Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug Goes Meta with His "Commodification of the Song" – Exclaim!

Domestic life and his monthly Patreon releases resulted in the new album 'Same Fangs'
Photo: Simon Liem
BY Daniel SylvesterPublished May 12, 2026
After two decades spent trading ideas with Carey Mercer and Dan Bejar in Swan Lake, reinventing himself as Moonface, and helping shape the sound of the indie rock boom with Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown, Spencer Krug has turned to a familiar collaborator: himself.
Speaking with Exclaim!, the BC-via‑Quebec‑via‑BC musician reflects on his fourth solo LP — and his seventh release of the still-young decade — the self‑reflecting and quietly brilliant Same Fangs (out May 15), an album that’s as much about making a record as it is living inside one.
“I think they’re a little more meta in that songwriting itself has become a big part of my job,” Krug says about his steady output of new songs. “It always was sort of part of the bigger picture of releasing and touring albums. But now that I put one up monthly onto the internet in exchange for money, it’s a lot more black and white, like there’s this commodification of the song.”
This “commodification of the song” refers to the novel songwriting method that has shaped Krug’s last two LPs. “Both albums are made up of tracks that were cherry‑picked from my Patreon,” he says about the fan-funded subscription platform. “My process now is that, every few years, I’ll curate an album out of the last few years’ worth of songs and then re-record them.”
Much like his 2023 release I Just Drew This Knife, Krug’s latest LP is formed with his most dedicated fans there every step of the way. “There’s kind of a camaraderie on there,” he says. “I’m happy to have a back-and-forth with them, should we get into it.”

Same Fangs feels as focused and intentional as it does spontaneous and exploratory. The opening track, “Get to Live,” begins with a voice note from Krug that breaks the fourth wall and immediately spoils the plot, directing himself to “edit it even further … and make a long intro into ‘Hasn’t it Always’ … and take the outro riff and make it the beginning.”
“The way that the second song follows the first song is all encapsulated in that idea that’s captured on that voice memo,” explains Krug. “Which is why I included it, as it ties into this sort of meta songwriting.”
Playing off his signature baroque keyboard textures, Krug is joined by Victoria-based experimental folk artist Elbow Kiss on background vocals, longtime collaborator Jordan Koop on production duties, and Moscow’s Maria Grigoryeva on strings — who, Krug notes, “added her own flair and ideas into that and made it way better than I ever could” — with the songs leaning heavily into his self-referential lyrics.
“I love collaborating because I love the way that music is transformed when you add even just one other mind to it,” he adds. “It’s just such a transformative and almost magical process watching a song become something entirely new.”
“Listening to Music in Cars 2.5 (All the Tired Horses)” is a wild ride: a song about an abandoned track, “Listening to Music in Cars,” in which Krug sings about pausing to finish “Timebomb” (which is actually featured earlier on this album), which itself swings  back around to mention the writing of “Listening to Music in Cars,” which in turn recalls an old Sunset Rubdown song, “The Men Are Called Horsemen There,” which is a nod to Bob Dylan’s 1970 track “All the Tired Horses.” Yeah, it’s a whole thing.

The crystalline “Souvenirs” makes good on Krug’s voice note from the beginning, with the outro refrain of “get to live” becoming the chorus to the album’s opener. “I sort of see the songs as journal entries, because they’re happening so frequently,” Krug says. “It’s just sort of a snapshot of where I was that month, and sometimes family stuff is on the mind.”
With an album cover showing an expressionless Krug carrying his son on his shoulders, with his child gripping his father’s eye socket for balance, Same Fangs feels worlds apart from Krug’s days touring with Wolf Parade, a world he plans to revisit during the second half of this year.
After a handful of warm-up shows in his Victoria haunts, Krug and Wolf Parade return to their old Montreal stomping grounds to perform at the Osheaga festival for the first time in a decade, before heading out on a five-date Western Canada run in November, followed by a few Ontario shows in December. It will be a triumphant celebration of the band’s return to the zeitgeist thanks to a song placement in Heated Rivalry — but just don’t call it a tour.
“We’re kind of trying to move past that as a group. We’re never gonna pile back into a van together,” clarifies Krug. “It’s just hard. We’re grown men with families, and Dan (Boeckner) has a very busy career, and Arlen (Thompson) does too.”
Despite its focus on domestic life, home recording and shorter stints on the road, Same Fangs rekindles the collaborative spirit that’s long defined Krug’s most vivid and enchanting works — even if, as he puts it, “I’m talking to myself more than anyone else.”
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