Britt Daniel is the founder of Indie Rock band Spoon (along with drummer Jim Eno), and they celebrate thirty years of eccentric avant-garde Rock’n’roll this year. They will be appearing on a bill headlined by The War on Drugs. Australian singer-songwriter Indigo Sparke will also support.
Red Raven spoke to Daniel about his experiences over the last few years with the effects of lockdowns and social restrictions.
Spoon’s last album, Lucifer on the Sofa, released early in 2022 has been one of the best in their long career. Idiosyncratic Rock’n’roll with an obsessive edge like Alex Chilton in his many incarnations. There are liberal doses of Tom Petty style galloping Power Pop, with plenty of little hooks and tricks thrown in.
A tour-de-force in the end, of a project started in 2018. The songs were built up in the studio with the band and evolved with everyone’s’ input.
Daniel explains that the shutting down of live music venues and studios had a profound effect on them as much as any of their fellow artists.
Of course, you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone sang Joni Mitchell, before anyone from Spoon had been born.
Daniel talked of the massive void that was left. And the exhilaration people felt again once shackles were broken. To be packed into a room, or in a large paddock. To dance beneath a diamond sky with one hand waving free.
Or to put it another way, in the context of a contagion, it is not like music is a determinant of life or death. It is much more important than that.
We spoke a little about the song On the Radio, off that last album. Radio has been the messenger RNA which brought the evolution of popular music to the broadest audience possible. Growing up listening to DJs in your bedroom, late at night with the lights off is how the Boomers threw up artists like Presley, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And the passionate music fans, some of whom also found a niche in the industry.
It seems it was similar for the Generation X cohort. Daniel talks of a similar relationship over the period that encompassed Punk to New Wave, Disco to Hip-Hop and Rap.
After the interview I came across a Favourite Album piece he had written on the Modern Lovers debut album. Roadrunner of course, and I’m in love with the radio on/ Helps me from being lonely late at night.
He is ambivalent on the takeover of the streaming services. Algorithms are not going to lead you to music outside your bubble necessarily. The brief time in human history when you could manufacture an artifact to purchase recorded music may be over.
Daniel has commented prior, that he tends not to read music critics. But that is of his own work. Of course, he reads extensively around the literature.
I do not find it useful to my own pathway as an artist. Praise or criticism. What Heminway said about his process as a writer would apply equally to other disciplines. First, listen to the best and then do it better.
The War on Drugs and Spoon will be part of Wellington’s On A Good Day music festival, situated in Anderson Park and the botanic gardens around it. A three-day festival from 30th November to the 2nd December 2023.
They play Wellington on the first of December and Spark Arena in Auckland on the second. It will be a summer highlight.
Check out our review of Lucifer on the Sofa HERE.
Rev Orange Peel