Phoenix was launched in the cosmopolitan city of Timișoara in 1962 by a pair of schoolboys: Nicu Covaci and Béla Kamocsa, under the name of Sfinții ("The Saints"). In their first years, together with Florin "Moni" Bordeianu (born 1948), they performed in school contests and at local clubs, covering Western music hits from The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, etc., and they quickly became very popular amongst the youth. In 1965 the Communist authorities demanded that the band stop performing under the name "The Saints", because of the religious innuendo that the name carried. Forced to comply, the band took the name "Phoenix". Nicu Covaci also changed the composition of the band, around 1963, by adding Claudiu Rotaru, Ioan "Pilu" Ștefanovici (born 1946) and Günther "Spitzly" Reininger (born 1950) to the lineup.