Beat chats to Ron Mael, one half of art pop legends Sparks, ahead of their 2026 Australian tour.
Shortly after the release of Sparks’ 28th album, MAD!, one half of the LA sibling duo, vocalist Russell Mael, appeared on the popular web series What’s In My Bag?
Given the vast stylistic range of Sparks’ back catalogue, it was no surprise that Russell’s bag contained a varied assortment of records and films, including albums by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Kate Bush, The Who and Underworld.
Russell also chose the 2025 album Übermensch by K-pop icon G-Dragon, and in the video, he can be seen waxing lyrical about the canonical significance of G-Dragon and his 00s-era boy band, BigBang.
Sparks: The Very Best Of
- Thursday 28 May
- Palais Theatre
- Tickets here
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Russell, 77, has been co-leading Sparks alongside his older brother, keyboardist Ron Mael, 80, since 1971. The band’s oeuvre includes everything from the operatic glam rock of This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us to the tasty synthpop of The Number One Song in Heaven and 2021’s sinister musical film Annette, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.
MAD!, which came out in May 2025, hit #2 on the UK charts, and a few months after its release, Sparks collaborated with Gorillaz on The Happy Dictator, the lead single from Gorillaz chart-topping album, The Mountain.
But despite Sparks’ unprecedented late-career success, and Russell Mael’s penchant for K-pop, Ron tells Beat that the duo’s songwriting is not particularly swayed by contemporary trends.
“We try to stay abreast just of the basic sounds that are around. Not so much stylistically or even song structure wise, but it’s important to know that what you’re recording is at least within the bounds of what other popular music is sounding like.
“People think that we’re working in a total bubble, which is partially true. But we do listen to other things just to make sure that what we’re doing doesn’t sound outmoded.”
Sparks will be back in Melbourne for a show at the Palais on 28 May.
It’s just two and a half years since their previous visit to Australia, which ended a 22-year absence from the country. This relatively snappy return is evidence of Sparks’ prevailing momentum, some of which can be traced back to Edgar Wright’s 2021 documentary film, The Sparks Brothers.
“Edgar Wright, the documentary, and the [Leos] Carax film, Annette, and the collaboration with Damon and Gorillaz, they’re all pushing things in a way that we never could have thought possible a while ago. So, it’s exciting,” Ron says.
“But the main thing we really cherish about it is that it’s bringing more young people to what we’re doing, both album-wise and also to the shows.”
Sparks have never been shy about indulging their zany impulses, and with a new generation of listeners now coming on board, Ron says they felt even more energised about stylistic experimentation during the making of MAD!
“The people that have stayed with us in the past are open to an adventurousome approach, but knowing that there are new people there, we feel that we have more freedom to just do things that we really think are special, knowing that at least a certain size of audience will follow what we’re doing.”
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In the early stages of their career, Sparks worked with many big-name producers, including Muff Winwood, Tony Visconti, Giorgio Moroder and Mack. They produce everything in-house these days, and MAD! is the latest in a succession of records recorded at Russell Mael’s home studio.
“We feel really self-sufficient,” Ron says.
In other words, to paraphrase MAD!’s lead single, Sparks are free to do things their own way. Though, the brothers do adhere to one basic principle. “If it’s something that we think is cool, we kind of go with that,” Ron says.
“It isn’t like we set out to be a band that was doing something different from other people,” he adds. “You start and you’re trying to emulate, and for us it was trying to emulate British bands, but then for whatever reason, you are maybe succeeding a little bit, but failing in some ways, but you come up with something else.
“What we do, it’s not aimed at being different or zany or clever or anything. It’s kind of all that we can do. But within the context of our universe, we try to expand things as much as we can, and that’s the challenge with every album – to come up with things that will be different than what you’ve done.”
Sparks will perform at the Palais on Thursday 28 May. Tickets on sale now.
This article was made in partnership with Destroy All Lines.
