When the Minneapolis band Spymob called a hiatus on its activities in the mid-2000s, it coincided almost exactly with the term “yacht rock” entering the lexicon. The phrase fits the band’s music, then and now, to a T: smooth, R&B-influenced rock and pop with soulful vocals and streamlined hooks. Though Steely Dan frequently came up as a reference point, keyboardist-singer John Ostby more resembles the upbeat likes of Bobby Caldwell than the laconic Donald Fagen.

Starting life in the early ’90s as Reno, the group became Spymob by mid-decade, and then went through the major-label wringer not once, but twice. First, after signing to Epic Records in 1999, they were dropped two years later. Second, and more famously, they inked with Star Trak, an Arista-affiliated boutique imprint founded by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of the hit-making hip-hop producers the Neptunes.

The band’s relationship with those producers was not limited to a record deal. Spymob became the backing band for Williams and Hugo’s project N.E.R.D., playing on the revamped version of their debut album, In Search Of . . . in 2002, and then going on the road with them for the next two years, doing double duty as opening act and then playing the N.E.R.D. material.

But the album Spymob made on its own, Sitting Around Keeping Score, sat in limbo for two years before Arista exec L.A. Reid pulled it from the schedule at the last minute. The album was eventually released by Ruthless Records in 2004 to critical success. But by then, Spymob was burnt out on the pop wars, and went on hiatus for over 20 years. Although in 2014 they released another album, Memphis, made during the Arista period, for their own enjoyment.

Then, in 2024, a group text between the band members led to a renewal of activity, albeit from a long distance. Guitarist Brent Paschke had long before moved to Los Angeles, becoming an in-demand session player with credits including Frank Ocean and Post Malone, as well as Pharrell Williams’ global smash “Happy.” Ostby and drummer Eric Fawcett remain in Minneapolis, both working as therapists. (Bassist Christian Twigg took part in some of the sessions but has since left the group.)

On June 1, Spymob issued its first new album in 22 years, Another Night, on Bandcamp. It will reach other streaming services this September. And they’ve already finished most of another album, due in 2027. Another Night picks right up where they left off: celebratory and a little melancholy, with a synth-heavy sheen, crisp hooks, and Ostby’s voice reaching uncanny highs. As Paschke noted in a recent Zoom chat with The Current, “We’re a very organic band.”

When Spymob started playing together, did you sound the way you became known for sounding right away?

John Ostby: Yeah — we honed it, but I think so.

Eric Fawcett: I think maybe the biggest change is, when we started, it was 1993, and big rock drums [were] in. Loudness was in. I think we joined that club. But after our first album, I think we pulled that back a bit. When we released Sitting Around Keeping Score, I think rock surged again. But our most natural place is a little bit toned back, with more muted drums and tones and a cleaner approach.

What was your place in the Twin Cities music scene at the beginning?

John Ostby: We were kind of on our own trip. We were making music that was not very connected with what was mostly happening in the Twin Cities music scene, for better or worse.

Eric Fawcett: We had an affiliation with OarFin Records for a time. They released our first record, Townhouse Stereo. I remember a show with Johnny Clueless — a band that was not like us really at all. I suppose it’s always an eclectic time in the Twin Cities, but it certainly was then.

Brent Paschke: I remember it being a really nice live scene for us. Thinking back now, I feel like: “Wow, we had good places to play.”

Eric Fawcett: There was a place on Lake Street called Fernando’s — that was a serious dive.

John Ostby: I remember us playing there and being like, “Why aren’t more people coming to this gig?” There were a lot of people in the audience — and no judgment — who were homeless, on drugs, mentally ill, screaming things out during the show. It was a wild scene. I mean, they were a great audience, but I think the people who would regularly show up to [see us], that bar scared some people off.

Were a lot of major labels signing bands from the Twin Cities then?

John Ostby: It was a time when labels were just throwing money at bands a lot more — not necessarily in the Twin Cities more than anywhere else.

Eric Fawcett: There was definitely label interest here. ASCAP folks were always floating around. I remember a woman named Dawn Tobias would come up from Chicago. She was at the Columbia Records office there. When we recorded our six-song EP, Columbia offered us a development deal, but we wanted a legit deal. This is before our Epic Records signing, so we held out for that.

Brent Paschke: ’99 was the peak of CD sales, I believe.

Eric Fawcett: At that time, there had already been a meaningful shift toward bands that had an established fan base already. The classic case is the Dave Matthews Band — on their own, [they] had established a hungry CD-buying audience [by] touring incessantly along the East Coast before RCA Records picked them up. The fact that we got the deal we did, when we did, was a surprise.

How did you hook up with Star Trak, anyway?

Brent Paschke: [After] we got dropped, we were giving out a lot of demo CDs, and one of those CDs got into the hands of Pharrell [Williams] and Chad [Hugo]. Unbeknownst to us, they were listening to it and loving it, and then it came out in a meeting that we shared the same lawyer. So our lawyer got in touch with us: “Hey, you know these guys called the Neptunes, this production team? They’re really interested in you.”

Did you know their work at the time you signed with them?

Brent Paschke: Not really, because we were more rock, and they were more in the hip-hop scene. Though when they mentioned, “They did some stuff with this guy Mystikal,” we knew some of the hits.

What was the evolution of your role in the N.E.R.D. project? Were you always mooted to play on the album and tour, or did that happen more gradually?

Eric Fawcett: It was a couple months after our initial conversation. They had recorded and released N.E.R.D.’s first album, In Search Of ..., without organic instrumentation in Europe. Some conversation between the head of Virgin and N.E.R.D. led to the decision to re-record it — to add organic instrumentation before the U.S. release. Pharrell said, “We love you guys. We’d love to have you on the album.” They flew us out to Virginia Beach for two weeks, and we recorded the album.

