Over 50 years into their career, it’s funny to think that anything inspires brothers Ron and Russell Mael anymore beyond their own music as Sparks, with a dense and shapeshifting discography providing a blueprint for their next project as much as it indicates which paths to not retread. As we noted in our review of their 26th studio album MAD! earlier this week, there’s a perceptible sincerity to several of the new songs’ lyrical longings, matched by spritely synthpop melodies that remain Sparksian in their instrumental idiosyncrasies and inevitable tongue-in-cheek punchlines.
But as Ron Mael shares with us, it’s even hard for the duo to perceive any non-music influences on their work. Given that MAD! is rife with proper noun usages in its lyrics and song titles, though, he seems aware of the ways in which the figures and locales (not to mention products, from Jordan sneakers to JanSport backpacks) the Maels encounter provide building blocks for their lyrical universe. “In all candor, no non-musical influence is something I’m aware of having a direct effect on MAD!—or any of our other albums, for that matter,” he explains. “Like everyone else, what you experience and what remains with you has an effect on you that most times can’t be specified.”
Ultimately, he cites MJ’s competitive spirit and a French neighborhood that exceeded his long-held expectations for life abroad as potential inspirations for this chapter of Sparks. “Here are several non-musical people, places, or things that have probably changed me in some way,” he adds of the five items he chose for this list, “and therefore changed our music in ways that others can analyze. I’m not into self-scrutiny.”
Scrutinize his picks below, and stream MAD! below.
Michael Jordan
I find many athletes much more interesting than the majority of musicians. Michael Jordan revolutionized both the playing of basketball, but also the merging of fashion with sports. He was the first athlete in the US with his own line of shoes. The company is now worth about $7 billion. I was slightly delusional at the time and thought that wearing his shoes would give me some of his superpowers. It didn’t. He was also the first player to wear longer, baggy shorts rather than the short shorts that every other player of the time wore. I always admired his intensity and focus. He was relentless. I admired his attempt to humiliate anyone else who thought they could compete with him. Yes, indeed!
Mark Twain
I’m in agreement with Ernest Hemingway when he said, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn… All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” Amen, brother!
Saint-Germain
Before we even went anywhere, I had stereotype fantasies about foreign places—and about France, most of all. We did “The Louvre” on Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing before we had set foot in France. Some places turned out not to live up to my fantasies, but the Saint-Germain area of Paris has always both lived up to and exceeded my expectations. It is, to me, always like being in a French film from the ’30s.
Tour souvenirs
I love to stop at roadside places on tour and buy a remembrance of that place. That, to me, is collecting art.
Veronica Lake
OK, I take it back—sometimes something or someone does have a direct effect on a song, and obviously Ms. Lake was worthy of a tribute in some small way. Most experts never considered her a great actress, but sometimes an appearance on screen and what you project is beyond good or bad acting. To me, the sexiest scene in any film is the scene in I Married a Witch where she is with Fredric March (who hated her in real life) and she is wearing baggy men’s pajamas while he is with her. Some witch! Also, any film with Robert Benchley was instantly a classic. He was pure wit.
