Quotes from Ron Mael

Of course everybody wants to be filthy stinking rich. But we've seen the effect that having that kind of massive success has had on other people musically. I really think that our music has gotten stronger because of a slight level of fear you get when you don't have that kind of success.

I wanted to be like Pete Townshend or something but there's no way as a keyboard player that you can be flashy, so I decided to go the other way.

Our father bought us 'Hound Dog' by Elvis and 'Long Tall Sally' by Little Richard, so those were the first records we owned. I don't know what his inspiration was for doing that... They weren't the kind of records you usually bought as educational tools for your child.

I can't think of a band that has made 19 albums, and hasn't either moved into what I call the manor class, or disappeared, or else is just doing things that are a very mellow version of what they've always done.

Even before we had a band, the merging of music and movies just seemed so perfect.

Even though we try not to be nostalgic about drawing from old music, I'm always inspired by things like old Cole Porter songs or the words in the Gershwin songs or even Stephen Sondheim, where there's a real craft to them but it isn't only that you're hearing the words it's that it links so well with the music.

Having more people accepting what you're doing - that's the kind of limelight we really cherish.

Every Sparks album is a new album when it's the first one you're hearing.

I feel there are Sparks songs that are somehow both commenting on a song while at the same time being the song. In a sense, this is breaking down the fourth wall of hiding behind the traditional song form and speaking past the song to the listener.

We're not trying to fulfill what Sparks is supposed to be; it's trying to begin again each time, but obviously, there's a sensibility that we can't escape. But what we can control - the externals and also just the strength of the material - just within our own sensibility, that's something that we really try to judge pretty harshly.

We pretend that, in a way, people who know Sparks don't know Sparks.

While I try to avoid terms like 'high' and 'low' culture, I would agree that Sparks are attempting to be both a 'mere' pop band and also to have some artistic aspirations.

When we first started in Los Angeles, we thought of ourselves in our own delusional way as being a British band, even though we'd never been to England at that point, so musically it's kind of sometimes hard to place where we're from.

We already tried writing musicals. Sometimes that failure can become a cause for us. We had so much passion for the idea of doing a movie musical that it finally happened.

What we do is pretty stylised. It hasn't got mass appeal. This, combined with the fact that we've never been over-exposed, seems to have created a certain mystery.

There's definitely a Leos Carax universe that he has created in his films; we've done something similar with our music and lyrics. He's a pretty uncompromising filmmaker and we feel the same way.

Obviously, you want to be universally adored in what you're doing, and especially just because other incredible people are involved in the 'Annette' project, you hate to see there be any kind of negativity about it.

We would have loved to have stayed in the U.K. but we're creatures of California and we missed the ocean and most of all the sun.

We detested folk music because it was cerebral and sedate and we had no time for that. But the Byrds were OK because they electrified it and they had English hairstyles.

We're not on a mission to uplift people, but music in general has such a profound effect on people.

One tries to be uplifting in one's songs, but occasionally a cloud appears in the sky and one's demeanor leads to songs like 'I'm Toast.' Even the guitars sound depressed.

We kind of have a cranky side of ourselves, so when people get upset about what we're doing, we kind of feel that we're on the right track. But it's really difficult using humor in pop music. Sometimes it can appear that you're frivolous or there isn't any depth in what you're doing. But we always tried to have humor anyway.

I'm basically a stoic person anyway, so I just decided to maybe emphasise that, and I was surprised as anybody that it was gaining as much attention as all the jumping about.

I like Strauss's operas because it's all women's voices; I like opera that's hysterical.