Michael Owen Bruce - Early Life

Early Life

Michael Owen Bruce was born March 16, 1948 to Alvin and Ruth (Owen) Bruce. The Bruce and Owen families had moved to Arizona from Kansas. The family ancestry includes Cherokee, Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, Osage, Scottish, Irish, English and Norman French. Ruth's father (John Glenn Owen) was also a professional baseball player: "Blacky" Owen. "Al" was in the military during the 1940's and, Ruth played piano on the radio and performed for many U.S.O. functions. After the military, "Al" worked for The Coca-Cola Company. Michael and his brothers (David and Paul) attended North High School in Phoenix, Arizona.

Bruce began his professional music career in the mid 1960's. Like so many young people of that time, he found a fiery inspiration in The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. After playing with The Trolls, Michael became part of a band known as The Wildflowers. Only a handful of songs were recorded by this group ("A Man Like Myself", "One A Day Like Today", "More Than Me" and "Moving Along With The Sun"). According to Bruce, the masters were bought from a man in Phoenix by Bear Family Records (A Germany based independent record label that specializes in reissues). There was another short lived group that Michael was a part of called Our Gang (Our Gang also featured North High School friend and member of The Tubes, Bill Spooner). They never made any known recordings. In 1966, he replaced John Tatum in a Phoenix band called The Spiders; featuring Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, John Speer (replaced by Neal Smith), and Vince Furnier; all from area high schools. One of their top venues was the VIP Club in Phoenix. In 1967 they changed the band's name to The Nazz but had to change it again in 1968 after a legal-issue over Todd Rungren's band, Nazz. The band's new name was Alice Cooper.