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When Ron and Russell Mael relocated from Los Angeles to the UK in 1973, they hit the pop world as Sparks. Their manager John Hewlett felt them better suited for the English glam rock scene at the time, and the band soon caught the attention of musician/producer Todd Rundgren, who rallied in their favour after hearing a band demo. Impressed by what he heard, Rundgren convinced his manager, Albert Grossman, to sign the unknown band.

Daryl Easlea’s unauthorized biography, Talent Is An Asset: The Story of Sparks, is an exploration of Sparks’ extraordinary career drawing on hours of new interviews and research. The book nicely chronicles the band’s history and focuses on key moments in the timeline, such as Ron and Russell’s decision to fire the rest of the UK band members towards the end of their 1975 tour.

They reasoned that in order to break into the American market, they needed all-American musicians. The brothers were also fed up with English weather and the provincial atmosphere, despite enjoying the music scene.

It took a while to sort of get a hold of who they were and what they sounded like, but the idea that Sparks were under the car and feeding of someone who’d been in a band with Marc Bolan was kind of amazing. — Ira Robbins, Trouser Press

The book comes as close as possible to pinning down the mercurial nature of two gifted musicians who have gone out of their way to remain unpredictable and elusive, forever concealed behind a glittering gallery of jokes, impersonations, and musical eccentricities.

I caught onto Sparks during their early 80’s heyday (1981’s Whomp That Sucker and 1982’s Angst in my Pants, their commercially-driven 11th studio album). The only other song I’d heard up until then was This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us off of Kimono My House, their third release, later covered by Siouxsie and the Banshees.

One of Ron and Russell Mael’s earliest public appearances was found in a 1954 newspaper clipping, when they attended the Fiesta La Ballina festival in Culver City, a week-long celebration of the region’s early settlers. True to the nature of the festival, the Mael brothers donned Native American dress complete with face paint and weaponry, an early demonstration of showbiz aspirations.

Instead of dope and booze, Sparks soaked in film studies at UCLA. Film forms a big part of Sparks’ makeup and plays a major role in everything they’ve done, most visibly on This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, based on the clichés spouted in a Western. Their lifelong obsession with cinema resulted in dozens of attempts to collaborate with directors from Jacques Tati to Tim Burton.

Soon defined by that weird and wonderful 1974 single, This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, Sparks went on to release 22 albums over four decades, each record inhabiting a bizarre world of its own, yet the band came and went in the world of mass appeal.

“Maybe because it was such a completer world that once you had a couple of doses of it that was enough,” writer Jon Savage suggested. “And it would’ve been easier to see them as a novelty act.”

The brothers have lived on pop’s outskirts since the late Sixties, yet remain one the most essential art-pop groups of all time. They also happened to be gourmands, and planned most of their tours around restaurant recommendations from either Hungarian native food critic Egon Ronay or the Michelin Guide. According to Sparks’ early bassist Ian Hampton, “It was an understatement that we ate well.”

Don’t miss the discography at the end of the book. I was amazed to learn how many fine bands and recording artists have collaborated with Sparks, from Cheap Trick (Busted) to The Ramones (Pleasant Dreams, where Russel provided backing vocals)!

First printed in 2010, Talent Is An Asset: The Story of Sparks is published by Omnibus Press; USD $22/CAD $28.99. Sparks fans of all levels will learn a lot through this read.

Daryl Easlea is a writer, DJ and music consultant. He has written critically-acclaimed biographies on CHIC, Sparks, Michael Jackson and Peter Gabriel. His work has also appeared in Mojo, Q, Prog Magazine, The Guardian, Uncut, Dazed & Confused, The Independent, The Glasgow Herald, The Encyclopaedia of Popular Music, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and bbc.co.uk.