SPARKS WILL FLY | May 6th 2008

blogefl/flickr

Sparks are to begin performing their entire oeuvre next week in Islington. Singer Russel Mael tells Nick Coleman it's like buying pork futures ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, Spring 2008

It's safe to say that there are more ways in rock'n'roll to lose money than there are to make it. In your average rocker's experience, losing money is easier than falling off a rolling log. So it takes some ingenuity to devise a brand new way of doing it.

But here's one. You spend 37 years putting together a career of substance; a career that takes you, periodically, to the pinnacle of the pop charts and sometimes into obscurity. You establish a body of work, 20 albums no less, none of them pedestrian, some revered for their wit and originality. It's time for album number 21. What do you do?

If you're the Mael brothers, better known as the Los Angeles-based electronic-pop duo Sparks, you say, I know! Let's premiere our 21st album. In its entirety, live in London. And just to make an event of it, and to ensure that everyone knows where we're coming from, let's spend the previous month playing all 20 of its predecessors, in order, from start to finish. What do you think, Ron?

It's not recorded what Ron replied. But from May 16th to June 11th, Sparks will play their entire musical history in sequence in Islington, before heading west to Shepherd's Bush to do the new album in front of what will then, surely, be the most exhausted constituency of fans in rock'n'roll history.

"Ludicrous," says the younger Mael, Russell, 54, he of the leaping voice and goggly eyes. "Quite ludicrous. When the thought first came up, we went 'Amazing! Let's do it!' Then once we got into the work of putting it all together, we thought, 'Wooo! It's a lot of work--but it's going to be great!' Now, it's like, 'It's gonna be great, but wow! There's an awful lot of logistical issues...'"

As he speaks, the rehearsal schedule has reached album number six--"Big Beat", from 1976. Rehearsals started in mid-January, immediately after Sparks downed tools on the still-untitled new album. The players come to the studio every day fully prepared to get down to strenuous work, lines already learnt, so to speak. It must be more like rehearsing a play than a rock show. But how can they expect to remember 250 songs, from stem to stern? Surely, by the time they get to album number 17 ("Plagiarism", 1997), album number one ("Halfnelson", 1971) will be a dim and distant memory.

"That's exactly the problem," says Russell cheerfully. "We're only on album six now, but we keep thinking we ought to go back to album number one and two--but then if you keep reviewing too much, you never recover your momentum for number seven. So God knows what it's going to be like when we get to number 17." He laughs, thinly.

So why keep going? Surely there's no need to do the whole lot. Or do you see your career as a seamless enterprise, a single body of work, as opposed to a sequence of discrete efforts? Are you Proust, or are you Shakespeare?

"Well, I'll take that as a compliment, thank you. But yes, we do see it as a whole body. And in England we're known for certain periods and certain songs. There's whole chunks of our career that kinda went under the radar, and this is one way to show that we weren't just 'This Town Ain't Big Enough' and 'Number One Song In Heaven'. There's always been a constant stream of work and it just hasn't been exposed in England in the way we'd wish. You wonder whether it was a lack of quality during those periods or whether there were other factors."

They're a funny old band, Sparks. Those of us who remember that startling first appearance on "Top of the Pops" in 1974--Russell as prancing, curly-topped marionette, Ron as Hitler with a synthesizer--will also be fully conditioned to the way English pop taste fluctuates in its course. It's certainly hard to see how Sparks' nagging, crackling, faintly artificial brightness would have fitted into the world of, say, Nineties grunge. Yet Russell remains delighted with his audience.

"The hardcore fans have remained hardcore, and will remain so until the last gasp [season tickets for all 21 nights have been selling brightly--at £350]. But there are younger ones too, and they're discovering some of those lost Eighties albums for the first time, which is really refreshing. They're going, 'Wow, Sparks were doing that stuff even before Franz Ferdinand started...' What's more, the new-album show is doing really well, saleswise. People are buying into an unknown quantity--like buying into pork futures: you're banking on the brand-name rather than basing your decision on having heard the music already."

And this is central to their charm: a determination always to keep on legging it for fresh pastures.

"Sparks," says Russell, not at all didactically, "is the only band we can think of with a 21-album career that really needs to be doing this kind of project. The other ones that have made that many albums are in a position where, if they don't want to, they needn't be bothered to do this amount of work--and they certainly don't need to go out and prove a point. But Sparks are different: we always find we have to up the ante each time we do something, just to be heard. Why is it that? We ponder the
question almost daily.

"Maybe because we've never gone overground and visible--that's why there's a kind of allure when we do raise our heads. The real hardcore fans, they want it both ways, of course. You know: 'Why aren't Sparks bigger?!' But equally, they kinda like keeping the Sparks thing within their private club."

So come on, Russell, is this the best way ever devised to lose money? What's your business plan? "Business plan? Us! We have always lacked business plans." He sighs amiably. "Yeah, logistically it's been tricky. But if all goes well and everybody who comes buys 75 T-shirts every night, maybe then the business plan will be seen to have been excellent."

Sparks Islington Academy, May 13th to June 11th; Shepherd's Bush Empire, June 13th. Tickets: 0844 477 2000. www.ticketweb.co.uk

SPARKS: A QUICK GUIDE ~ by TIM DE LISLE

Greatest hit
Their first, "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us"--number two, in Britain, 1974. It's said that a whole generation switched on the telly, saw Ron Mael's moustache, and ran out of the room, crying, "Mum! Dad! Hitler's playing the piano on 'Top of the Pops'!"

Latest hit
"Hello Young Lovers", their 20th album, reached number 66 in the British chart in 2006. No Sparks album has ever reached the top 50 in their native America.

Bands they were influenced by
The Who, The Move. The Kinks, early Pink Floyd--all British.

Bands they have influenced
Depeche Mode, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand--also British.

Genres they have worked in
Pop, rock, glam, disco, electro, cod-classical.

Best album titles
"Angst in My Pants", "Plagiarism", "Balls", "Lil' Beethoven".

Not quite so good
"Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins".

Best song titles
"National Crime Awareness Week", "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)", "Now That I Own the BBC", "Your Call is Very Important to Us".

Best tracks to download
"Amateur Hour": pulsating melodrama.
"The No 1 Song in Heaven": disco delirium.
"Beat The Clock": Kraftwerk with irony.
"(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country": Bush baiting with a knowing smile.

(Nick Coleman is a former arts editor of the Independent. Tim de Lisle is deputy editor of Intelligent Life magazine)