Midway through production of their debut release, The Spirit of Apollo, N.A.S.A. masterminds Sam Spiegel and Ze Gonzales found themselves embroiled in a hostage crisis. “My ex-girlfriend kidnapped my record collection,” recalls Gonzales. “Thousands of records. Serious vinyl—shit you just can’t find.”

“First, we had to figure out what happened,” Spiegel adds. “Then I paid the ransom.” The case of the kidnapped record collection was only one of Gonzales and Spiegel’s many adventures during five years spent assembling the album. It all began at a party in São Paulo when Gonzales, a Brazilian hip-hop DJ and former pro skater, met Spiegel, an American known for producing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album Show Your Bones and scoring skate movies and commercials for big brother Spike Jonze. After striking up a friendship, the duo began experimenting with tracks that married hip-hop to the old soul and funk sounds of Gonzales’s native country. Before long, they were talking about recruiting other artists.

“We started having those conversations where you’re like, ‘If this is our dream project, who would we most like to get?’” Spiegel recalls. “So we started making lists.”

“And the lists kept getting longer,” Gonzales adds. “Friends of ours, rappers we love, people who are our musical idols…”

“Eventually,” Spiegel finishes, “we figured, why not make an album with everyone? Pop, rock, hip-hop, whatever—all the music we like.”

Both were longtime Wu-Tang Clan fanatics, so they started by reaching out to legendary Wu member Ol’ Dirty Bastard. “When he said yes,” Gonzales says, “that’s when I felt this shit we were doing was for real.” Soon, under cover of their aliases, DJ Zegon and Squeak E. Clean, they were crisscrossing the globe, collapsing time and space, and fielding late-night phone calls from Tom Waits. ODB’s track, “Strange Enough,” turned out to be the last thing the rapper, who died suddenly in 2004, would ever record. Yeah Yeah Yeahs front woman Karen O sings on the track, too, one of many inspired genre mash-ups on the album. Elsewhere, David Byrne gets down with Seu Jorge and Chuck D, Lykke Li teams up with Kanye West, and Kool Keith duets with Waits.

 “I think Tom may be the person I respect most for working with us,” Spiegel says, “because he made the longest journey out of his comfort zone. Everyone else was kind of like, ‘Yeah, we get this.’ But Tom took a minute. Then, once he’d made sense of the project, he got insanely enthused. We were getting phone calls from him at two in the morning. ‘Sam...’ he quotes, imitating Waits’s trademark growl, ‘I’ve got some more ideas.’”

While it may have been a creative journey for Waits and other contributors, making The Spirit of Apollo was a physical journey for Gonzales and Spiegel, who raced around the globe recording still more musicians—George Clinton, Sizzla, M.I.A., Santogold. N.A.S.A., as it turns out, stands for North America/South America—though given the title the duo chose for its album, it’s clear that they welcome confusion with the space agency. And why not? What began as a trip between hemispheres wound up as a moon shot. And even as they put the finishing touches on the album, the duo is poised for one last adventure. M.I.A., who was supposed to record a second track, has gone MIA, so they need a replacement contributor.

“It’d be kind of fresh if we could find someone French,” says Gonzales.

Spiegel appears to rack up frequent flier miles in his head. “What the hell,” he says. “I’ll book a ticket.”


THE SPIRIT OF APOLLO IS OUT NOW ON ANTI– RECORDS. BUY THE ALBUM ON ITUNES OR AMAZON. WWW.MYSPACE.COM/NASA

GROOMER TONY CHAVEZ USING SHU UEMURA ART OF HAIR (FRANK REPS)  
PHOTO ASSISTANT MISHA LEVINE
STYLIST ASSISTANT MARCUS PAGLIALONGA
LOCATION MIAU HAUS STUDIO LA
PRODUCTION CAROLINE (LOLA SUPERVISION INC)
SET DESIGN ALEXANDER MAY  RETOUCHING FRANCO R STUDIO