Webcuts recently caught Spoon at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona on the weekend, wowing a crowd of Spaniards with their solid mid-afternoon set. Their latest album, Transference, seemed to show the band finding new ways to tie their own shoelaces, searching out their own “Mystery Zone” or what Britt Daniel will later say in the interview “we gotta try to please ourselves first”. Notable for being our first interview where the band asks us the questions, Spoon have perhaps realised there’s more to making music than just pleasing yourself. You’ve still got to please your Mom too…

Before knocking back the sangria in sunny Spain, Spoon were in Australia knocking back the beers and taking the traveling Transference roadshow to the distant corners of the globe. Ever welcome in our company, Britt Daniel and Jim Eno sat down to talk the art of transferring with Chris Berkley of Static.

Welcome back to Australia, Britt and Jim from Spoon. Bashing down the beers there. It’s a day off in Spoon-land, which means you do interviews. I hate to see what a day on is then.

Britt: You know, they ask us to do it, we say yeah. We’re trying to play ball. The choice was to do all these interviews on the day of the show and that would’ve just been… they wanted us to fly from Brisbane and then do four interviews and a performance and then do the sound check and then do the show, and we said “can we maybe move some of that stuff around a little bit?”.

Ok. You’re seeing a different side of Australia this time around, too, because you’re doing these regional shows. You’re seeing the heartland. How’s it been, Jim?

Jim: It’s been alright, yeah. I mean, festivals themselves are hard. You’re playing a stage and there are five bands. The kids are way up front to see the headliner. It’s during the day. There are a lot of factors.

Britt: It’s just a different experience from playing your own shows in a rock club at night with the sound bouncing around the room. Sometimes those festival shows are good. They’ve got their own advantages. You get to see a bunch of bands you wouldn’t normally get to see. You get to play in front of a bunch of people that wouldn’t normally come see you.

Does it feel sometimes that it’s a hard-won campaign doing that stuff? I’m guessing back when things were blossoming for Spoon, after the release of Girls Can Tell, a lot of that got attributed to you changing record labels but you must’ve spent a lot of time on the road back then as well, winning people over.

Jim: Well, we spent a lot of time on the road before Girls Can Tell came out but there weren’t a lot of people at our shows to win over I guess. It’s just that people hadn’t really heard of us.

Britt: So, what do you think about the new record? Do you like it?

Yeah. Have you been getting some negative feedback, Britt?

Britt: Mmm. Just from my Mom. My Mom says it’s a little ‘metal‘.

A little what??

Britt: Metal. I don’t know. It’s something she just picked up on. She had her radar on. She discovered that we were veering towards metal, in her opinion.

She wasn’t forthcoming on why that was metal?

Britt: Well, she doesn’t really understand what metal is. Would your Mom know what metal is? If she would, maybe she knows more about music than my Mom.

I think her idea of metal would be Kiss.

Britt: Yeah, my Mom’s idea is Kiss. Anything with loud guitars. That’s kinda metal.

Jim: Did she say which song was metal or anything?

Britt: No. She just said to my brother she was worried because we were getting a little ‘metal’.

Jim: I love how you hear stuff through your brother a lot, you know.

Does she not give you direct feedback normally?

Britt: Not really, no. But definitely the feedback is intended for me, but she won’t say it directly to me. You know how that is with parents? You find out about things through your siblings?

There must be a lot more parental pride in what Spoon do these days? It must be nice to go to them and say “Look we debuted at number 4 on the Billboard charts“. Do they recognise things like that?

Britt: Yeah, they think that’s cool.

Jim: (To Britt) Your parents will go to shows.

Britt: Yeah, they go to the shows.

Are they the Moms and Dads that are standing up the back with their fingers in their ears or are they down the front?

Britt: They’re wherever we can get them tickets (laughs). Usually they’re pretty sweet tickets, pretty sweet seats in the VIP area, somewhere where they can sit down.

Have they always gone to Spoon shows? Have you got family that will keep going every time around, Jim?

Jim: My family does, yeah. I grew up in Rhode Island, so in the Boston area I have a lot of family. I mean my family have been going to shows since 1996 or so.

