Fresh off the release of the Spoon’s tenth studio album “Lucifer On The Sofa,” Mary Lucia spoke with frontman Britt Daniel about his love of touring, his childhood memories of listening to the radio, and the band’s process of sequencing songs on the record.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

MARY LUCIA: I want to ask you about the new record "Lucifer On The Sofa," which is very funny, just as a side note, because my name is Mary Lucia, and a lot of my social media is Lucifer. So, "Lucifer On The Sofa," I love the sequencing of the album. I listened to it twice yesterday. But then I started thinking again, I mean, how important has sequencing even become when you just have no control over what order someone listens to something?

BRITT DANIEL: Yeah, wasn't Spotify's default way of playing a record out of order until this new Adele record came out?

She seemed to be one of the forefront people saying, "No, you gotta listen to it top to bottom."

Yeah, how could that not be important?

Right? Well, that's what I mean. That's why I'm asking--do you put that much thought into the sequencing?

We put a lot of thought into it.

It sounds like it.

Yes, it took weeks. I mean, I was doing other things during those weeks. But it was a process where you try out a bunch of different orders, and the songs you put up front can paint a totally different picture of the album than other songs. If we had started with "My Babe" or "Lucifer on the Sofa", then it would add up to your impression of the album being totally different.

The one that really kind of grabbed me right away to was called "On The Radio". Part of me wonders, because I don't think everybody is so jaded that they can't remember the first time they heard their own music on the radio. Perhaps you're driving or wherever you were, but radio being such an old medium and such an intimate medium too--radio, was it important to you growing up?

Yeah, very important. That's what the song's about, is growing up in Temple, Texas and having a clock radio on the side of my bed when I was very young that helped me feel less lonely because this world is an adult world. When you're a kid, there's so many things you wish you could be doing. But you can't. It's out of your control. If parents say it's time for you to just hang out at home, then you got to hang out at home. And so I did a lot of that. I was alone alone in my room, and hearing the radio, it helped me realize that the world is still going on out there. That was a comforting feeling, that felt good to me.

You said you had a clock radio, but please tell me that you went through a phase where you recorded songs off the radio on cassette?

Yeah, did that for sure. That was more in middle school. I had a little jam box, and I would wait for the songs to come on.

I've been loving all of the Bowie songs that you've covered. In fact, I think you pulled my favorite one off of "Black Star," which I think "Lucifer On The Sofa," the actual song has a "Black Star" vibe to me maybe the most.

Yeah, for sure. It's got the horns.

And the fact that you you chose "I Can't Give Everything Away," which was the one song I had possibly the hardest time listening to after his passing. That one, particularly because that message is so clear. I cannot give everything away. That one blew my mi nd and took me a really long time to like, go back and listen to it. And then when you covered it, and then when I was listening to your record, and I thought holy crap, that song has that flavor. And I don't know how intentional that was on your part.

It wasn't intentional, but, but I'm glad to hear that you saw a link there. And I remember playing it for certain people. I think the first time I played it for my manager, he mentioned Bowie, and I think he might have even specifically mentioned "Blackstar". Yeah, they share a similar outlook. There's so much emotional content, I guess you'd say in that song "I Can't Give Everything Away," and I don't know what all the lyrics mean, but it's just still a heartbreaking song.

Isn't it?

It was a pleasure to be able to record it.

Yeah. Did you ever get to meet Bowie?

No, I stood behind him once at a show--at an Arcade Fire show really early on. Maybe like 2004 or something in New York.

That was always an amazing thing you would hear is that yeah, Bowie was still going out to shows, and it was like really? And I couldn't imagine turning around in the 7th St. Entry or something and seeing him watching whoever. How many times have you watched Peter Jackson's get back?

I haven't finished it yet. But only because--listen, I could talk to you about that documentary for hours. We could do this whole show about it. I love it. It's just like a treasure trove as I watch it, and I will always want to be in the right frame of mind to watch it because sometimes the time that I have for watching videos or watching movies, etc. is right when I'm falling asleep. I want to really feel every second of it, you know? So that's why it's kind of taking me a second--I'm right about at the end of the second episode, but it's unbelievable to see The Beatles as humans. You've never had that before, and now all of a sudden--Bam! We have seven hours of it.

In this record, I always ask the band too because you've spent so much time with the songs. And yet you haven't really done like this proper, night after night after night kind of tour things. So does the music maybe still feel really fresh to you just because people have not had the chance to hear these songs live?

Well, yeah, it absolutely feels--yeah, I don't feel like I've, I've done my time with this record yet. We finished it and there's been a lot of biz around it, but I haven't got--we did a few little tours in September and October, and we would play like a song or two off of this record a night. I think probably when we were in Minneapolis we played maybe two songs off of it. But yeah, we haven't really opened it up. We haven't cracked it open yet.

Maybe you don't want to admit, but how anxious are you for that live reaction?

Well, I love touring, that's the life for me. It's one of my favorite things, and it's a thing that I've grown to like even more as I've gotten older. So when we first started touring, I would feel a bit out of water, I would feel lonely at times. Of course, we also were fabulously unsuccessful to start for years and years. But it became a thing that I really, really grew to love. And I feel very fortunate because I have a lot of friends who are musicians, full time musicians who don't like touring, and it's the thing I look forward to.

Well, I'm super happy to talk to you. Of course, the record is stellar. I really hope people will listen to it from beginning to end, and you could maybe pull in Adele and say, "You gotta! You can't download it otherwise."

Yeah, I mean, my impression was that was what Spotify was gonna do from now on was they would allow you to listen to albums from top to bottom. But honestly, I haven't been up on it a whole lo, and I don't use Spotify. So forgive me if I am a little off on this.

I hear you. One last question. If you somehow in some freak accident lost maybe your arms from the elbow down, and the only the only option you had was to go with nothing, or chihuahua paws.

Or chihuahua paws?! Are they functional? I guess I'd go with them if there was a little function, sure. I wouldn't be ashamed.

That's the right answer. I mean, there that is a question with a right answer. Yes, you'd be the guy who writes great songs, tours--but oh, by the way, he has chihuahua hands.

Yeah, I feel like you'd be able to look past that, right?

Your little nails clicking on the floor when you walked in a room, fantastic. Thank you very much for taking the time out to chat, and we'll see you on the other side of this in Minneapolis this spring.

Yeah, right. We're going to be up at the Palace--St. Paul. I'll see you there.

External Links

Spoon - official site

Credits

Guest - Britt Daniel
Host - Mary Lucia
Producers - Jesse Wiza, Derrick Stevens
Technical Director - Eric Romani