Spoon Meet the Challenges of Taking 'Transference' on the Road

Spoon's Britt Daniel is not happy. His luggage has gone missing somewhere along the band's quickfire trek around the UK and his replacement trousers, it appears, are a lot shinier in the Electric Ballroom dressing room than they were in the Manchester shop where he bought them a few days earlier.

Fashion disappointments aside, Daniel and drummer Jim Eno -- whose pants, Spinner can soberly attest, are of traditional finish -- are about to play their London show on a three-date UK sojourn hot on the heels of the release of new album 'Transference.' This, Spoon's seventh album, continues to hone a pared-down sound that made the likes of 'Gimme Fiction' (2005) and 'Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga' (2007) critical hits. It certainly can't be accused of hitting the shelves with a whimper, either. In an age when albums struggle to shift copies -- unless you're Coldplay or Lady Gaga -- 'Transference' sold 56,000 copies in its first week in the US alone.

The clipped, minimal 'Tranference' is, Daniel tells Spinner, an album that's "the most hardcore us." They didn't co-produce the album this time, preferring to do all the work themselves. Now they have to take the record out on tour, and wrestle some of the newer songs into some kind of shape.

"We have been playing a lot of the songs live for a while though. We've been playing 'Written in Reverse' for almost two years now," Daniel says.


"How is that possible? Every record they say 'this one is more stripped down," says Daniel with something approaching a frown. "Every single time. What it going to be next time? Vocals and steel drum?"

Daniel is matter-of-fact about the decision not to co-produce. "When you're working with an outside producer, you're trying to please two different sets of aesthetics, and that's a really good way to make a record, you can whittle down things and come to a lot of conclusions you wouldn't have come to on your own. Really, making a record is about making decisions. But I thought this time it would be cool to make a record that's just hard core 'us'. We're not trying to please those two sides, we're just trying to please ourselves."

Bands like Spoon may be a rarity in a future. Few labels seem to be patient enough to let a band develop confidence and their own style over the course of three, four or five albums.

"That's the way it used to happen. I think either way, it can happen in the right way," Daniel says. "You just have to be consistent in your quality, whether that's a slow build or you pop right out from the very beginning, you've got to continue to be great. I'm cool with the way it's gone down. I appreciate all the little steps along the way."

Eno says, "I think also it's with being on Merge and them not telling us what to do. A lot of times younger bands on the label the label starts getting their fingers into everything on the creative side too, and we've been lucky that Merge don't do that with us."

Daniel agrees the label, run by Superchunk's Mac MaCaughan and Laura Ballance, has been instrumental in helping Spoon become the band they are.

"I take shit pretty seriously and personally, and if I have to deal with people in the business who I think don't get it, or are in it for the wrong reasons, that makes me feel creepy."

Does he feel sorry for bands now, who get a first flush of interest from MySpace and then find themselves launched too quickly into the limelight?

Daniel shrugs. "I don't feel sorry for them. Again, it's about the quality of the music. If you can pull it off, you can pull it off, and if you can't then you can't. Do I feel sorry for them? Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel quite the opposite."

Spoon's Transference is out now.