So they’re number 1 ticket holders?

Jim: Yeah, yeah, they’re been doing it for a while.

Are they interested in finding out things like that Metacritic roundup? That was a nice thing to say that you were the most well-reviewed band of the last decade.

Britt: My Mom has a google search out for me, so anytime my name comes up anywhere on the internet in a new setting she gets word of it to her inbox.

Jim: That’s impressive your Mom set that up.

Britt: It’s impressive that she set it up, but it’s not much fun that she has it set up.

Jim: Does she forward you stuff?

Britt: She forwards me stuff and lots of time she knows what we’re doing, she knows what’s going on before I know. She’ll say ‘I heard that you added this show, or this show’. But you don’t want your Mom having that kind of access into your life.

And it also means if you get arrested your Mom’s going to know about it, so you’re going to have to behave yourself on the road.

Britt: Absolutely.

How’s the new record been going over live?

Britt: Oh, people love it.

All the metal fans love it, right.

Britt: Yeah. (laughs)

Is it ever a worry for you guys to translate songs on record into a live setting?

Britt: No, we know what we’re doing. We’re good at it. We’ve been doing this a long time. We’re never worried. We never worry about anything.

For Transference it seems there’s always been a pretty restless spirit about what Spoon do. But this time round especially, did you go out of your way in the studio to keep it not quite well-rounded?  I’ve heard some of the songs literally made it onto the record in their own demo form. Were you trying to keep things a bit more rough and ready?

Britt: Yeah, we like it rough and ready. We’d made a record, the one before, where we’d spent a lot of time in the studio and this time we wanted to do it a different way. Not working with the same producer the whole time, not slogging, we wanted something that sounded a little more spontaneous. A lot of the songs are demos, songs we recorded on cassette in the practice space that we had no idea they were going to end up on the record. It’s that kinda thing where you don’t know. You think you’re just laying the groundwork but you happen upon something that’s kinda magic, for lack of a better word. Those are the types of recordings we wanted to use on this album.

Is it harder the bigger a band gets, the more luxuries that get afforded them. So you could take 12 months in a studio making a record if you wanted to. Is it hard to say no to that stuff?

Britt: Sometimes it helps to have a guideline or some limitations because we could end up spend two years in the studio if we wanted to.

Jim: Do you mean like setting deadlines?

Britt: Deadlines or like we’re only going to do it on 8 tracks or we’re only going to….

Where do you stand on the Brian Eno thing of picking up a different card (Eno’s Oblique Strategies)and having to play a song that way? It’s almost like playing party games in the studio.

Jim: I don’t think we’ve ever used that. “Make it sound more blue”. That’s one of them.

Even when the songs were done and dusted, was it hard convincing people, a track like “Mystery Zone” which cuts off abruptly on the CD version, was it hard telling people that’s the way it was supposed to be?

Britt: That’s never seemed too weird to me. It seems like I’ve heard a lot of songs that cut off abruptly, but for some reason I hear back that’s so weird.

Jim: And everyone points to that one, yeah.

Britt: But we don’t really try to convince people about anything. We just put it on the record and either they buy it or they don’t. They like it or they don’t. Really, we gotta try to please ourselves first. That’s the only way we can know whether what we’re doing is any good.

How is the working relationship that you two have these days?

Britt: We have a lot of sleepovers. (laughs)

You agree on most things, Jim?

Jim: Yeah, we do. Yeah.

Are you the one brain by now?

Britt: No, I think it’s a good thing to not be of one brain. There’s been lots of times that Jim wouldn’t have thought of and vice versa.

Jim: I think it’s the way with the band too, with Eric and Rob. It’s like anyone can sorta bring things up.

Britt: Those situations where everybody is so precious about their ideas being accepted or not accepted. I think that‘s a dangerous little world to live in if you’re trying to make something creative. You gotta be willing to put out ideas and willing for someone to say “I don’t like that one” or “I don’t get it” or whatever.

You recorded a Damned cover around the same time as you did the record. Which you’ve been doing in the live shows. So if Transference is metal, is the goth years of Spoon coming up?

