Originally forming as Halfnelson in 1968 and changing their name in 1972, for over half a century, the Californian brothers Russell and Ron Mael have used their project Sparks to craft a hefty discography that uses catchy, artsy and avant-garde pop music as a sieve to strain their idiosyncratic musings and anxieties into bespoke, humorous, memorable, and often metatextual ditties.
Enjoying success on both a mainstream and cult level for decades, Sparks have been cited as an influence on acts like Joy Division, New Order, Sonic Youth, The Smiths, Björk, Soft Cell, Duran Duran, Franz Ferdinand, Devo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Arcade Fire, and Faith No More.
Like any artist with longevity, Sparks’ career has been marked by peaks and valleys, but, in recent years, they have enjoyed a consistent uptick after a stagnant period in their professional careers, which has seen them perform more widely and frequently at larger venues and festivals.
What brought the once-mainstream act back into popular consciousness was the release of two films in 2021. The first was a career-spanning documentary of the band from director and fan Edgar Wright of Baby Driver, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World fame, called The Sparks Brothers. The second was an original musical that the Mael brothers wrote, called Annette. Directed by Holy Motors’ Leos Carax and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, Annette opened the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Palme d’Or.
“It feels like a revitalisation,” Ron says of the recent interest in Sparks when he spoke with Totally Dublin. “We saw a little more of a quantum leap after the two films, and you never know what would’ve happened without those – the Edgar Wright documentary and Carax’s Annette – but we definitely saw a shift after those films came out, and they came out relatively close to each other.
“So, you hate to put a cause-and-effect on anything, but it really seems like after those two films, there was a jump, and we seemed to also get people that hadn’t previously been fans of what we were doing that began to pay attention to it, and that’s always exciting for us, especially if it’s younger people that are discovering you after not having known you for several decades.”
And Sparks still continue to inspire. As a recent example of their influence, the British indie band The Last Dinner Party covered their 1974 single, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us, for the extended version of their 2024 debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy. We asked Ron how he feels about younger artists continuing to listen to and cover Sparks.
“It really feels special to us,” he responds. “You hate to rely on flattery too much; it can be dangerous, but it also allows you to see that you’re working in popular music and it can reach musicians that are of a different generation on their level. It really is inspiring to us.
“We love pop music, but there is a certain incongruity between how long we’ve been around and us continuing to do that kind of music in a general way. But we feel like we’re really doing it honestly. That’s what we want to do, so we’re not writing down to anyone. So, to have musicians like The Last Dinner Party or other, newer bands… it’s really exciting for us and, also, just fans, in general.”
Despite being an in-demand act on a major label during a period of calculated and restrictive pop management, it is evident to anyone who listens to a Sparks record from any point in their career that they have always eschewed the zeitgeist and made whatever the hell they wanted, which often unintentionally resulted in them being progenitors of genres like baroque pop, new wave, synthpop, and glam.
Now that we live in an era where, through the waning influence of major labels, pop acts are seemingly permitted (if not always encouraged) to be more individualistic and distinct in their approach, we asked Ron if, as a fan, he feels that modern-day mainstream pop music permits more freedom of expression for contemporary artists than those of yesteryear.
“I think that there are people who really stand out, and I think that’s a healthy thing because going through the motions and having formulas for things is so counter to what pop and rock should be,” he responds. “The people that are really attempting…either naturally through their distinctive vocals or through what they’re doing musically, that are standing out, is always something that I admire.”
Beyond admiration, the radical freedom permitted by pop music is something that Sparks continue to demonstrate. On May 23rd, Sparks’ twenty-eighth studio album, Mad!, was released. The sentiment behind the album’s lead single, “Do Things My Own Way,” almost serves as a blanket statement for the band’s career, and the album as a whole proudly displays their sincere joy in persisting with the project. Advancements in technology and the brothers’ skills as engineers and producers have made the record even more “Sparks,” so to speak.
“It took about a year of writing and recording,” Ron says of Mad! “We kind of wrote it in two ways. In the past, it was always writing a song, and bringing it in, and rehearsing with the band, and recording it. But now, just because Russell has a studio in his place, maybe half the songs are written in a more traditional way, where they’re written and then we bring them in and figure out how to arrange them in the best possible way.
“But, sometimes, we just sit around in the studio and fool around, and you hope that something will come of that. To have more ways of writing like that, it really is helpful. One thing is, it speeds up the process, but, also, you don’t ever feel like you’re locked up. There always is a way to do things. If it’s not working in one way, then you try the other.
“In that sense, technology and all has been a really beneficial thing for us, be able to write in additional ways than we would’ve in the past, where you had a song, then you went into an incredibly expensive studio, and you couldn’t really take many chances; you had to know what you were doing. But, now, we can sometimes make fools of ourselves, but sometimes things come out that are totally unexpected.”
The brothers self-producing their records (which they have done on and off since their 1983 album, In Outer Space) has loosened them up to tinkering. “We’ve been fortunate enough because the producers we have worked with have been so brilliant,” Ron says of the band’s production history.
“You know, like, Todd Rundgren, Giorgio Moroder, Tony Visconti, and Muff Winwood, that kind of level of people, where they were always beneficial. They were judgemental about material, and so, as a songwriter, sometimes your lovely little child is considered a little less lovely by somebody who probably knows more about that than you do. But you kind of accept it from somebody who’s worked on projects like they’ve worked on.
“But, now, I think we’ve gotten to the point where, in a technical way, Russell, especially, is able to work in a way that is suitable for what we’re doing in a studio, but also, just as far as prejudging songs, we can kind of put a little bit of distance between ourselves and judge the songs more in the same way… well, not exactly the same way because you wrote it.… but you try to put yourself in a position where you can more objectively view what you’ve done and think, ‘Well, maybe that’s not so great.’ So, we feel really comfortable working the way that we work now, without a producer, but we learnt from so many great producers.”
After completing the album, Sparks, who had been label-hopping for most of their career, were looking for somebody to carry it. They found who they were looking for with the independent London-based label Transgressive Records, the current home for acts like Foals, Alvvays, Damon Albarn’s solo material, and Arlo Parks. Mad! was Sparks’ first release with Transgressive.
“We’re really fortunate because I believe that they were given a copy of the record, and we didn’t know the people at the label before, but we were so impressed with them when we did meet them and their passion for not only what we were doing, but for good music in general,” Ron says of working with Transgressive.
“So, from our perspective, it turned out to be a really good match, so we’re really excited to be with them, and they kind of understand what we’re doing and they have a real sense of what’s cool in pop music, and the people themselves have a real sensibility, so we couldn’t be more pleased. You never know what the final results are going to be, but they’re going to do everything they can to get as many people to know about what we’re doing as possible.”
Sparks will return to Dublin for two consecutive nights at The National Stadium in July on their upcoming tour in support of the album. This will be the first time that the band have done two shows in Dublin on a single tour, and Ron is looking forward to the opportunities it will give him to explore the city, saying, “We’re really looking forward to coming back to Dublin. I’ve been going through my James Joyce, so I’m ready to hit the spots! The times we’ve spent there more recently have been really memorable, in a personal sense and in a musical way.”
Words: Aaron Kavanagh
Photos: Munachi Osegbu
Sparks’ new album, Mad! is out now. Sparks will perform at The National Stadium on July 15th and 16th. Tickets and details for those shows can be found at foggynotions.ie.
