Sparks “feel an obligation” to continue making high-quality music.
The ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ band – made up of brothers Ron and Russell Mael – have released 26 albums in a career spanning more than half a century but refuse to let the standard of their work diminish as they are always gaining new fans.
Ron told Mojo magazine: “There are so many newer fans that have kind of come our way of late.
“We feel an obligation, which we always do, to keep the quality high. We’re lovers of pop music, and we think it’s a disservice to pop music to come out with stuff that isn’t cool.”
Sparks are preparing to release another new album next year and Ron explained that the band are going against convention by making their music more “aggressive” as they grow older.
The 78-year-old musician said: “I think that the assumption for a band that, say, has been around for as long and has made as many albums as we have – I won’t mention years – is that we would be introspective and mellow down a touch.
“You know, the usual things where musicians try to come to grips with mortality and all those sorts of things. We’re not like that. It still has a pretty high degree of aggression to it, I think.”
Russell added that the forthcoming album will be “consistent” with ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’ band’s previous material.
The 75-year-old singer said: “I think it’s consistent with the lyric universe that Sparks has always had, with some issues that are maybe not treated so much in normal pop music, or issues that are, treated in a way that’s not clichéd.”