Britt: Yeah. I like that Arp Solina. I wanna use that more and more. That’s the sound of that song, the keyboard sound you hear. That’s the keyboard The Cure would always use, or Joy Division would always use. That’s the sound of goth, I guess.

Is that the excuse then for doing this song? To be able to employ that on a Spoon song?

Britt: No.

Jim: We’ve used that a few times.

Britt: But this is its most prominent use. That is the sound on that one.

And what do your folks think of the Damned cover?

Britt: They haven’t said anything. She’s probably read about, but she hasn’t said anything. I’ll ask my brother…

First broadcast on Static on 13/05/10. Static can be heard on Sydney’s 2SER (107.3 FM) and via the Internet (www.2ser.com) every Thursday evening (AEST).

Chris: Joining us on the phone on Static this evening it’s a great pleasure to have tracked down Jim from Spoon soaking up the Annandale’s surrounds no less. How are you sir?

Jim: Good sir. How are you doing Chris?

I’m doing alright. I’m glad to have Spoon back again. You must know your way around these parts by now. Do you get around in Sydney Ok?

Yeah, you know I get a map and wander around. It’s not bad.

I think every time Spoon has come here you have played a different venue though so you are probably crossing a few off your list as well.

Yeah, exactly right. It’s good to play the Big Day Out and everything. It is the first time we are actually on that tour, so we’re excited.

All this Australian touring for Spoon comes on the back of what was another pretty busy year in the States for you guys as well, right?

Yeah, we have pretty much been touring since about March. So it’s been a long time.

And you think that sort of relentless tour schedule payed off last year as well? The album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga was the biggest success you guys have had. It was like a charting American record, right?

Right. We’re really happy with how everything has been going. But for us it has been a gradual sales increase. Every record since Girls Can Tell has basically doubled in sales so it’s been a sort of gradual thing from our perspective.

Every person that bought the last album tells two friends or something? Do you think that is how it works?

[laughs] That is how it works I guess, yeah.

But it also speaks volumes about the groundwork that you guys have done, doesn’t it? I mean, is it nice to see it paying off in some ways?

Yeah exactly. Especially in the States we get zero radio play so it is basically all from touring and word of mouth… That’s it.

Given you’re this far in to the band’s history now — when you guys turn up to make a new album do you pretty much have an idea what the record will sound like, and what pieces will fit where? Or is it still a lot of tinkering?

Well, I think it is a lot of tinkering. The other thing is the way the record is going to sound is based solely on what Britt’s writing at the time. It depends on what he’s bringing to the table and we figure out how to approach each song.

Is there much trial and error in assembling the versions of each song that is going to be on the record?

Yeah, there is. For instance, I think for “Cherry Bomb” that was version three or something. We recorded it with a couple different people, we tried it a bunch of different ways and that one was the happiest with.

So do you or Britt wake up in the middle of the night and go “I know! It needs horns”?

[laughs] Yeah exactly. Usually Britt does that.

I mean, even a song like “The Ghost of You Lingers” is quite sort of spartan in a lot of ways. Was there ever a rocking version of that?

Actually no. That one we liked just pretty much how the demo was and Britt stumbled upon that chord progression when he was just practising one day. He put a song around it and yeah, I think it is a pretty adventurous song

And is it hard to resist putting more and more layers on a song? It always seemed to have been that the less is more approach seemed to have worked for a lot of Spoon stuff. Do you take stuff off as much as you put on in the studio?

Oh yeah, we take a lot of stuff off. We have flamenco guitar on “Japanese Cigarette Case”. I think we had five or six total tracks of that and we probably used three seconds of it.

So does the flamenco guitarist still get payed the full amount though? This is what I want to know.

Oh yeah, he does, he does.

Another song on Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga that you rounded out with some studio chatter was “Don’t You Evah”. Was that the first time you put that much talk on a record?

I think so. There was actually more that I wanted on there but it was getting a little out of control. But one of the things about that is that we record on analogue tape so every time you hear the song you start hearing all the chatter and the banter and the noises and when you start mixing the record and you take those away it feels empty, just because you become accustomed to hearing all those different sounds. So it’s sort of an organic process. We do strip a lot a way but it does become part of the song for us.

