Soul Revival

When Austin-bred indie rockers Spoon’s seventh album Transference went gangbusters at the start of 2010 – debuting at number four on the Billboard 200 album chart – you’d be excused for imaging that this would usher in an era of industry for the already hard-working outfit.

What actually transpired, however, was that it pre-empted a mini-hiatus for the band. Frontman Britt Daniels started new project Divine Fits who released an album, A Thing Called Divine Fits (2012), and toured globally, while the other members also took a break to recharge their batteries, eventually hooking up again earlier this year to start work on their eighth studio effort, They Want My Soul.

“I was very excited to play with Divine Fits, and I’m finding myself just as excited to work with my old band now,” Daniels enthuses. “We were a bit burnt out – just at the end of the Transference touring. I loved making the record and I loved how the record came out and it started out great – we were playing the biggest shows we’ve ever played, we filled out Radio City Music Hall in New York which I never, ever thought would have happened – but then we toured it a bit too long and we all got a little sick of it. That’s why we had that break, plus I’d wanted to be in a band with Dan [Boeckner – Wolf Parade] for a long time, so the combination of those things just seemed to make sense.”

Did the band know in advance what they were seeking from the new album?

“Generally I wanted to make a record that would sound good coming out of a car stereo and that you could sing along to,” Daniels continues. “We always react against the record we made before, and the record before Transference was Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [2007] which had all kinds of crazy R&B-tinged songs and very much singalong songs, then for some reason we felt like self-producing and making a weird record next, and now I kinda feel like singing again, you know?”

Interestingly, the title track to They Want My Soul (which according to Daniels is about “religious pretenders or holy rollers or soul suckers”) contains the line, “Jonathan Fisk, still he wants my soul,” referencing the titular character from Jonathan Fisk off 2002’s Kill The Moonlight.

“It’s a lost art,” the singer smiles. “We’ve done that before – not a lot – when I’ve mentioned past lyrics in a new song, I just think it’s a cool thing to do. John Lennon would do that kind of thing, among others, and I just think it’s cool. There’s a song Lines In The Suit [from 2001’s Girls Can Tell] which mentions Mountain To Sound [from 1997 EP Soft Effects], and we’ve done it a couple of other times. That character exists, and it just seems like he fit in with this song about people who are soul suckers, so I thought it would be fun to bring him back.”