It was my distinct pleasure to interview with Canadian singer, guitarist, composer, principal songwriter, and actor, best known as the lead vocalist and creative force behind the pioneering new wave band, The Spoons, regarding their 8th studio masterpiece album, Nightlife.
1. Gord: How incredible does it feel to have passed on your creativity, passion, drive, and talent to your son Matthew, who is a musician and songwriter who has contributed keyboard and piano melodies to Spoons projects, including tracks like "Life on Demand" and "Landing Lights" on the seventh album 'New Day New World' and the eighth album, 'Nightlife'?
Gord: It's pretty amazing to be writing songs with my son Matthew. He started playing the piano when he was about six years old. He'd come home from seeing a movie like Harry Potter and would create music that sounded like the soundtrack. But when I showed him the parts to a Spoons song, he was a stubborn little six-year-old and wanted nothing to do with it. But slowly, I heard him incorporate little bits of melodies like Nova Heart into his songs. So I know he is listening. Now it's effortless for us to write songs together. He has a great sense of melody and is now busy doing soundtrack work for movies. If you ever need a great co-writer, he's your guy."
2. How does it feel to finally have 100% creative control over all aspects of your music after a 47-year career, especially in today's information age?
Gord: "We wouldn't have it any other way. It's so important, especially in this age of things becoming very uniform and similar because of the easy accessibility to recording of music and making videos, to stay unique and remain yourself. Having complete creative control lets us do things at our pace and release things when we think they are ready and represent us the way we think we should be represented."
3. Walk us through your new album, 'Nightlife'. Will it be filled with that familiar classic synthesizer-driven atmosphere and modern synth-pop sound we've all adored for almost five decades?
Gord: "Nova Heart really had our signature sound. But through the years we went off on tangents and tried different things. We got a little bit more poppy and funky working with Nile Rodgers on songs like Tell No Lies and Romantic Traffic and then we became more rock 'n' roll when we were with Rush's management and record label and made songs like When Time Turns Around. But now, with the album Nightlife, we are back to the beginning and where I think we belong. That perfect combination of drum machine, synthesizer and guitar, and of course, our quirky way of writing songs."
4. How has the songwriting process changed throughout your eight albums? How did new songs like "Take The World," "Better Late Than Never Did It," "Phenomenal," "Doomed," "Push Repeat & Go," "Safety Lines," "Day By Day," "Perfect Ending For A Perfect Story," "Your Heart Not Your Head," and "Nightlife" come to be?
Gord: "That's the thing, the songwriting process hasn't changed at all. I still do things very old-school. It still begins with me putting an idea on my iPhone and then working on it in my hotel room or at home between shows or tours. When I think it's ready, I'll bring the idea to the band and then they fill it out with their parts and ideas. Everyone's personality becomes part of it. If not, you might as well use AI to write a song for you."
5. You've been in the music industry for 47 years. Did you ever imagine your career would unfold as it has? Did you ever think your songs would influence the world as they have?
Gord: "Not at all! When the 80s wound down and music shifted in the early 90s, we thought that was it. The 80s were dead and gone and never to be remembered again. How wrong we were. As early as the mid 90s the Retro movement was starting to build. There would be a second life for the Spoons and other bands like us. And now it seems there's a third chapter just beginning."
6. What do you believe is your claim to fame and your secret to longevity?
Gord: "We had our own sound and were different from the start. It wasn't always to our benefit, but we tried to be a little different than the other bands around us. Luckily our crazy little songs still made it on the radio. Maybe other people wanted different too."
7. Early in your career, you were greatly influenced by British music. Who or what influences your music and writing today?
Gord: "You're right. At first it was progressive rock like Genesis and then it was the wave of new bands in the 80s like Simple Minds and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark from Britain that perked our ears. Some people even thought we were from Britain because we had that certain sound. But now I like all sorts of new bands. I'm not stuck in the 80s. Everything from Wet Leg and Måneskin to a bit older bands that I will always love like The Prodigy and 21 Pilots. I really hope our new album Nightlife sounds like a current band that somehow, by mysterious ways, sounds a little bit 80s. We can't help that. It's in our DNA."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z09PPSp8jKg
https://sparksmusic.bandcamp.com/album/nightlife
https://www.facebook.com/spoonscanada
https://www.instagram.com/spoonsband
https://music.apple.com/ca/artist/the-spoons/1773234117
Spoons have announced ‘Nightlife,’ their eighth studio album, arriving November 6 on CD, digital download and 180-gram red vinyl, and have released its lead single, "Take the World," as the first taste of the band's first fully independent release. For the first time in their four-decade career, every creative decision rests entirely in the band's own hands.
The story starts in 1980 in Burlington, Ontario, where an intrepid young band would soon turn its own name into a household word. Gord Deppe and Sandy Horne, together with original members Derrick Ross and Rob Preuss, helped define the sound of pop and New Wave in the 1980s with hits including "Nova Heart," "Romantic Traffic," "Old Emotions" and "Tell No Lies.” Not bad for a group of kids from Burlington.
Their debut, 'Stick Figure Neighbourhood,' was recorded in 1981 at Grant Avenue Studios in Hamilton with a then unknown engineer named Daniel Lanois, earning rave reviews and the number one slot on college radio. It was the release of "Nova Heart," produced by John Punter of Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry fame, that turned Spoons into a household name, and when MuchMusic launched its very first broadcast, the network opened with the words, "Coming up we have brand new videos by Duran Duran, Howard Jones and the Spoons," a line that helped launch an entire video driven era of Canadian music.