I don’t know when or how the decision was made to tour. But the album was met with such a warm reception that there was a decision to tour, and they asked us. It was in fairly short order. We didn’t know how long it was going to be. It was always for the next few years. My co-parent and I started having babies, and it was just a crazy time, unpredictable; in 2003, we were mostly away from home on the road around the world.

You were on call, basically?

Eric Fawcett: Very much so, and Brent still is for N.E.R.D.

Did they ever talk about why they wanted live instrumentation?

Brent Paschke: I don’t think they did. I think it was just something that they heard. Chad, he can play a lot of different instruments: a very skilled pianist, a sax player, everything. That’s in them, too. Those guys love yacht rock and stuff from that era. Even though they’re known for hip-hop production, their vocabulary of music is really deep.

Eric Fawcett: And we grew up listening to lots of R&B — Stevie Wonder, the Meters. These were big influences on us, not just white rock and pop. Pharrell loved the Steely Dan elements of Spymob. And they grew up listening to all kinds of music, too. It was two worlds intersecting in a way that they found really interesting. In every show, at some point, Pharrell would say, “Do you want to break the rules?” They don’t have an allegiance to a genre, and I think that’s part of [their] trailblazing nature. They wanted a sandbox that was just theirs.

Do you think they might have hired other musicians? Or is what you specifically do what they were looking for?

Eric Fawcett: It felt very much to me like “you guys.”

Brent Paschke: I’m sure it’s a timing thing, too. They were listening to our CD a lot. I think they just really wanted live instruments — the timing was perfect, in all honesty.

Tom Lord-Alge is a pretty legendary mixer. What, if anything, did he add to the sound of Sitting Around Keeping Score that you hadn’t anticipated?

Eric Fawcett: Volume.

John Ostby: He compressed the s**t out of it, and it sounds cool like that. That’s what he’s known for. It’s squashed, super-powerful. Now, we probably would do it differently. But it was of that time.

Brent Paschke: Yeah, it’s really aggressive for a Spymob record, but I love it.

Eric Fawcett: Tom is such a big-hearted character. He would have his sports car parked out in front. At the time, he was mixing record after record after record, and he had his system down, but he seemed really to care. From time to time, we’ll get reports that, even to this day, Tom still listens to the record. We love the record, but left to our own devices, we are about more dynamic range these days.

What was it like to be signed to Ruthless, the label founded by and for N.W.A?

John Ostby: It was very straightforward. Tomica [Wright of Ruthless] was great, and they were true to their word. They liked it, and they released it. There wasn’t a whole lot of shenanigans.

Eric Fawcett: I think she saw us perform at South by Southwest, and we had a good meeting, and then we did the deal. It was remarkably easy. Under Arista, it was a forever waiting game.

You guys were on the major-label hamster wheel when everything was shifting from CDs being the profit center to MP3s becoming primary. Did that play any role in your calling an end to the band over 20 years ago?

Brent Paschke: I wouldn’t say so. We went such a long time on the road; like Eric said, we started to have families. When we weren’t touring with N.E.R.D., it felt like a good time. We didn’t really break up — it just ran its course a little bit.

Eric Fawcett: We suspended our campaign.

John Ostby: Whether you’re doing music in the ’90s or the ’40s or the ’70s or now, it’s a total s**t-show trying to sustain it. It’s always been that way. Even though the conditions have always been different, it’s this many people living in a house with this much food, so everybody is just grinding and desperate. And many people like us get to a point where it’s like: “OK, enough.” Not because making music isn’t great, but the whole business of music is so feast-or-famine.

Is Another Night the first 10 songs you’ve done since reuniting, or the 10 songs that worked together?

Eric Fawcett: Once John started writing, it was an onslaught of songs. We’re actually about three-quarters of the way done with the next album, and some of those songs were part of it — they all were part of the flood of songs that were coming from John — so at some point, we just sorted them into two albums. They’re definitely different albums, but they’re related in time.

John Ostby: I was involved in other creative things outside of music, but not writing songs. But I don’t know what happened there. When we got back together, a flame got lit, and I just started writing like crazy.

Eric Fawcett: I think what John is trying to say is that Brent and I are beautiful muses for him. [laughs] Once we expressed interest in working with John again, his fire was lit.

John Ostby: Well, for me, there’s nothing that spurs songwriting [more] than being involved with other musicians [where] you really like what they do. So that’s actually true. I didn’t expect to ever get back into music on a real serious level. Back in 2010, I went back to school and became a therapist in the mental health field. I got — and still am — very into it. It took the place of music in terms of creative work.

Eric Fawcett: I’m a therapist, as well, and I work with a lot of artists. I think there’s a sense, as creators, that we can have an era of being creative, and it’s usually in our 20s or 30s, and then we have kids. There can be this sense: “I had to put that away.” And I think for us, once we had this window of opportunity, that we had enough space and resources and support to just make music and release it. Once we could do that, we jumped at the chance.

For me personally, it was an opportunity to practice what I preach with my clients. I say [to them]: “If that love is still there, find a way. That’s a part of you.”

Did you both become therapists around the same time? Were you even aware that the other was doing that?

Eric Fawcett: Oh, yeah. We’ve stayed in close touch over the years; we’ve all remained good friends. John beat me [to becoming a therapist] by a decade, but John and I were roommates in college, and then bandmates for lots of years. Not only did we have to work through our own relational challenges in the band, as every band does, but we also talked a lot about psychology and how collaboration works and what mental health looks like.

We’ve all been through our own ups and downs. I think for John and I separately, this was a path that made sense. I’m super grateful for it. There are days John and I will be on one call together with Brent, for Spymob stuff, and then we’ll break. Then a question will come to my mind about a client, and I’ll consult with John about therapy stuff. It’s really fun.