, AC/DC, and Judas
Priest is displayed at New York’s
Smithsonian Institute – also agreed to craft
wardrobe pieces for Spiller, when The
Struts were invited to open a string of
dates for Motley Crue. These days, he estimates that roughly 80% of his clothes are
women’s, including his signature white
kimono from Max Mara. He doesn’t care
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