The group emerged as a musical force in the 1970s when the glammy “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us” became a hit and has never gone out of fashion. Extremely prolific, the band has released eight new studio albums in the last 20 years. It’s also put out a radio opera, formed a side-project (the Franz Ferdinand collaboration FFS), released a live album, written a film musical (2021’s Annette) and delivered several compilations.
Edgar Wright’s 2021 documentary film, The Sparks Brothers, helped reignite interest in the group. Ahead of a Sept. 15 stop at the Agora, singer Russel Mael talked about the band’s remarkable history in a Zoom call from his Los Angeles home.
I saw the 2021 documentary, The Sparks Brothers, with some friends of mine who didn’t know much about the band. We all loved it. Did you anticipate the movie would reintroduce the band in the way that it did?
We were incredibly excited that a director like Edgar Wright would want to dedicate three years of his life to a movie about Sparks. It was something initially we didn’t know what the results would be, but we had confidence in him to do a good job and make an appropriate film about the band. We discussed it with him and his ability as a filmmaker and his sensibility as a filmmaker was on the same page as Sparks is in so many ways. His knowledge of the band and excitement was to an extreme that we thought that if he could translate that in a filmic way, it would be interesting. We didn’t anticipate it would have that emotional effect on people. The reaction was unexpected but in a really great way.
Have other people tried to make films about the band in the past?
There have been a couple who approached us before. They were people who didn’t have the same understanding of what Sparks is that Edgar Wright has. He really captured the essence of what the band is. It’s not from one era in the past. It’s a continuum. What Sparks is doing now is equally as valid as what Sparks has done in any other point in its career. Other directors might have thought that but they couldn’t verbalize it in the way that Edgar could. Maybe they thought that but couldn’t articulate it. He sees Sparks in a broader way. It’s a continuum, and some of the best work is being done now. That kind of approach is something that no one other than Edgar has presented to us, so it made sense to go with Edgar.
Did you have that mentality from the start?
To us, it’s obvious. We don’t understand if there is anyone in a band that doesn’t see things in that same way. You’re in a creative field. That’s what you do. You do it to push things forward every time you start a new project and excite yourself. You try not to rehash what you have done in the past. You try to retain those idiosyncrasies and characteristics that made you unique. It’s something innate in our genes. It’s not something we have had to try to do.
The band has such a singular sound. When you launched the group in 1971, what kind of music informed your sound?
It’s been discussed a million times. The British Invasion and early Kinks were big influences. We were big Anglophiles. That’s why moved to the UK. We essentially became a British band. We’ve been fans of what goes on the UK historically more than what goes on in our hometown of Los Angeles.
Todd Rundgren worked with the band early on. How’d you wind up working with him?
We sent tapes to every label. We sent tapes to every label. We sent one to Todd as well. He was the one person out of all the labels that rejected our early demos who was of a completely different mindset. He thought that what we were doing was unique and special and needed to be released. He signed us to his label Bearsville for our first album, and he produced it. If it weren’t for Todd, we would probably not be doing what we are doing. It took another artist.
Why do you think he liked Sparks so much?
He’s not a businessman like many record labels are. He saw it in a different way than anyone else had seen it. He thought there was something that he had never seen in a band. He wanted to retain that character and not smooth it down at all. He wanted to keep it as unique as it was at that time. He proved to be right.
He continues to embrace creativity in his own career too and do things on his own terms. I respect his decision to not to attend his induction into the Rock Hall.
A good choice.
At what point did you realize you could sing?
At the time we did our first recordings. It’s not a big epiphany. You just want to be in a band. You start to emulate all the people you idolize and respect musically. You gain your own voice literally and figuratively as time goes on. You’re told by other people that you can sing, and at that point, you are aware you can sing.
Not everyone has your vocal range.
No, they don’t.
How’d the collaboration with Franz Ferdinand come about?
It was good. It was a unique experience. It was two complete bands working together as opposed to one or two persons sitting in with another band. We had to give up our autonomy in a way to be with a band that is strong and wants to do what it wants to do creatively. We think the project turned out really good, and we were excited to tour the world together. It was a really great experience.
Talk about what you wanted to do differently with your new album, MAD!
It’s just the case with every record that you want to do something that will be undeniable to anybody that bothers to listen to it. We don’t want to leave people on the fence. It’s 100 percent embracing or maybe not getting it. The people who bother to listen to it can see the intention was to do something striking lyrically and musically. That was the main objective if there is an objective. We wanted to do something that doesn’t sound like a band with 28 albums. You can listen to it without any background information on Sparks, and it wouldn’t sound like a band with that long of a history. It would sound contemporary and striking on its own terms. That’s the main objective, but we don’t even discuss it among ourselves in that way.
The first song, “Do Things My Own Way,” was the first one written for the album. Talk about what inspired the tune, which is essentially the band’s mantra.
It’s just sort of self-explanatory. In a certain way, it’s the mission statement about the band. Hopefully, it can be broader and inspiring for people who sense that same thing of wanting to take their own path and not follow what the herd is doing in whatever sense that might be. That’s the thrust of the lyrics in the song.
What will the live show coming up here at the Agora be like?
We want it to be a life-changing experience for the audience. That is the only objective. Having as many songs to draw from as we do becomes the difficult challenge. We want to present the MAD! album and not have it be an afterthought. We focus on the new album, but we have 28 albums, and our shows tend to be 21 or 22 songs, so some albums get shortchanged. We manage to come up with some unexpected choices that stand on their own. We think that anything we do live is of a single piece, and it doesn’t sound like older songs and newer songs. If someone comes as a casual spectator and doesn’t know the history, they wouldn’t necessarily know if the songs were from one of the first 28 albums or from the new album. That presentation and the spirit of the band does not dictate the era of when the songs are from when you hear them sonically.
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This article appears in Cleveland SCENE 10/8/25.