Spoon

Spoon ranks among indie rock’s most widely praised groups, known for an ability to stay fresh while remaining true to a core approach. Emerging as edgy post-punk performers amid the mid-’90s calm after grunge, the band truly defined its identity during the next ten years. With 2001’s Girls Can Tell and 2002’s Kill the Moonlight, Spoon reduced rock to fundamentals before filling the resulting room with inventive rhythms, sharp guitars, and smart lyrics that felt both novel and enduring. This distinctive mix of exacting punk energy and winding classic-rock influences—prompting comparisons to acts ranging from the Pixies and Sonic Youth to Elvis Costello and Tom Petty—eventually brought both mainstream sales and widespread praise, as 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga reached the U.S. Top Ten. Further changes appeared on the dance-inflected 2017 release Hot Thoughts and the direct rock sound of 2022’s Grammy-nominated Lucifer on the Sofa, which led to the dub-focused Lucifer on the Moon and the spontaneous 2023 Memory Dust EP, all demonstrating how the group kept discovering fresh methods for pursuing its longstanding habits.

Britt Daniel and Jim Eno formed Spoon in Austin, Texas, in 1993 after playing together in Alien Beats. Borrowing the name from a Can track, the band issued its first EP, Nefarious, on the modest local label Fluffer Records in May 1994. The following year Matador signed Spoon, which delivered the full-length Telephono in April 1996. Produced by the Reivers’ John Croslin and tracked in his garage for $3,000, the album climbed to number 35 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart; its noisy, melodic post-punk style drew favorable notice alongside Pixies and Wire. In 1997 Daniel and Eno recruited bassist Josh Zarbo, previously of Maxine’s Radiator, and refined the concise, minimal pop that became the band’s signature on that year’s Soft Effects EP. A short, unsettled period on Elektra began in 1998, yielding the second album A Series of Sneaks in May. Once more the record received strong reviews, yet sales fell short of expectations during Elektra’s corporate upheaval, and the label dropped Spoon four months later; Merge later reissued the album in 2002 with two bonus tracks documenting the band’s frustration with major-label dealings. Daniel relocated to New York City for temporary work and songwriting while Eno stayed in Austin to design semiconductor chips.

Merge Records then became Spoon’s home, allowing the group to establish a lasting place in the expanding modern-rock landscape. Following 2000’s Love Ways EP, the sound grew more daring on 2001’s Girls Can Tell. Cut in Eno’s home studio with producer Mike McCarthy, the songs reflected the Kinks, the Supremes, and Elvis Costello. Girls Can Tell strengthened Spoon’s critical standing and outsold the two prior albums combined. Building on that momentum, the band released Kill the Moonlight in August 2002. Reaching number 46 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart, it incorporated piano, tambourine, and additional percussion into an increasingly spare yet memorable style, heard on the single “The Way We Get By.” Daniel began composing material for the next album in 2003; the outcome was May 2005’s cinematic Gimme Fiction, which introduced multi-instrumentalist Eric Harvey and entered the Billboard 200 at number 44. After Daniel worked with composer Brian Reitzell on the 2006 film Stranger Than Fiction, Spoon’s popularity kept rising with July 2007’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. The first album featuring bassist Rob Pope after Zarbo’s departure earlier that year, it reached number ten on the Billboard 200, moved more than 300,000 copies domestically, and topped numerous year-end lists.

By then a regular presence on soundtracks, television, and late-night shows, Spoon issued its seventh album, Transference, in January 2010, debuting at number four on the Billboard 200. Following the supporting tour, the band took several years away. Daniel formed Divine Fits with Handsome Furs’ Dan Boeckner, releasing A Thing Called Divine Fits in 2012, while Eno focused on production for the Strange Boys, Alejandro Escovedo, and Heartless Bastards. Spoon returned in August 2014 with They Want My Soul. The eighth album introduced multi-instrumentalist Alex Fischel and marked the first collaboration with outside producer Dave Fridmann. Described by the group as its “loudest and gnarliest” effort, it appeared through Loma Vista Recordings in the U.S. and Anti in Europe, again peaking at number four on the Billboard 200. The following year Spoon marked the tenth anniversary of Gimme Fiction with a deluxe reissue. Late in 2016 the track “I Ain’t the One” surfaced on Shameless, previewing the ninth album. Reuniting the band with Fridmann and moving between dance-rock and spare ballads, Hot Thoughts arrived via Matador in March 2017 and reached number 17 on the Billboard 200. Two years later the band released the career overview Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon, collecting key tracks plus the new song “No Bullets Spent.”

February 2022 brought Spoon’s tenth album, Lucifer on the Sofa, co-produced by Mark Rankin and Justin Raisen. With guitarist/keyboardist Gerardo Larios and bassist/keyboardist Ben Trokan aboard, the record drew from the band’s live performances, Daniel’s return to Austin, and ZZ Top’s music. It reached number 38 on the Billboard 200, number 92 on the U.K. Albums chart, and charted in several other European countries plus Japan and Australia. November saw the release of Lucifer on the Moon, Adrian Sherwood’s dub reinterpretations of the album’s songs that added new material performed by bassist Doug Wimbish and drummer Keith LeBlanc, both veterans of Sugarhill Records’ rhythm section from the early ’80s. Around the same time Spoon earned its first Grammy nomination, with Lucifer on the Sofa named for Best Rock Album. In June 2023 the band issued the Memory Dust EP, compiling tracks from the Lucifer on the Sofa sessions alongside a cover of Bo Diddley’s “She’s Fine, She’s Mine.” That year Spoon also toured with the Black Keys and Weezer.