-Our next guest is the talented filmmaker behind films like
"Baby Driver," "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."
His debut documentary, "The Sparks Brothers,"
will be in theaters tomorrow. Let's take a look.
-As a synthesizer duo,
I guess you could say that they sort of set a template.
-♪ You gotta beat the clock, you gotta beat the clock ♪
-I became first aware of Sparks in their 1979 period,
seeing them on, like,
"Top of the Pops" around that time.
You know, it's a very sort of stark dynamic image --
Russell singing, Ron on the synths.
He had his '79 kind of hipster hair.
-Sparks and a new single called "Beat the Clock."
-I think it is real great.
-Please welcome back to the show Edgar Wright.
Edgar, how are you?
-I'm good. Thanks for having me back, Seth.
-It's such a pleasure to see you.
You're in London. -I am in London.
-And a lot of press for a while has been Zoom only,
but now there are some in-person events for your documentary.
Here's one in LA that you Zoomed into
in a very, like, "1984" fashion.
You really kind of took over the room.
-I know.
Your American embassy wouldn't grant me a visa waiver
to come over and do press
because it's nonessential work, doing press.
What we're doing right now is not important.
But I did -- Because Ron and Russell from Sparks,
they did their first, like, in-person Q&A,
and so not to let them down,
I did that zoom at 5:00 a.m. London time.
But I hadn't really factored into the fact
that I was going to be on a cinema screen
because nobody needs to see my face that big.
I look a bit like Kim Jong-un...
like, threatening to derail
the premiere of "The Interview" or something.
-What's nice -- -It almost looks like
I've got a Nehru jacket on right now.
-Now, it's -- is it nonessential?
Do you think they would have felt the same way if you had,
say, directed a Marvel film?
Do you think they were specifically knocking you
for having directed a documentary?
-I don't know. Maybe I got demerits just being British.
I am not sure.
Anyway, I mean, I haven't been in the same room as the guys
since I shot the movie,
so, at some point, we'll actually
be able to watch the film together.
But, you know, I'm happy to be here, of course.
-As we saw in the clip, not only are you the director
of this film, you interview yourself, I guess.
You are listed as a fanboy.
This is a band that you have loved for a very long time
that you -- Have you been surprised
over the years that more people didn't know them?
Or is that what you've come to expect?
-I come to expect it because, as I said in the clip,
I was like 5 years old when I saw them on TV.
But in a pre-Internet age, as we remember, um,
it was very difficult to get information on bands,
like, beyond what might be in a magazine
or on the radio or on the TV.
Before the Internet and before Spotify
having somebody's entire discography,
it was quite difficult to pin bands down.
So they were a band that kept coming back into my life.
And as that happened more and more frequently,
I became more and more obsessed.
They went from being a riddle to me
to being, like, a full-on obsession.
So I think in the last 20 years,
I've become, you know, not just a fan,
but, you know, that kind of evangelist with a band
where you're grabbing anybody within your eye view to say,
"Hey, have you ever heard Sparks? Listen to this!"
-You talk about the technology that wasn't available to us
as music fans when we were growing up,
but you did use the modern technology of Twitter
to make contact with these guys.
-Well, actually, bizarrely,
on one of my frequent marathons
of making somebody in the same room
as me listen to Sparks... [ Laughs ]
I suddenly thought, after having been a big fan of them,
I never, like, followed them on Twitter.
So I said, "I wonder if Sparks have a Twitter profile."
And I looked at it, and it said, "Sparks follows you,"
which was so shocking to me
because, you know, like, some artists --
They're very enigmatic, Ron and Russell from Sparks,
a bit like Kate Bush or David Bowie.
And all of those people, you don't imagine
they live on planet Earth.
So then I immediately direct-messaged them.
Well, first, I followed them back,
and then I direct-messaged them and said,
"Is this really the band? I'm such a huge fan."
And Russell, the lead singer, messaged me back and said,
"Yeah, we're big fans of your films."
And then within -- And then on top of that,
I was in Los Angeles.
So then it was the weird thing of like,
"Oh, they're only like 15 minutes' drive away."
And so within about 32 hours, I was having breakfast
with the two of them at their house, which was wild.
-Now, these guys, as you mentioned,
they're so enigmatic.
They're so stylized. They're so unique.
Were you worried that a lot of people
when they first saw a trailer would think this was a band
you had made up like, say, Spinal Tap?
-I mean, I think in a weird way
it's a good way to go into the film.
I think a lot of people -- One thing I want to stress
is you do not have to be a fan of the band to enjoy it.
And I think, in a weird way, if you've never heard them
before, it's quite a good way to see the movie.
And there are definitely some people who saw it at festivals,
who spent half of the duration thinking,
"Wow. This is like a really elaborate prank.
How did he do all this archive?"
Like it's some kind of Banksy thing.
I mean, I was going to say actually --
I wanted to say to you actually
that I did an article for Rotten Tomatoes the other day
where I listed my 10 favorite music documentaries.
And the top nine were all real,
and the number-10 wild-card choice
was "The Blue Jean Committee: Gentle and Soft"
"Documentary Now!" I'm not kidding.
-We're very -- Thank you for putting us
in what I'm sure is good company.
-Yeah, absolutely.
I mean -- So, I mean, it is a nice way to see it
because I think for a lot of people who watched it --
And when I was editing the movie,
I kept road-testing it with friends during the pandemic.
And usually I sort out friends who'd never heard of them.
And they all had the same reaction.
They said, "It is like sort of what --"
If you've never heard of them before, it's like watching
a secret history of music open up to you."
So that's kind of, you know -- But they're very real.
-You also must -- As a documentary filmmaker,
obviously, you pick the subject,
but you must, as you're putting it together --
There's such great archival footage
thanks to the fact that they were so unique.
You must fall in love with them as a director in a way
that you had also fallen in love with them as a fan.
-Yeah, I mean, they're so --
I had gotten to know them after the Twitter thing.
There was a sort of -- You know, maybe back two years
before it occurred to me to make the documentary.
I knew what they were like in person,
and the thing that I found very endearing about them
is that they were never, like, off the clock.
And so there is a thing that I guess --
So, watching this archive and knowing them,
there is this thing where the line
between Ron and Russell as brothers
and the band is just permanently blurred.
And I feel like they, you know just, like,
are sort of Sparks 24/7.
And there's something really admirable about that
because they are the exception
in terms of "don't meet your heroes."
You know, they're exactly what you want them to be.
And the fact that they're sort of so normal
makes them kind of even weirder.
[ Laughter ]
-I know exactly what you're talking about.
Hey. Congrats again.
It's so wonderful, and I do hope that we see you again
soon over here in the States. -Thank you.
I'll be back with some essential work.
-That would be very nice. We would appreciate that.
"The Sparks Brothers" in theaters tomorrow.