The Sparks Brothers Q&A with Edgar Wright, Ron Mael, and Russell Mael

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Q&A panel for the new documentary feature film, "The Sparks Brothers" about the band Sparks. With director/producer Edgar Wright and subjects Ron Mael and Russell Mael. Moderated by IndieWire's Anne Thompson.
Edgar Wright was first exposed to Sparks on Top of the Pops in 1979. His parents used to buy him compilation albums, and two of them happened to have Sparks tracks on them, "Beat the Clock" and "When I'm With You." In this pre-Internet age, when you didn't have entire discographies at your fingertips or even a central resource like Wikipedia, you had to let the music come to you.
One day, he discovered that Ron and Russell Mael were following him on Twitter, so he reached out and they had coffee. And then years later, when Franz Ferdinand and Sparks formed FFS, Edgar Wright started to ask friends like Phil Lord, why don't have Sparks have a music documentary? And Phil Lord said you should do the documentary about Sparks.
Sparks always resisted the idea of a documentary because they saw it as a creative obituary that implied all of their work was in the past, as if they aren't still making music.
Edgar Wright divided the interviewees into 3 groups: 1) people who Ron and Russell Mael had worked with, like producer Todd Rundgren, Giorgio Moroder, and Tony Visconti, 2) artists who were on record as being fans, like Duran Duran and Vince Clark, 3) people who he guessed would be Sparks fans like Mike Myers, Neil Gaiman, and Weird Al Yankovic.
In the UK, Sparks have had a following recently because of "Little Beethoven," but prior to that people would talk about The Island Record years or Giorgio Moroder's stuff, or "Gratuitous Sex and Senseless Violence." But in LA, people know them for "Angst in My Pants" or "In Outer Space" because of KROQ.
In the mid-1970s, Ron and Russell Mael were going to act in a film with Jacques Tati called "Confusion," but it sadly never got made. But they did appear with Jacques Tati on a Swedish variety show where Tati requested an entrance on a white horse.
Ron and Russell Mael recently wrote the music for the Leos Carax" rock opera film, "Annette."
Shot and edited by Viva Videography.

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@saraschmertz4221 6 ай бұрын

Ron at 16:19: "We feel that there's something that we're doing that isn't being done by other people... You want there to be music like what you're doing, and there isn't somebody else doing that, and so you feel like there's... almost a moral necessity for you to be doing that. It isn't always enjoyment, but there is a fulfillment we get out of doing it that we don't get from much else." Sparks realized that as far as their type and quality of music went, they were pretty much it, so they should keep at it as long as they could. For the sake of anyone who loved the music, including themselves.

@cumbertiger8503 Жыл бұрын

this is one of THE BEST interviews I've ever encountered, thank you so so much! so many bits and bobs of information and such a lovely tone, I'm thrilled