Yeah, and I mean that studio chatter sort of leads into a song and gives it a bit more of a room feel. So did you have some huge compilation of all the finest studio jokes that you guys had made over the years to then chop up and put in “Don’t You Evah”? Was it much of a composite?

No, those were all done live pretty much where you hear them. You know, they’re on Britt’s vocal tracks, they’re on percussion tracks, and they just happened to fall where they are. It was not a past compilation or anything. It was all live when we were tracking the song.

I was wondering if there was ever going to be a strictly Spoon banter album somewhere down the line?

Yeah, exactly. I wonder if the record company will allow us to fulfil our obligations with that one. [laughs]

Have you captured a few zingers in the studio? Have there been many jokes that you guys have made that have missed tape then Jim?

Yeah, I don’t think my lawyer wants us to talk about those though.

Well you guys in Spoon also seem to keep a pretty watchful eye on the business side of things. For the last album, Gimme Fiction, you gave Matador a try in terms of releasing it in some territories but then you haven’t gone with those guys again. It is important for you to keep an eye on the ball? I guess Spoon is a band that learnt that early on with the troubles that you had with Elektra.

Yeah right exactly. We’ve always had our hand in everything and we felt that was the way you… no one is going to look out for the band except for the band, you know? We are always looking for different labels and things like that because you just have to see what’s out there.

I’m guessing that a major label would never have let you to name your album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga as well.

Oh yeah, they would have. I don’t think we would ever go to a major if they wouldn’t allow us to do whatever we do.

Was that a hard sell to anyone, calling the album that?

No, not at all. We thought it was pretty cool and ballsy. We didn’t really realise what some people would think the name was. I guess we should have thought a little bit more about it.

Did people think it was some off-the-cuff babble or the fifteenth letter of some outer space language or something, were they?

Right, right. Do you know where the title comes from?

No, do tell.

Ok, well “The Ghost of You Lingers’”, the second song on the record, working title was “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”. Seven Gas.

Because of the way the song goes?

Yeah, the piano. So you spend five months in the studio and little things amuse you and we used to get a kick out of that. And when Britt changed the name we’re like — hey that would be a good album title.

Has it been sort of important for you guys in Spoon to experiment in different ways the last few years as well? Britt did some soundtrack work, he scored the movie Stranger Than Fiction. Was it kind of good to open things up a bit since you guys have working together for so long?

I think so. I mean, Britt’s always been really good at, sound scapes and sounds in general and it was probably good for him to do that.

So you weren’t upset and looking for some Steven Spielberg movie to get your claws into or something like that?

No, no, not at all.

I thought that in most musicians after awhile there is always a frustrated soundtrack composer that thinks he needs to come out.

[laughs] Right. Maybe that’s me. I haven’t tried it yet.

Maybe there are other bits that you could do as well. Because in a minute we’re going to have a listen to something else that I guess Spoon has dabbled with for the first time — which is you guys got the current essential accessory which is the Diplo remix.

Oh yeah, ok.

So has there always been a bit of a hip hop sort of side to you guys waiting to get out as well maybe?

Maybe. We love that stuff. We are looking for people to re-mix “Don’t You Evah” and he wanted to do it which was great.

Are you ever worried about farming those things out to see how they come back? If you have so many versions of your songs when you’re making a record it must put a bigger spin on it to give it to someone else to see how it turns out.

Yeah, totally. But you know, with a remix you can take them with a grain of salt. People understand that it is a different interpretation of the song and it’s not something that is going to go on our record. So we are cool with it.

We’ll let you get on with enjoying the mean streets of Annandale until you have to play later on this evening.

Yeah, yeah well thanks for talking.

That’s alright. Have yourself a great show. I hope you get everybody on stage tonight. You’ve got a horn section and everything. It is a much smaller stage than the Enmore theatre so good luck.

I know, we’ll need it.

Thanks Jim.

Thanks Chris.

First broadcast on Static on 24/01/2008. Static can be heard on Sydney’s 2SER (107.3FM) and via the internet (www.2ser.com) every Thursday evening (AEST).