[2] The group had its origins in Bowie's earlier backing outfit the Hype, which featured Ronson and Woodmansey, but Tony Visconti on bass.
The group joined Bowie's stage persona, Ziggy Stardust, in the theatrical style of the material's presentation.
Ronson's guitar and arranging during the Spiders from Mars era not only fitted into this style, but also provided much of the underpinning for later punk rock musicians.
[5] In 1975, Bolder and Woodmansey reformed the band without Ronson, and were joined in this lineup by Mike Garson, Dave Black, and Pete McDonald.
The band's name came from the UFO sighting on 27 October 1954, where a stadium crowd thought they had witnessed Martian spacecraft which cast off a thin filament material, later hypothesised to be webs from migrating spiders.