Interviewing musician Jon Spencer of the Blues Explosion is nothing like you would think it was, if the only thing you knew about him was his music. He doesn't scream and shout the entire interview, exclaiming that the "Blues is number 1!" between breaths like he does on his hit song from the late '90s "Talkin' About the Blues." Nope, in the most basic terms, he's just a guy with a lot of stuff to do.

Though I asked if he liked doing inteviews during the one we had a few months back, I was pretty sure I already knew the answer - a resounding no. For days before our talk I had been watching all the videos of him being interviewed I could find on YouTube. Take the interviews MTV personality Matt Pinfeld did with the Blues Explosion back in the late '90s -- in each one Matt Pinfield doesn't receive one answer to his many questions, and is instead forced to stand back and watch the band jump around and yell a lot. Another great example is an interview taped in France back in 2011 that shows Spencer, hunched over a microphone with bed head hair and a look of disdain in his eyes, answering each question from the off-camera interviewer with varying amounts of patience or lack thereof.

The day I called, my interview was one of many he had scheduled before he took off for Europe, where the band started touring for its new album, Meat and Bone on Mom & Pop Records. The band plays the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, Nov. 10.

KTVU: I've noticed that the press releases for your new album cite the fact that it was recorded on the same Flickinger mixing board that Sly and the Family Stone used for the album There's A Riot Going On. Was the board's past important to you?

Spencer: Well, it's definitely important to the owners of the Key Club, the studio where we tracked the album. And I think it was part of the reason we went there. We're fans of music and fans of records; we're real total geek fans. And part of what we get into is figuring out how that artist/band made that [one] recordimg. Why does There's A Riot Going On sound the way it does? Why does Never Mind the Bollocks sound the way it does? What was Sam Phillips doing at Sun? What kind of tape machine did Sam Phillips use to get the echo? What kind of rhythm machine did use on There's a Riot Going On? It comes from listening to records but also reading about these recordings, and these artists and producers.

We've always enjoyed, when we could afford it, we've enjoyed indulging ourselves and working in beautiful studios that have cool, old equipment. We definitely prefer to work in that traditional, old-fashioned analog kind of way, but we're not against using modern technology. I think Meat & Bone is a good example of that. We tracked it in Benton Harbor, MI, at the Key Club, using all sorts of beautiful old equipment, including this one-of-a-kind Flickinger console that was built to order for Sly Stone. But some of the songs at some point were transferred to a hard drive and were mixed using Pro Tools.

KTVU: Are you feeling more confident in your production skills?

Spencer: No, I was probably more confident back in the '90s! [laughing] I was a lot more cocky back then. I had done Orange. I had done the Boss Hog album for Geffen... I shared credit with other people -- Jim Waters helped with Orange, the Boss Hog record was done with Steve Fisk and Christina [Martinez, his wife and singer of Boss Hog.] It's not like I'm working in a vacuum and it's not like I ever lacked confidence... You got to understand that when it's my own thing, it's clear in my head. I know what I want. 

KTVU: What about when you've produced other bands?

Spencer: With that I'm still learning. I have done a few albums in recent years and it's something I enjoy a great deal. It's nice to be able to work with some of these bands, and it's especially nice that they'll let me loose and kind of manipulate what they're doing in their songs and their sound. In some ways it can be a little easier; for instance, it's not me singing the song, it's somebody else, so it's less personal for me. I have less at stake. And in some ways it can be a little more fraught, or more delicate, because I don't want to screw up this other person's record. I'm doing a job that I've been hired for. If you hire me to come paint your house, I don't want to do a shitty job painting your house.

KTVU: Is it true that pretty much of all the Blues Explosion's songs are written by "jamming it out?'

Spencer: It is a collaboration; we do write the material together. Pretty much everything is written by the three of us playing. "Jamming" makes it sound... I don't think it's a very good word to use but it will have to do. It makes us sound like we're going to write songs that sound like Phish.

KTVU: You could think of it as you're using MC5's definition.

Spencer: Okay, that'll do. But that is how we write. There have been exceptions over the years -- songs that have been stitched together through different means or in the studio, things that have been built upon improvisation in the studio. But the songs on Meat & Bone were written in advance of the recording.

KTVU: With the release of Meat & Bone, there was a bonus pack available for pre-order that included a bunch of extra items including a guitar pedal called the "Blues Exploder." What was the background to that coming together?

Spencer: Well, Mom & Pop, our label in North America, did something kind of similar for another one of their artists, Neon Indian, and the label suggested that the Blues Explosion could do something with the company behind the Neon Indian pedal, Bleep Labs. So I got on the phone with the guy from Bleep Labs and with came up with a plan for the Blues Exploder. Hopefully it's all going to work.

KTVU: What did you want the pedal to be able to do?

Spencer: I wanted to cover the main aspects of the band in this little box. I wanted it so that you could use it as a guitar pedal, so that you could play your guitar or another instrument through it. I wanted it so that you could use it as a Theremin, and you could use it to play beats and little riffs from some of the old, classic Blues Explosion songs. I think that in some way that represents, or sums up the Blues Explosion.

KTVU: I've been watching a lot of your interviews online and it made me wonder: if you could just play music and not have to do interviews, would you prefer to do that?

Spencer: Yeah, I probably would. [Laughing] No offense, but I didn't start Blues Explosion because I wanted to talk about it. I started the band because I wanted to make these crazy songs and play crazy shows. I wanted to do it, I didn't want to talk about it or try to explain it. It's the same thing with the record business -- I didn't start the band because I was interested in starting a career in the business. I started it because I love crazy music. I love rock and roll, and I really enjoy making wild sounds with Judah [Bauer] and Russell [Simins.]

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion plays the Great American Music Hall on Saturday, Nov. 10, at 8:30 p.m. $21-$23