'Arias & Symphonies,' recorded at George Martin's famed AIR Studios in London, solidified the band's place on the New Wave front and led to the group opening for the Police, Culture Club and Simple Minds. The album would later be named one of the 20 Most Influential Albums of the 80s by The Chart Magazine, and "Nova Heart" was included in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Singles of All Time.
In 1983, Ready Records brought in Nile Rodgers, of Chic, David Bowie, Madonna and later Daft Punk's "Get Lucky," to produce the follow-up album 'Talkback.' More radio hits followed in "Romantic Traffic," "Old Emotions" and "Tell No Lies," with the "Romantic Traffic" video, shot in the subways of Toronto, standing today as one of the most iconic Canadian music videos ever made. A soundtrack contribution to Ron Mann's film Listen to the City followed, along with two more studio albums.
Under the guidance of Rush's manager, Ray Daniels, and with keyboardist Scott MacDonald and drummer Steve Kendry added to the lineup, Spoons recorded 'Bridges Over Borders' and 'Vertigo Tango' for Anthem Records. The singles "Bridges Over Borders," "Be Alone Tonight," "Rodeo," "When Time Turns Around" and "Waterline" kept the band touring through the end of the decade.
Plenty of people assumed that was the end of the 80s story, and they could not have been more wrong. Spoons' greatest hits collection, 'Collectible Spoons,' arrived on MCA/Universal Music in 1994 and drove one of the band's most successful tours ever, as old fans returned and new ones discovered the music for the first time, right as the Retro 80s movement began to take hold.
In 2010, Gord and Sandy, joined by producer and keyboard player Jeff Carter, released 'Static In Transmission,' the band's first collection of new songs in over two decades and a modern spin on the classic Spoons sound. The singles "You Light Up" and "Escape With You" proved the band remained genuinely current, and the Toronto Star's John Sakamoto included the album in his Anti-Hit List the week it came out.
The years that followed brought a run of milestones befitting a legacy act. In 2012, Sparks Music and Ready Records marked the 30th anniversary of 'Nova Heart' with a special EP featuring the original 1982 cut, two remixes including Jeff Carter's electronic "Singularity Mix," a rare 1981 demo, and a live recording mixed by John Punter himself at Barrymore's in Ottawa in 1982. A 30th anniversary edition of 'Arias & Symphonies' followed, complete with extensive liner notes and live tracks, and brought the original lineup back together for the first time in 26 years for a sold-out release party in Toronto. In 2013, Spoons won Music Express Magazine's Back In The Spotlight Award, released a remastered 'Stick Figure Neighbourhood' and a 30th anniversary edition of 'Talkback,' and Gord published a book on the band's history, Spoon Fed, through Manor House Publishing.
Spoons kept building from there. 'New Day New World' arrived in 2019, their first studio album in over eight years, again produced by Jeff Carter and supported by four video singles. A new greatest hits set, 'Repeatable: 1980-2020,' followed on CD and double vinyl in 2020, and 2021 brought 'Echoes,' a covers collection from artists around the world reimagining their favourite Spoons songs, with proceeds supporting the Unison Fund's work helping musicians and live music technicians recover from the pandemic's toll on the industry.
'Nightlife' picks up that thread and pushes it somewhere new, slipping into a world where the night lives and the truth sits somewhere between the shadows, all set to infectious drum machine beats and relentless synth melodies. It time travels back to the Nova Heart era, four decades on, seen now with new eyes and a new perspective. Tracks including "Take The World," "Better Late Than Never Did It" and "Doomed" have already become concert favourites well ahead of release.
"Take The World" leads the album as its first single, a song about dreaming, making those dreams real, and pulling them back into reach, even if only for one more night. The record was produced by Jeff Carter and features Gord Deppe on vocals and guitar, Sandy Horne on bass and vocals, keyboards from Scott MacDonald, Jeff Carter and Matthew Deppe, and drums from both of Spoons' live drummers, Chris McNeil and Tony Ferraro.
The Retro 80s movement is closing in on a decade old at this point, and it shows no sign of slowing down. As far as Sandy, Gord, the rest of the band and plenty of fans are concerned, that is exactly how it should be, and 'Nightlife' stands as proof that four decades in, Spoons remain one of Canada's genuine New Wave legends, still writing some of the best material of their career.
'Nightlife' Track Listing:
Nightlife
Take the World
Better Late Than Never Did It
Phenomenal
Doomed
Push Repeat & Go
Safety Lines
Day By Day
Perfect Ending For A Perfect Story
Your Heart Not Your Head
Tour Dates:
December 3, 2026 – Le Studio TD, Montreal, QC – https://modo-live.com/custom-tickets/spoons-rough-trade/?utm_source=mistmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=new-wave-pioneers-spoons-announce-new-album-nightlife-led-by-single-take-the-wor
December 4, 2026 – Bronson Theatre, Ottawa, ON – https://www.ticketweb.ca/event/spoons-images-in-vogue-rough-the-bronson-tickets/14990073?pl=MODO-LIVE&utm_source=mistmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=new-wave-pioneers-spoons-announce-new-album-nightlife-led-by-single-take-the-wor
December 5, 2026 – The Concert Hall, Toronto, ON – https://www.ticketweb.ca/event/spoons-images-in-vogue-rough-the-concert-hall-tickets/14990113?pl=MODO-LIVE&utm_source=mistmail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=new-wave-pioneers-spoons-announce-new-album-nightlife-led-by-single-take-the-wor
"to truly experience The SPOONS, is like capturing an infinite measure, both a creative workbook and an authoritative musical reference. Their stage presence is profoundly moving and a pertinent one. Their perfected measurements of rhythm and supportive harmony, play a crucial role in defining the sound of pop culture and 80's New Wave!" ~ Dee of The Wire Megazine.
