For critically-acclaimed US cult band, Spoon, 2007 contained a big surprise. Spoon’s sixth album in its 14-year career debuted at No 10 on the Billboard 200. Not the indie or the alternative chart where the band are used to having strong chart positions, but the all-in, you-gotta-be-big-to-make-it-here, top 200.

Remarkably, on the barometer of critical acclaim, MetaCritic, each of Spoon’s albums has ended up with an average rating in the mid to high 80s. But still, top 10 was a shock.

“Oh yes, it was shock,” drummer and co-founder Jim Eno echoes. “We weren’t expecting it. After so many years and so many tours … There was a little bit of a buzz out there this time and our record was leaked two months before it was due out. In a way that worked out well for us because it was a good record, people got excited about getting an early copy and it certainly created some buzz about it.

“How it got out there is another thing. We were very conscious of making sure it was protected when we sent out things to the press, we did all the watermarks – but the copy that was leaked wasn’t a watermarked copy it was our final mastered version! We are still trying to work out what happened.”

Yes, the game has changed during the band’s lengthy history. Leaked records on the Net were a thing of the future when Eno and lead singer/guitarist, Britt Daniel, put the band together in Austin, Texas, in late 1993. Named after the classic song, Spoon, by legendary 1970s Krautrockers, Can, it released its debut recording the following May, The Nefarious EP. In 1995, Spoon signed with the excellent indie label, Matador, and in 1996 released it’s first album, Telephono.

In 1998, Spoon changed labels signing with the major, Elektra, but only lasted four months and the album, A Series Of Sneaks, before it was dropped. It responded by releasing a two-song single, The Agony Of Laffitte, which referred to Elektra A&R, Ron Laffitte.

It then signed with Merge Records with whom it remains to this day. It’s four Merge albums are: Girls Can Tell (2001), the critical favourite Kill The Moonlight (2002), Gimme Fiction (2005), and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.

Talk to Eno for any length of time and you get the picture that Spoon is a real musos band. After 14 years, he’d be forgiven if he said the spark waxed and waned but that isn’t the case. Eno, as one suspect Daniels does, remains as committed to Spoon music as he was when the Seattle explosion - Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney band co – ruled the headlines and Sub Pop was the biggest little label on the planet.

“I am still just as fired up and passionate now as I was then,” Eno says. “I’m still excited to play Britt’s songs. He’s writing the best songs he’s ever written. It’s just like great song after great song and I get to play drums on them.

“And, since 2001, our fan base has been gradually growing. Now with the album debuting in the top 10 we get to play to bigger crowds and I love that. So, yes, there’s a lot that keeps me just as passionate as before.”

What Spoon has shown over the duration is a remarkable consistency in the quality of its music and records. Bands tend to go up and down – across half-a-dozen records there’s usually a couple of corkers, a couple of average to better than average, one ho-hum and a stinker. Not with Spoon.

“That is very important,” Eno says. “We treat recording very seriously because that is what is going to be around forever. We treat each song as an individual – if you keep that in mind it gives you depth. It’s important to let it be the songs it’s supposed to be.

“Britt writes the songs, brings them in finished form or as a verse and a chorus, then we work out the way we want to approach each song. We try a lot of different approaches to songs and sometimes you hit on something that works. For instance, with Cherry Bomb we recorded two other ways then Britt said ‘let’s try the Motown thing’, and, of course, that was it.

“We prefer doing overdubs to recording live though because the way we work doesn’t really lend itself to recording live – when you are working out various parts and adding them it’s hard to get keeper takes that way.”

As turned out Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga only took five months to record, the majority in a couple of two-week sessions. But that, Eno says, is enough when you work under the time constraints that most bands have to consider.

“We don’t suffer from commercial pressure but there’s a definite pressure not to fall into a three-year cycle. I’d love to a record every 18 months but two years is the goal. When you start taking record company needs into account – for instance, they need it five months before it comes out – it’s like ‘man, we need to start recording tomorrow’.

“We learned early on that you can’t keep touring and touring and touring without going in to do another record. Putting another record out gives people something to write about … ”

Yes, it does.