A Conversation With Spoon's Britt Daniel
08.13.02


Saki's House of Pizza and Murder

In theory, Spoon should be the world's easiest interview. Great music, brilliant musicians, a nice group of guys and your classic underdog success story. Leave it to me to screw it up though. I called Britt and the second he picked up the phone I realized that every attempt I have taken to turn this into a professional, well-planned-out phone call had gone sour. I had forgotten the list of interview questions miles from home. I was running around in circles like an idiot. My air conditioner suddenly refused to work. My brain went straight from serious interviewer mode into The Chris Farley Show. "Hey Britt, remember the time you sang that song about that shirt that fitted you real good? That was cool..."

Luckily, Britt is one of the nicer, easier going guys I have ever met. A quick story: When my housemate Matt worked for Elektra, he took the band out for dinner and drinks in Providence. Spoon decided that they wanted to head out for late night hotdogs. Matt brought them to Saki's, which is probably the most dangerous restaurant in Providence. A few months ago, a cop walked into Saki's and the customers grabbed his night stick and beat him into oblivion with it. I told Britt that he should thank Matt for endangering his life and the lives of his bandmates. Britt was unphased. "Yeah. It definitely wasn't a high class meal, but it was fun... Wow. So, people go around whoopin' cops up there?"

So, after a bit of editing and polishing, here it is. Britt did a great job of compensating for my lack of finesse. I hope you enjoy the interview and I hope that you will run out to grab your copy of the new album. I promise you'll love it.


JtB: Britt, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail claiming that "The world will collectively shit themselves when they hear Kill the Moonlight."

Britt: Well, that's what we want. We want people to shit themselves.

But where the hell did the guitars go?

Well, they're on Jonathan Fisk. There are guitars on nine of the twelve songs. You know - that's sort of our recipe for making a a record that will make people shit themselves.

The more subtle use of guitars - was that a conscious effort to do something that other people hadn't done yet?

Well, we never sit down and say "Oh - we don't want to use much guitar..." We don't do it like that, but I think that the electric rythym guitar is so overused. You expect it to have that. Just by nature of your question. There's guitar on nine of the twelve songs on this record, but several people keep asking me "What happened to the guitar?" Well, I mean, it's overdone.

Where did you come up with the human beatbox sample on Stay Don't Go (from the new album)?

That's me. I did that when I was writing the songs. I went to Connecticut last summer and wrote, pretty much, all of these songs over the summer. Just didn't go out. I didn't know anybody. There was nothing in New London.

I've been to New London. It gets a little creepy.

Not a lot to do there, which was good because I never went out and I never saw anybody and I got it done. Fast.

You went to New London and your only goal was to write this album?

Uh huh. I sublet a friend of a friend's apartment who was going away for the summer. But, while I was writing that song, or coming up for the very first demo for it, I was going to program a drum machine or something so I could play along to it. Then I thought "Well, I've got this sampler set up right here. It will be easier just to make my own beat and loop it. It will be done quicker." I mean, it wasn't like a stylized thing and I didn't think I would ever use it. I was just trying to come up with the fastest way I could to have this beat down that I could play along to. Then I realized that it was wild, so I gradually talked Jim (Eno) into letting that be the beat.

I heard a rumor that there was some sort of disaster while you were recording Kill the Moonlight.

There was a flood. The tape machine went down for about a week at one point... which wouldn't have been a problem in itself other than the guy that engineered and produced it with us could only be in town for a certain number of days. So, that was seven days that we were paying for him. So, it was pretty stressful.

How did you work out the production for this album?

Well, It was produced by me, Jim and Mike McCarthy. Mike is the guy who, I guess you would say, took on the traditional role. He did the most recent Trail of Dead record, Leanne Womack, Jack Ingram... he lives in Nashville, so he does all of this very traditional pop-country stuff, but he also has ties to rock bands.

Do you run into Trail of Dead often?

I run into them all the time. I run into them at bars. Every one of the people in that band is a really great person. I really like them a lot. Conrad came in and recorded the melatron part on a couple songs on Girls Can Tell. They're great folks.

Is this your best album?

Mmmmmmm... yeah. Well, it just depends on the mood your in, you know? I'm proud to say that I really believe that each one of our records is pretty different. All I know is that if I was at somebody's house and they put on a record that sounded like this, I would be pretty excited.



So, you guys are heading out on tour pretty soon.

