While Boston indie rock fans may be hyped for Spoon’s July 21 concert at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, it’s likely that the band’s guitarist and keyboardist Alex Fischel is equally excited. That’s because the last time the rockers came to Boston, they scored a New England staple for free: chowder.
“Me and [bassist Rob Pope] went out for a drink after [a concert] and met a guy who had been at the show,” Fischel says. “We ended up hanging out with him for a while and he bought us food and drinks, which was very nice. He actually got us chowder.”
As Spoon tours the world promoting their ninth album “Hot Thoughts,” they seek moments like these. According to Fischel, the band always hits up local hangouts after concerts.
However, Fischel admits that the craziest moment of the tour so far didn’t occur at a post-concert party, but when he was sick before a show in Mexico.
“A doctor came to my room and I had no idea what he was going to do and gave me a shot in my ass,” he says. “I still I have no idea what was in that shot but it made me feel like a million bucks.”
Spoon likes to have fun, but their number one priority is always the music. Frontman and founding member Britt Daniel recently told The Guardian that he prefers to be a musician, not a rock star, and the band has been praised by critics as consistently delivering quality albums over their two-decades-plus career.
Yet while Spoon has been churning out indie hits for a while, Fischel says that “Hot Thoughts” doesn’t sound stale.
“The [biggest] departure [from Spoon’s typical sound] would probably be the amount of keyboards and lack of guitars,” Fishel says, as this is the band’s first record to not include an acoustic guitar. “It’s definitely a more experimental sound.”
He adds, “Not that Spoon ever shied away from using the studio as an the instrument or making things sound weird but this one definitely went more for that futuristic kind of aesthetic.”
Having joined the group in 2013, Fischel is one of Spoon’s newer members and is particularly proud of “First Caress,” a trippy banger he co-wrote with Daniel that is Fischel’s first song to appear on one of the band’s albums. Yet as for performing, his favorite is “I Ain’t The One,” one of the record’s slower tunes about wanting to avoid responsibilities.
“I like it because it’s a nice break in the set and you get rolling for a while, and then it chills out,” Fischel says. “You get into this moody space for a little bit, and I think it feels pretty good.”
If you go:
July 21, 8 p.m., Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, Boston, $25+, livenation.com
