Spoon reached a significant milestone in their 29-year tenure last week when they released their tenth studio album, 'Lucifer On The Sofa'.
"It's the sound of classic rock as written by a guy who never did get Eric Clapton," the group's vocalist-guitarist Britt Daniel says with a dark chuckle."There's lots of different ways to define classic rock, and I think I was trying to say I love some of it but not all of it," Britt adds.
"[Clapton is] just an easy target. Here [in America] he's revered as a God, but I don't know, he's not my thing. Never liked his songs, never liked his voice."
A good thing, then, that 'Lucifer On The Sofa', while running with a largely cool rock aesthetic, retains much of Spoon's distinct character.
Classic rock the album does sound and classic rock Spoon have achieved, both an organic and conscious effort according to Britt. "It was a conscious effort and we did what we could to organically make it," he chuckles wryly.
"For instance, on our last record [2017's 'Hot Thoughts'] we were doing a lot of the thing where you're in the studio and you're piecing it together as you go.
"That's cool; you turn up with a certain type of album that way, certain types of songs – but I wanted this time to approach it a little differently in terms of where we recorded it, how we recorded it, and what our goals were at the time.
"We just thought we wanted this record to be about the band, and how the band plays with each other in a room, what that's like."
Almost 30 years down the line, as Britt puts it, the band are still "hashing out" the songs, there's still a learning curve to be experienced, one that surprises Britt.
"You've got to keep doing that if you want to keep growing and you want to stay interesting. I want both.
"I love it when I've been following a band for a while and this or that band that I love and had several albums by them, but what I like is when they surprise me with something new.
"I'm just going on the assumption that everybody feels the same way. I like to change it up a bit."
For Britt, the most surprising element he brought to this release – both consciously and organically – was the introduction of a guitar solo, as heard in album cut 'The Hardest Cut'.
"We never had a guitar solo like we did in that song," Britt says. "You might add that one and think it's not this band. That's because we've never had a guitar player like Gerardo Larios in this band."
Gerardo started performing on tour with Spoon in 2017 before becoming a full-fledged band member in 2019.
"As much as I want to play guitar solo like that," Britt continues, "I never would have been able to. "But I don't know, other [album] surprises," he pauses to click his tongue.
"I never really wrote a song of dedication, a flat-out love song like [album cut] 'My Babe', but it happened. I guess that's why it was a surprise."
'Lucifer On The Sofa' is available now.
