Art-Pop Legends Sparks Talk Past & Future Film Projects, Challenging Themselves and Touring Australia

In Partnership With QPAC

For over half a century, Sparks have made albums, influenced many, and crossed paths with cinema legends. Now, they're touring Australia for just the third time.

Sparks(Credit: Munachi Osegbu)

2021 was a big year for Sparks in cinema. The iconic art-pop duo—by then over 50 years into their career—were at the centre of two high-profile, but very different films.

Annette was a musical made in collaboration with filmmaker Léos Carax, filled with songs and a story written by Sparks; it starred Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, premiered at Cannes, and provoked audiences. The Sparks Brothers was a documentary about the band, an exuberant love-letter from filmmaker Edgar Wright; it premiered at Sundance and was beloved by audiences.

“I think we were lucky that also our movie musical Annette coincided, unexpectedly, with Edgar's documentary,” offers singer Russell Mael, who is half of Sparks alongside his brother, Ron. “Both films, I think, complement each other, and both were able to reach audiences that maybe weren't necessarily aware of Sparks.”

Sparks felt lucky that Wright was not just a fan of the band, but also an inventive, creative filmmaker. They’d been approached by other filmmakers over the decades, but never agreed to one. Documentaries have a way of cementing an official narrative; with The Sparks Brothers, that was largely the long-held notion of Sparks being ‘your favourite band’s favourite band’.

“He was able to encapsulate [who we are] in a film,” says Russell. “Edgar wanted to treat every single album throughout our entire career equally, so that they're all important. In his mind, Sparks’ golden era has been from the beginning to the end… there's no one period that was the heyday of Sparks. Edgar thinks that what Sparks is currently doing is as strong as anything that we've ever done. That was something we were really happy about.

“And [also] that it became an Edgar Wright film. Even though Sparks was the subject matter, the film really reflects a lot of his personality and character as a filmmaker.”

Annette, by contrast, was a chance for the ever-changing band to further display their musical breadth; to “challenge [them]selves and do something” beyond pop songs. “Annette was incredibly important [to us], not only from a creative standpoint,” Russell forwards, “but also for being able to reach a new, sometimes broader, younger and [more] diverse audience.”

The Maels are hoping that the shared moment for Annette and The Sparks Brothers wasn’t an isolated experience. In Sparks’ half-century, there’ve been plenty of unrealised film projects, including now-mythical failed collaborations with French filmmaking legend Jacques Tati in the early 1970s, and Goth hero Tim Burton in the early '90s.

Two current, long-rumoured Sparks films, Russell assures, are still in the works, and not dead yet. X-Crucior, a musical written by Sparks and due to be directed by Hong Kong action legend John Woo, “will be happening,” Russell says.

“Hollywood takes a long, long time to have movie projects happen,” he explains. “It's not the same as being in a pop band where you can record on your own. You're obviously dependent on lots and lots of other people, and need lots of money to be able to do a film the way you want to do it. That's the next thing we're really looking forward to seeing go into production, and we hope it'll be very soon.”

The other is the long-anticipated film adaptation of their 2009 album The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman. Commissioned by Swedish national radio, that narrative album evokes old radio plays and musicals as it tells the (imaginary) tale of the great Swedish filmmaker descending into a Hollywood nightmare.

“We have not abandoned hope of that happening,” Russell says. “We feel it's a really strong project… and it begs to be seen as a movie musical and by a bigger audience.”

The narrative framework around that album is an outlier in Sparks’ discography. Their LPs are, Russell says, “collections of songs”. Any “loose thematic element” only evolves and is identified after the recordings are done. “Conceptual frameworks aren’t needed at the start of our recording process,” Russell says.

With their latest album, 2025’s Mad!, for example, the goal was what it always is for Sparks. “The main objective whenever we set out to do any new album is just to do something that we hope will not only excite ourselves but excite our fans as well,” he offers.

“Each album we do, we hope that it stands on its own as a new and hopefully challenging direction. After 28 albums, it becomes harder and harder to do something that you feel is as striking as what you did on your very first album. And that's our real challenge. But we always feel that it's our obligation, as artists, to come up with something that's unique and fresh, [but not] contrary to Sparks’ overall stance and thesis. So, we battle hard each time to try to achieve that.”

Across 28 albums and 58 years, the Maels have been a model of creative consistency. “Sparks is as great as its own universe, and isn't really affected by the outside world or the time period,” Russell offers, with pride. But the way Sparks have been viewed has changed often; the band falling in and out of fashion several times over.

Take 1978’s Nº 1 in Heaven, Russell offers. Produced by Italo disco icon Giorgio Moroder, it received plentiful criticism at the time for ‘abandoning’ rock and embracing electronic sounds. Now it’s seen as a synth-pop landmark. “People have reassessed it and think that it's actually the Bible for all the groups that came after it, like Pet Shop Boys and Erasure.”

Despite their cult following and hugely influential nature, Sparks were never frequent visitors to Australia. In fact, for decades, a 2001 tour was their only trip here.

But, in 2023, following their cinematic enshrinement —and a collaboration/endorsement from Cate Blanchett, who appeared in the video for the title track of that year’s The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte LP—the band returned. A headline date at the Sydney Opera House showed how far they, and public perception of them, had come.

Now, Sparks are returning for their third-ever Australian tour, with dates at the Sydney Opera House, QPAC’S brand new Glasshouse Theatre in Brisbane—the first time that Brisbane’s Open Season music program has held events in the Glasshouse Theatre—and Melbourne’s historic Palais Theatre.

“We had such a great time last time,” Russell beams. “[Australian] audiences have treated Sparks magnificently. We're sure we're going to have the same experience this time. So, see you all in Australia very, very soon.”

Sparks return to Australia this month. You can find tickets on the Destroy All Lines website.