It’s the decidedly un-rock n roll time of nine o’clock on Monday morning and Guy Garvey and Mark Potter are in proud parent mode talking about Audio Vertigo, the tenth Elbow album which goes from the whispered vocals of ‘Lover’s Leap’ to the screaming grunge guitars of ‘Good Blood Mexico’ – and all points in between.

With apologies to The Seldom Seen Kid and Build A Rocket Boys!, it’s the Manchester band’s most complete collection of songs yet.

“It would be ungentlemanly to say who the dissenting voice was, but Mark and me had to fight for ‘Good Blood Mexico’ to be on the album,” Garvey notes with a smile. “Anyway, they lost! I was stunned by the young people in Mexico City because they’ve got fuck all and do a lot with it. They’re passionate and they’re serious and political and they’ll do anything for anybody – they’re so big-hearted. We played there with the Foo Fighters and met Taylor who was lovely to Al, our drummer. Anyway, through some sort of osmosis that track sounds like early Foos.”

Forget “More cowbell!”, the phrase every cool rock dude and dudette should be using this year is the “Give it fat wide wheels!” spoken by Guy at the start of Elbow’s funky new single, ‘Balu’.

“Thanks man, I’ll take it!” Guy resumes. “We love it on other people’s records when you hear a bit of what’s going on in the studio; the in-jokes and occasionally the in-fighting. The Beastie Boys were great at coming up with those sort of snippets. It contextualises things and we’ve got it on pretty much every record. The lads decided on ‘Give it fat wide wheels’ when I wasn’t there. At first I thought, ‘Are they taking the piss a little bit?’ Then I thought, ‘Yeah, they are but I’m alright with it!’”

Another Audio Vertigo standout is ‘Her To Earth’, one of those “prog rock without the solos” songs that Garvey readily admits are inspired by his love of all things Genesis and, more specifically, Peter Gabriel.

From covering each other’s songs to Elbow recording in his Real World studios, Garvey and Gabriel – sounds like a firm of accountants – have become good mates.

“The first time we met him, he stuck his hand out and said, ‘Hello, I’m Peter’ – you’re like, ‘I fucking know, man!’” Garvey laughs. “He’s really sweet and humble. There’s a natural shyness to him whilst also being prone to a dirty joke and a big laugh.

“I used to make an annual trip to Real World to write lyrics and, if he was about, Peter would join me for a cup of tea. One day I said to him, ‘Peter, you must miss video as art form’ because he really went for it creatively with the likes of ‘Sledgehammer’. He went,, ‘Yeah, yeah. You know, the only things people watch over and over again now are religious videos and pornography.’ I was like, ‘Peter Gabriel: Sit On My Faith!’ and he slapped his thigh laughing. I was like, ‘I made Peter Gabriel laugh!’”

I was lucky enough to have caught Peter Gabriel’s May 1993 visit to the Point Theatre when Sinéad O’Connor depped for Kate Bush on ‘Don’t Give Up’.

“Oh wow, I can only imagine,” Guy says, eyes visibly widening. “I was on the last version of ‘Feed The World’ in 2014 with about twenty others including Sinéad. I was outside having a smoke and she went to me, ‘I’d suck a sailor’s scabby old cock for a cigarette’. I said, ‘No need for that, you can just have one!’ Sinéad came up on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour yesterday. Somebody referenced that brilliant line of hers – ‘I’m not bossy, I’m the boss.’ She was so, so talented and spot on with everything she said.”

Sinead O'Connor. Credit: Kate Garner

Audio Vertigo’s most gorgeous moment comes during the closing ‘From The River’ when, referring to his six-year-old, Jack, Garvey sings, ‘Bring us home something beautiful, son.’” Fatherhood is clearly suiting him…

“He’s a constant source of inspiration,” Dad enthuses. “It’s also a nod to the children’s writer, Julia Donaldson, who has this incredible book called The Magic Paintbrush. In it, there’s a line that goes, ‘Bring us back something tasty for our dish’, which is poor parents in ancient China sending their daughter out to find food for the family. There was something really touching about sending the youngest out on such an important task. I made a little mental note of it and, yeah, I can’t wait until I’m dead and Jack really weeps over these lyrics!”

Jack’s Mum is Rachael Stirling, the Olivier award-winning actor whose own mother was the wonderful Dame Diana Rigg who sadly died in 2020.

Among numerous other roles she played Emma Peel in The Avengers, a show that was as integral to the Swinging Sixties as The Beatles and the Stones were.

“She was a great woman and so much fun,” her son-in-law recalls. “She knew precisely what she wanted, didn’t suffer fools gladly and had a poet’s soul. She and I really bonded over the last few months of her life. The first thing she did whenever we met was pull a little notepad out of her handbag, which contained the new words she’d come across. She’d give me two or three and say, ‘What do you think that means?’ Sometimes I’d get ‘em, but very rarely. I was her word buddy and we both loved Seamus Heaney – I know everybody thinks he belongs to them, but he’s actually my dad! – and Ted Hughes. If I couldn’t remember the end of a poem, she could.”

In addition to Elbow duties, Guy will be returning to your screens this year with a fifth series of From The Vaults, Sky Arts’ compendium of rock ‘n’ roll footage lost but now found.

“They – or, should I say, she because it’s the director Kerry Allison who does the detective work – keep digging up these incredible performances,” he enthuses. “One of my favourites is the early Clash gig she found, which had never been shown before because it was so violent. It’s fucking amazing! Another gem, which was on the Christmas special we did, was Bob Geldof and the Rats playing The Tube, which of course had Paula Yates as one of its presenters. He’d just written ‘Feed The World’ and, after the broadcast had finished, said, ‘Wrote this a couple of days ago and I want to try it out on you all.’ Thankfully, some of the cameras were still rolling because Bob puts his fucking heart and soul into it, he believes every word. You’ve never seen him sing the song like that before. Geldof’s a good mate of mine and every time we meet I come away feeling inspired.

