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AP: Talk about how you approach making new music after all of these years.

RUSSELL: After 28 albums, the challenge is just trying to find new ways to kind of retain the universe that Sparks has created, but to obviously try to make it fresh for people that have been following the band for a long time. And the other thing is also just to try to make an album that maybe doesn鈥檛 sound like it鈥檚 from a band with a 28-album-long history, so that if someone were to pick up the new 鈥淢ad!鈥� album, and this was the first exposure they had to Sparks, that it would be as poignant and provocative in all sorts of ways as anything we鈥檝e done in our past.

AP: You both grew up in Los Angeles during a pivotal time for rock music but moved to the U.K. early on in your careers for a bit. Do you feel like your surroundings inform your creative process?

RON: When we first started out, we had never even been to Europe or anywhere. But we kind of pretended like we were a British band because that was the music that we really responded to. And we always kind of liked bands that had an image. LA bands, in general 鈥� at the time we were starting 鈥� an image was something that ran counter to musical integrity. And we always thought that was ridiculous. So, we kind of were in general just really attracted to British bands.

Other than a few things like The Beach Boys and that sort of thing, in general, we weren鈥檛 influenced by LA bands at all.

AP: Have you given much thought to why you make so much music?

RON: Other people tell us we鈥檙e prolific and we don鈥檛 really sense that. I mean, the one thing we do do is not wait for inspiration. We kind of have to pursue it. When you wait for that lightning bolt, it kind of can take more time than you really want to take waiting. We work a lot knowing that not everything is going to pan out. But in order to kind of give the appearance of being prolific, we have to actually sit down and pursue those things rather than waiting for some kind of divine inspiration.

AP: Have you guys ever thought about retiring?

RUSSELL: Retiring? What鈥檚 that? If your whole thing in life kind of is creating stuff, there鈥檚 no, you know, there is no such thing as doing something else, so, you know, it hasn鈥檛 crossed our minds. Maybe we鈥檙e blind or something to that, but no, we鈥檙e really happy.

AP: I鈥檓 sure you know that covered your song, 鈥淭his Town Ain鈥檛 Big Enough For The Both Of Us.鈥� Have you been surprised by younger listeners connecting with your music?

RUSSELL: We鈥檙e happy with the younger following and really diverse following also that Sparks has. It鈥檚 just kind of reassuring to us that what we鈥檙e doing is connecting in a modern way to younger people and really diverse sorts of people as well. And so that鈥檚 almost the most satisfying thing. Obviously, we鈥檙e happy that we have fans that have stuck with us from Day 1 and that they鈥檙e still there. But then having new fans that are kind of coming with a different reference point to what Sparks is 鈥� with some of the older fans, it鈥檚 like, 鈥淭hat was the golden era,鈥� or whatever, but the younger fans don鈥檛 have those reference points in a really healthy way, we think. And so, from the last few years of albums that we鈥檝e had, those for them are the golden era of Sparks and right now is the golden era.

AP: I read that you guys grew up in How have you been processing the fire?

RUSSELL: To even kind of even comprehend that all of the Palisades is just 鈥� you know, it was really sad. The elementary school that I went to got completely destroyed so it鈥檚 just hard to comprehend. It鈥檚 pretty staggering.