IN STRAITENED TIMES FOR ROCK'N'ROLL, SPARKS ARE THRIVING, WITH A CANNY BUSINESS MODEL, BRAND-EXTENDING COLLABS AND RECORDS THAT KEEP HITTING THE SWEET SPOT OF FUNNY, CLEVER, CATCHY AND CAMP. THEIR LATEST MAY BE MAD!, BUT THE MAEL BROTHERS, IT TRANSPIRES, ARE ANYTHING BUT. "WE CAN'T THINK OF ANYBODY IN THE SAME BOAT," THEY TELL DAVE DIMARTINO.

PORTRAITS BY BOB SEIDEMANN AND MUNACHI OSEGBU

The Mael gaze: (above) Sparks brothers Russell (left) and Ron, in 2025; (above left) Ron and Russell circa 1977’s Introducing Sparks .

Sparks Archives, Munachi Osegbu

WE ARE IN BEVERLY HILLS, north of Sunset Boulevard and upward into the hills that eventually recede into the San Fernando Valley, and, as one might do when talking to brothers Ron and Russell Mael, we are discussing the weather.

Of course, they are no ordinary brothers, and this is no ordinary weather. Like thousands of LA residents, the Maels are lamenting how the fires of the past weeks have wrought unprecedented chaos and destruction, and an aftershock of bitterness and dismay. Just as the word ‘funny’ can have a dual meaning – ‘ha-ha’ or peculiar – the title of the new Sparks album, MAD!, might mean crazy or might mean angry. Especially now.

“We kind of wanted it to be ambiguous,” says Ron Mael, his famous Chaplin/Hitler ’tache long since a pencil-thin Ronald Coleman. “Because it seems like both of them apply in a certain sense to us, but also to the times and the Zeitgeist. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

As Sparks, they’ve been doing ambiguous for 54 years. They look spry for their ages, though (Ron is 79, Russell 76), and today they’re dressed as Sparks – the get-up you see in recent videos – which means no off-duty Hawaiian shirts and a seriousness delivered with occasional twinkling of the eye.

Be my baby: (above) Ron and Russell in the audience at The Big T.N.T. Show, 1965; (below) the Getty Center above the I-405 freeway, Los Angeles.

Sparks Archives (2), Getty (2)

Sparks Archives(2)

"WE DON'T CONSIDER OURSELVES SAVIOURS OF ANYTHING. WE JUST WANT TO SHOW RESPECT FOR POP MUSIC."

RON MAEL

Yet the twinkle dims when they speak of the fires. The Maels grew up in nearby Pacific Palisades, and their house on Galloway Street and Russell’s former high school have now largely burned to the ground.

“You kind of couldn’t believe where in the Palisades it was happening,” says Russell, eyes wide. “It was hitting in this suburban area that wasn’t even in the hills. It hit a lot of the posh side too. And the place where we lived – which is just an ordinary kind of middle-class neighbourhood – it’s just gone now. Along with a lot of other things.”

IT’S NOT HOW THEY ARE PERCEIVED – THEIR key successes, since This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us hit Number 2 in the UK singles chart in 1974, have been in Europe – but Sparks are an LA band. Both Maels attended UCLA, pursuing studies in cinema, graphic arts, filmmaking and theatre. They were audience members, incredibly, briefly visible watching The Ronettes perform in The Big T.N.T. Show, the concert movie filmed in the Moulin Rouge club on Sunset Strip in November 1965. And as the Strip scene was in full bloom, the Maels joined forces with friends to make their very first recordings as the Urban Renewal Project.