Yeah. On September 10th.

How many tours have there been throughout the history of Spoon?

I don't know. We usually go out for two weeks at a time. We've probably done, maybe... thirty of those or something like that.

What's it like now - after years of touring?

It's just fun. It's a chance to not have to not have to worry about anything. It's a break from - when I'm in Austin, I'm constantly working on things. When we're touring you don't have any time to do that. All you worry about is getting from the hotel to the show to whatever.

Is there a good deal of stress involved in preparing for the shows... getting everything ready to go?

Yeah, we don't book 'em ourselves, but there's a lotta weight. There's a lotta weight man. It's gotta be carried by somebody. A lotta stuff that has very little to do with music. We've got a friend who comes out and sort of tour manages/does merch. He's a young guy, so we get to boss him around. We make him carry stuff. We make him, you know - make vain attempts to find people for to hang out with, to find us drugs, to get more beer. And he loves it.

I keep coming across these live acoustic shows that you guys have done. Radio performances, covers... Is any of that material ever going to see the light of day?

I doubt I'm going to release them yet. I mean, I think that stuff's okay, but it's not really up to par for our records or anything. I like it where there is stuff that people have to seek out. I like being able seek out stuff from my favorite bands.

You mention Chicago on almost all of your albums. What's the fascination?

Mmmm [laughs, pauses] um... the girl that's closest to me is from Chicago. Maybe that's why... When I wrote Chicago at Night I hadn't even met her - because that was written long before even Spoon existed. But the other references are probably due to her...



Are you sick of interviewers asking you about Ron Laffitte?

Um... no. I mean, there kind of got to be this point where I just wouldn't talk about it. Just because it seemed to be the only thing that people were talking about in interviews. But I'm fine with talking about it. When you do interviews, everybody involved wants it to be something interesting. So, I try to do my best and hopefully the writer tries to do his best.

Have things changed since the whole Elektra ordeal? Has the way you write music changed? Has the way you've done business changed?

No... I mean, we may have changed musically, but not as a result of being involved with that label. Just because we would get bored making the same kind of music over and over again.

Did you have a list of criterion when you were shopping around for a new label?

Yeah. The list included: They've heard of us and they want to put the record out. You know, we sent out Girls Can Tell in various formats for about a year - I guess longer than a year - and nobody really wanted to do anything with it. The fact that Merge had heard it and seemed to like it was a big plus. A big step over the response we got from, I don't know... from Dreamworks.

Were you surprised by the positive feedback that Girls Can Tell received?

I was surprised because it had never happened before. I mean, I wasn't surprised in that I didn't think it deserved it. For so long we had put out records that were basically ignored. I don't know what it was - maybe it was the fact that there was this story: This band got dropped, you know? Finally there's a story. There's some kind of gimmick or something.

Were there any hassles getting A Series of Sneaks re-released?

No because we got the masters back from Elektra immediately - as soon as we were dropped. So, we have always had the rights to it. It was a hassle finding the art files, but that was about it. There were no legal hassles. We own the masters to all our records and I've never done a publishing deal, so it's a pretty unique position.

What was Laffitte's reactions to the extra tracks on Series of Sneaks?

I don't know if he's knows that they're on the Series of Sneaks reissue. I mean, I haven't talked to him in a while [laughter]. I heard that he was trying to sign The Faint. He and the head of Capitol Records took The Faint out to dinner when they were in New York. The first thing they did was walk up and hand him a copy of the Agony of Laffitte single... which was just an amazing case of justice prevailing. Apparently, he didn't say anything the entire dinner. I owe those guys a drink.



When are we going to see a video for the new album?

We've already turned in one for Small Stakes. It's just done on 8mm film. Kind of grainy. But I think it's pretty cool. It's just us recording in the studio. It's not up anywhere yet - but I think, within two weeks, it should be online in various places. They are going to submit it to MTV2, but who knows...

I don't know how the politics over at MTV2 work...

I think the way that it works is that if your band is named Spoon, you don't get played.

I think you have to be really pretty and really emo.

Yeah. What is emo? And how come all of the emo bands claim that they're not emo?

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* thank you to Cory, Matt, Brutha Jon and Catherine for helping out with the interview.

Related reading:

  • The Austin Chronicle reviews the re-issue of A Series Of Sneaks and gives a brief history of the Ron Laffite/Elektra incident.

  • Cory reviews Kill The Moonlight for 75 or Less.