TLOBF Interview :: Spoon

Prior to Spoon’s recent gig at Manchester’s Academy, Glenn Bloxham-Mundy was lucky enough to spend some time talking with Jim Eno, the wonderfully talented drummer and producer. This tour follows the release of their much-anticipated seventh album Transference, which showcases a deeply inquisitive and unsettling Spoon.

Transference’s production emits a destabilising effect to the listener. There seems to be a troubled indecision to the whole album. How exactly do you go about creating these effects without stepping on each other’s feet?
We basically work on each song individually. So, when it comes to the first half of the record sounding ‘like this’, it just may happen that a lot of the elements we used on those songs at the top of the record worked for us and fitted the feel, at the end of ‘The Mystery Zone’ when it cuts out. That song actually goes on longer on the vinyl version, so we were like, “we should just cut it short” and Britt was like, “How about we just do this” and we cut it. So then there’s other sounds where he basically cut off syllables, ‘The Mystery Zone’, he didn’t want to keep saying ‘mystery zone’ in the chorus and wanted to switch it up. A lot of the time, the other thing we’ll do is take effects, like a vocal through reverb or something, and then cut the reverb short and that’s something we’ve done for a few records. So, I guess it’s more like what fits the song more than ‘let’s create this effect with this’. Britt writes all the songs, so he needs to be happy with it in the end because he has some sound in his head on how he wants to song to end up. So he’s probably the one who’s going to give the ‘ok’ at the end. One of things that’s unsettling to me when I listen to some of the songs is first, the cutting out of phrases and sounds and secondly, a lot of the songs don’t have many chord changes so it seems to be the same thing building and layering, creating this sort of rub, this disturbing feeling.

A considerable number of songs on the album seem to be presented in a raw, demo form, with the remaining tracks sounding more polished in production. This gives off a feeling of imbalance to the listener. Why was this decision made?
When you have a demo, a lot of the time it’s very difficult to capture that feeling again if all you’re doing is taking a demo and re-doing it. ‘Trouble Comes Running’ is a good example. We did the rhythm section in the rehearsal space and then we tried to record the song again but it was just…nothing really had the feel of that take. It was probably the second time Rob and I had played that song and I can hear in my playing that I’m on the verge of self-destruction and chaos. It’s like, ‘Ok, so is the chorus next or what?’ But yeah, it’s really hard to re-create those sorts of things because when you learn a song it’s safer, I guess. So yeah, with those songs it just seemed like it was working that way so we decided to keep them. Like, the first song, ‘Before Destruction’, that was pretty much the demo but those vocal effect were great and the feeling of it all…it wouldn’t have made any sense to try and re-do that. And plus, Britt has some pretty nice studio gear at his house, so the sounds are really good anyway. So, usually you re-record songs for sonic purposes, but we were getting really good sounds so we didn’t really need to do that.

The arrangement of material on the album is often intellectual rather than emotional or physical. Is this your own way of maintaining some sort of emotional stability in an album that is so questioning and uncertain?
For me, personally, I don’t think that much about it. When you have a song and you’re trying to figure out the best way to present it, there are just certain things that make you feel good and you tend to go that way. I think we tend to have a ‘sound’ now, which is pretty interesting. As a band you never think that you’d have a ‘sound’ but then all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh yeah! Britt’s songs, Britt’s voice, minimalist production, dry sounds, punchy rhythm sections – that’s sort of how Spoon records seem to come out.

When did you start to notice your own sound?
Probably Gimme Fiction. I would say from Girl’s Can Tell our sound sort of changed drastically. We started using more piano and keyboards and everything. So from Girls Can Tell, Kill The Moonlight and then Gimme Fiction we were solidifying what I think the Spoon sound is.

Is the discovery of your own sound comforting, or does it act as a hindrance that you must actively seek to overcome?
Yeah, it could be seen as comforting, but when we approach a song we always try to not repeat ourselves, we try not to make it sound like other songs we’ve already put out. But that’s hard to do if you like a certain sound. At least we do try.

Releasing an album that can initially seem to be sloppy in production seems rather risky for a band of your calibre. It relies on people giving it time in order to understand the meticulous craftsmanship on display.
A lot of my favourite records take a few listens to grow and hopefully people will give it more than one listen but it definitely isn’t as slick as Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and there’s no ‘Underdog’ or one song that everyone says, ‘that’s the pop hit’, so I do think that could have also been us subconsciously going against that record. We never talked about it, but I can sort of see we decided to make things different to that.

Do you find that it’s hard to try something like that with your record label (Merge)?
No, we can do whatever we want. It’s a really great situation. We have no issues; Merge is fully supportive. They trust what we do and that’s one of the nice things about being on an independent label, we don’t have any pressure. From day one with our brief stint with Elektra they had their fingers in things, like ‘Car Radio’, we had to do a remix to make it longer, they said it was too short. But we have a really good relationship with Merge. You’re trading off a big advance, but it’s better that way.

Transference poses a lot of questions yet never really seems to come to a conclusion. Could you see yourself following it up with another album in the future, possibly answering those uncertainties?
I don’t know, from my perspective it’s all based on the songs Britt’s writing. I haven’t really thought about it, but we’re definitely going to do another record!

How did you approach the daunting task of bringing an album so sonically layered to the stage?
It’s pretty much: bass, drums, guitars and then Eric Harvey – he plays everything else! So everything is played pretty much live. Eric takes up the slack when we can’t do it. But we do approach the record as the thing that’s going to stick around forever, so we don’t think, ‘oh let’s not do that because we’re not going to pay it live’, but then we do have issues like, ‘ok so how are we going to play this live?’ But I think it usually works out pretty well.

How much time is dedicated to practice prior to a tour?
We don’t practice very much. We all live in different cities, so we try to have our own little homework assignments and then get together and rehearse for a few days and then at sound checks we’ll run some of our new songs and see how they’re working.

Some bands seem to view the process of touring as the downside to being a musician. How do you feel about it?
I really love it. For me it’s like this thing that helps make the record all make sense, because when you’re making a record you just tend to lose perspective a lot; you’re in so deep you don’t know whether it’s good or not, you just keep pushing along. But then, to pay those songs live in front of audiences is exciting as you get to see which songs they respond to and stuff like that.