The scoop on Spoon

Music | May 13th, 2015

Bassist Rob Pope, also of the The Get Up Kids, discusses new record and tour

American rock ‘n’ roll band Spoon will visit Fargo for the first time ever this Tuesday. The veteran group from Austin, Texas has been around for 20-plus years. It has gained strong fan support, especially among alternative and indie music followers, for its stimulating and tasteful soundscapes, rhythmic patterns and melodic ideas that are balanced with charming, expertly crafted songwriting.

Perhaps known best for its 2007 release “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” with standout hits like “Don’t You Evah” and “The Underdog,” Spoon’s latest, “They Want My Soul,” is quite a bit more psychedelic -- perhaps more than any album the band has previously released. Essential new tunes like “Do You” and “Inside Out” have a more trippy vibe with their floating-in-space textures. Maybe that’s just a slight effect of modern influence, but the album as a whole still contains that familiar howling, gritty temperament that’s highly characteristic of bandleader Britt Daniel’s singing and songwriting. This is especially evident in the infectious single “Rent I Pay.”

Bassist Rob Pope accredits the newer sound to the long break Spoon took between the new record and its most previous record, “Transference,” which was released in 2010. During that time, the group took a break from touring and worked on other projects.

“So there was kind of a new energy and kind of some spontaneity (after reuniting) that I think maybe the last record lacked. It all kind of started to feel fresh again,” Pope told HPR.

Prior to Spoon, Pope’s full-time gig was playing bass guitar for The Get Up Kids, a popular ‘90s emo band from Kansas City. He still plays with them today, just not as often, and he said that group was especially fun to play with when he was in his 20s. He joined Spoon in 2006. So as a former outsider and now insider, Pope has insights on Spoon that very few others do. He said the band is special in a way that it has consistently put out great records.

“(Daniel) is really particular about stuff. He wants to make sure everything turns out amazing and I think that really is why a lot of that hard work really makes for consistently good records, record after record,” Pope said. “I don’t think Spoon really has a stinker of an album, and that’s hard to say about a lot of bands that have put out that many records.”

Critics seem to universally agree. Since Spoon’s beginnings, its albums have been favorably reviewed by popular media, including Spin, NPR and Rolling Stone, which called Spoon “the most rhythmically inventive and consistently tuneful American rock band of the 2000s.”

“It’s certainly nice to feel rewarded for all the work we put into it,” Pope said,” but we’re never really setting out to make records so that we get great reviews. We are trying to make records that we think are going to be great.”

Spoon’s set list for Tuesday will include new and old songs, according to Pope. He even said the band does covers and “a bunch of other weird things.”

“Our live shows differ a little bit, but we really try to replicate a lot of that sound or make sounds that we think are even cooler as things evolve,” he said. “That’s certainly something we strive to do, because we want to give an accurate representation of the records but we also need them to be able to feel live and energetic to us when we play them night after night, 7 days a week.”

IF YOU GO:

Spoon

Tues, May 19, 8 p.m.

Fargo Theatre, 314 Broadway

All ages

jadepresents.com

Bassist Rob Pope, also of the The Get Up Kids, discusses new record and tour

IF YOU GO:

RECENTLY IN

Recently in: