Robert Spiller

Akin to the Darkness in their unabashedly over the top, retro-fetishist, classic rock style, English rockers the Struts burst onto an unsuspecting public with big dreams and loud mouths to match. The band was the brainchild of singer Luke Spiller, the child of strict Christian parents, who had dreamed of being a showman ever since becoming obsessed with Michael Jackson at the age of seven. With his sexualized swagger, powerful voice, and outrageous pronouncements like "I was born to do this, and I'll die doing it," Spiller came off like a cross between Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, and Robert Plant. The band's music was a similar blend of '60s and '70s tropes, with big, singalong choruses that earned their videos hundreds of thousands of YouTube hits and won them a deal with Mercury Records.