“I’m not the one scrabbling around in attics and basements, but I did send a ‘Please, please, please…’ note to Kate Bush about this gig she did in the Manchester Apollo as part of The Kick Inside tour,” Garvey notes. “Granada TV filmed the whole thing but she’s never allowed it to be used. I was like, ‘Can we just have this song because it’s really great’ and incredibly the response was, ‘As it’s you, Guy…’ so you never know.”

Something that I’m sure Elbow fans would love to see on a future From The Vaults is Irshad Ashraf’s documentary account of their 2004 visit to Cuba, which did the film festival rounds but never got a commercial release. “I don’t know why that’s never come out,” Mark takes-over. “We’re still good friends with Irshad so we’ll have to ask him. It was an incredible experience, which included us being followed everywhere by the Cuban secret police who wanted to make sure we were doing what we said we’d be doing. We’ve no way of knowing for sure if it was them, but our rooms were ransacked.

“Presumably the surveillance was meant to be covert,” he adds, “but these two guys weren’t very good at it and stood out like a sore thumb in their various bad disguises.” Last year found Guy helping to curate The Endless Coloured Ways, a Nick Drake tribute album featuring such celebrity admirers as Ben Harper, Emile Sandé, Liz Phair, John Grant, Philip Selway, David Gray and some young fellas by the name of Fontaines D.C.

“We’d like to work with Guy again because he’s just the salt of the earth with the passion and the tongue of a deity,” Grian Chattan afterwards cooed to Hot Press.

“Right back at him!” Mr. Garvey says. “He’s a sweetheart and a very bright man. His lyrics – fuck me, he really is part of that great Irish writing tradition. It was a real privilege to see how Fontaines D.C. work as a band. They’d been touring hard when we got together and, at some point, they were walking past their drummer and all gave him a big hug. I’m not sure why this was but it was so caring and brotherly. You need that if you want to survive in this business because it can eat you alive if you let it.

“Like all the best bands,” he continues, “Fontaines D.C. are a gang and so intimidatingly rock ‘n’ roll. They’re so fucking cool that I felt like a bit of an old knobhead. The one good thing I did, when Grian was in the booth but not quite settled, was say to the others, ‘Fucking hell, he’s good, isn’t he? He’s amazing.’

They were like (mumbles), ‘Oh, yeah, yeah’, and I said, ‘Well, tell him!’ They did and Grian nailed it.” Another of Guy’s bezzies is Cillian Murphy who’s currently having his bookshelves extended to accommodate all those awards.

“We’ve been known to have the odd pint or four together,” Garvey deadpans. “I met him through us both being on BBC 6 Music and many, many notes of congratulations have been sent these past few weeks. He’s fucking won everything, hasn’t he? Again, what a humble real guy he is. Perhaps he’ll turn into a total dick now – and he’ll be allowed!”

The odd pint or four was also downed last week when Guy celebrated his 50th birthday back home with his mates in Manchester. Has there been any half-century taking stock? “Yeah, but unlike other people I’m not wondering what I could have done,” he reflects. “I’ve had a very, very fulfilling life. If I’d been told at thirty, ‘Sorry, you’re dying tomorrow’, I’d have been like, ‘Well, that was a bloody good do!’

“I do occasionally wonder, ‘What would have happened if Mark and I hadn’t overcome our initial dislike of each other at sixth form college or he hadn’t heard me singing comedic songs there with my mate Alan?’ There were also friends of mine who didn’t like friends of his, which made it even more problematic! “Anyway, I was walking home one day when Mark pulled over in his sky blue Volkswagen Beatle and offered me a lift. He said, ‘Do you want to join my band?’ I was like, ‘Yeah’, so we made arrangements to meet that Sunday. We went to St. Anne’s Church Hall and played the beginning of Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ a lot. The first time we stopped on a beat and it echoed round the room, I knew, ‘This is going to be fucking great!’ And it has been, all of it.”

Looking back at the now twenty-sevem years of Elbowdom, what are the “Pinch me, am I dreaming moments?” that the lads wouldn’t swap for anything?

“We’ve had a couple of Glastonbury moments, including playing the Pyramid Stage which I’m still trying to process,” Mark replies. “John Cale’s Dessert Island Discs where he chose Lou Reed, Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Leonard Cohen and us! We met him at an awards ceremony and, what can I say, he’s the Godfather of Art Rock.” “We got an email off Paul McCartney,” Guy drops in matter-of-factly. “It was like (puts on Macca voice), ‘Hiya lads, I was dropping my grandkids off at school and had to stay in the car when I got home to find out who’d written the beautiful song I was listening to. Just a note to say it was magnificent.’ How fucking nice was that?”

Very. Are there are musical ambitions that him and Elbow have yet to fulfil?

“I want to duet with Kate Bush on an Elbow record,” Guy shares. Has he put out feelers? “I just have!” he shoots back. “Kate Bush is the most exquisite, beautiful thing ever. She’s such a gorgeous soul. When you realise that the second side of Hounds Of Love is a concept piece about her being lost at sea in a lifejacket, you’re in pieces for the whole thing. ‘Picturing you without me…’ Fucking hell!”

• Audio Vertigo is out on March 22. Elbow play Trinity College, Dublin on July 1 as part of the Summer Series

Check out this interview and more in the current issue of Hot Press: