ML - Austin Way

Austin Way - 2017 - Issue 1 - Spring - Spoon

Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.

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SPOON IS THE KIND OF BAND THAT PEOPLE KEEP DIS- COVERING, even though the Austin group started 24 years ago. So what keeps an indie-rock band growing and thriving on its smooth ride toward a quarter-century mark? Just listen to their ninth album, Hot Thoughts, which drops March 17 on Matador Records. The 10-song record is a sonic playground. It's Spoon's first album since 2014's critical smash, They Want My Soul, which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 (just as 2010's Transference did before that), and it makes perfect sense as the next step in the band's steady, two-decade evolution from scrappy Austin musicians to indie-rock gods. It's why South by Southwest invited them to hold a three-night residency this year, a first for the 30-year-old fest. It's a long way from the early '90s, when Britt Daniel fled Temple, Texas, at 18 to attend UT. "It was where all the cool stuff was happening," Daniel recalls. After a stint in the band The Alien Beats with drummer Jim Eno (then a microchip designer for Motorola), the two formed Spoon, releasing their first full- length album, Telephono, on Matador in 1996. The next 20 years saw label and lineup changes (with Daniel and Eno the two mainstays) as each album, starting with 2001's Girls Can Tell, drew more and more commercial and critical success. The con- sistent praise earned Spoon the title of "top overall artist of the decade" in 2009 by review aggregator Metacritic. going d eep with SPOON Rock stars for the thinking person, Spoon digs in on their ninth record, Hot Thoughts, their prominent SXSW residency, and why we can officially call them an Austin-based band again. by KATHY BLACKWELL AUSTINWAY.COM  33

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