Britt Daniel//Spoon

“When I try to write with intention, I come up empty. But if I’m trying not to do anything, I’ve been more successful.”

Spoon’s Britt Daniel often finds his greatest success as a songwriter comes when he’s trying not to write songs.

With Daniel, less organization often means a more efficient songwriting process. “Trying to be organized can be a dead end,” he told me. A linear writing process doesn’t work for him because that’s when he starts to judge. So Daniel is at his most productive when he writes without direction.

When it comes to actually sitting down to write lyrics, Daniel prefers a good, hard floor. That’s where he gets his best writing done. For one, Daniel likes to spread out all those lyrics in front of him, and the floor provides him with plenty of room to take in all those words collectively. But Daniel also theorizes that the floor brings him back to simpler times when he was just starting out: he couldn’t even afford a couch, so it was just him, the floor, and some empty milk crates (which served as tables, chairs, and dressers all in one). Simplifying the process is where Daniel often finds the most success: don’t complicate, just write.

The latest album by Spoon is called Lucifer on the Sofa. Listen to my interview with Britt Daniel below!