At this weekend’s Virgin Festival, we snagged a few spare moments with Spoon‘s songwriter and front man, Britt Daniel, and drummer Jim Eno. The Austin-based quartet has been one of indie rock’s most beloved for more than a decade. They recently released their sixth album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, to warm reviews pretty much everywhere (you can hear the whole album on their label’s site here).
After enjoying their set, I headed back to the festival’s media area and waited for them to finish up with Spin in the magazine’s separate tent; I watched MTV’s John Norris glad hand a few fellow journos in the wifi-enabled media tent, then sat down for my 7 minutes in heaven with Spoon. In an interview tent with black astroturf, a couple of vinyl chairs (an interesting choice for a very hot festival), a small table, a potted plant and a lot of sarcasm, I chatted with the very affable, very friendly original members of the band and quickly learned that they love hand clapping, consider Led Zeppelin an all-purpose band, and really like their new album.
BD: A word to the wise: don’t use the bathroom on the left.
AM: The ones in here are surprisingly bad. They’re much cleaner out there.
BD: I mean shit, I’d rather just pee on a car out here.
AM: Just don’t pee on the Passat a few rows over.
BD: OK (laughs)
AM: So you guys were at Lollapalooza yesterday, yeah?
BD: Yah mon.
AM: How did it compare to V Fest?
BD: It wasn’t hot and we played a lot better.
JE: And it was a bigger crowd.
BD: A much bigger crowd.
JE: A lot of clapping. That’s what I like.
BD: A lot of clapping, a lot of (imitates fist pumping). That’s something I would never do, in an audience, but when I see it, I love it! If it was an audience full of me out there, I’d be so bummed out on the stage. I mean even when I’m really into it, I’m just like (bobs head very mildly).
JE: We’ve got that movie of you during LCD Soundsystem.
BD: Yeah I guess I liked that one.
JE: You were doing the little side to side thing.
BD: Oh, like this?
JE: Yeah! So that’s good. We’re gonna make a loop of that.
BD: Anyway, we’re pretty subtle. An audience full of that…
JE: It’d be bad.
Photo by Kyle Gustafson
