Making An Example Of Himself

Even when I was unknown,” Elliot Gleave tells me, “people still said, ‘He hasn’t got any good songs, but he puts on a fucking good show!’” The 30-year-old hit factory laughs loudly. He can afford to. For one, he’s sitting by the pool in Mallorca, where I imagine everyone is laughing all of the time. For two, he’s right.

A couple of days beforehand, under the infinitely better known name of Example, he played to 20,000-odd punters in Marlay Park, by all accounts stealing the show right out from under the headliner’s nose.
“Loads of people tweeted me and said it was better than David Guetta,” he raves, “so I’m quite thankful for that!”
Example will be back in a matter of weeks to head the now-legendary Arthur’s Day celebrations, which have been given a sprightly makeover for 2012. Rather than playing on one of the whopper stages he’s grown accustomed to, Gleave will be crashing into someone’s local pub on September 27.
With an arena tour planned for 2013 and a new album in the works, it’s probably the smallest stage he’ll be seen on for a long time, which, for Gleave, makes it all the more exciting.
“I’ve been touring for eight years,” he says, “Most of my early gigs were in little pubs or bars… I started in really small venues so yeah, it’s going to be amazing to get back there.”
Believe it or not, Gleave found himself playing to a pub audience earlier this year during a trip to Barcelona and Madrid.
“They didn’t really know what to do,” he says of the crowd, “but by the end they were full-on dancing, hugging, moshing, drinks everywhere! I think if we can get that out of the Spanish people – and the Irish are some of the best crowds we’ve ever played to! – there’s potential for some very nice organised pandemonium!”
The last time I met Gleave, he explained through bleary eyes that scoring No. 1 singles left, right and centre wasn’t making him happy – a No. 1 album was all he’d ever wanted. A few weeks later, he got his wish: his third LP Playing In The Shadows topped the UK Charts and went on to shift at least 300,000 copies. I’m expecting him to find him still buzzing 11 months later, but unfortunately, he tells me, it doesn’t work like that.
“It was amazing,” he acknowledges, “but the thing now is to just replicate that again with this next album. There’s nowhere higher than No. 1 obviously, so whenever you get something like that, everything you do after that is looked at differently. Not by me, but by your record label or your PR or even my dad, who’s always really, really harsh on me for good measure. He’s like, ‘How’d that single with Calvin Harris do?’ I’m like, ‘Well, No. 2 in England’. And he’s like, ‘Well, that’s no good is it?’”
Does that level of pressure not wreak havoc on a young lad’s mind?
“It depends on what kind of artist you are,” he shrugs. “Some people are like, ‘No. 1? Amazing! I’ve made it!’, but then, there’s plenty of artists that have had No.1s last year and the year before that and they’re struggling now: they can’t get bookings, they can’t get radio play, they can’t write any more hits. I’d rather be happy touring the world and having the odd top five or the odd top ten than have all of my eggs in one basket.”
Another recent milestone was Gleave’s 30th birthday, which he celebrated in June of this year… or, erm, not, as the case may be.
“I don’t really celebrate anything any more,” he says. “When I get married whenever that is, I probably won’t even have a stag do, because my life is like one big long stag party. Back in the day when I used to tour with The Streets and Mike Skinner like six, seven years ago… the way we behaved on tour was like rock stars, in terms of excess. Now it’s like, I’ve got a girlfriend, I’m really happy, I’m settled, I’ll probably get married next year or the year after and when a milestone comes in my career now, or I turn 30 and everyone’s like, ‘Let’s go wild and crazy!’ I’ve been doing that for the last five years, I kind of just want to go to the cinema and maybe have a steak.”
Gleave points out that this maturity spurt was on his mind during the making of the new record.
“When you hear the new album, The Evolution Of Man,” he says, “all the lyrics on that are about growing up and saying goodbye to excess and kind of soul searching, if you know what I mean.”
The title of Example’s fourth LP also hints at a progression in his trademark sound, which is slowly veering away from the drum and bass throbs we heard on the predecessor.
“It’s rooted in dance music,” he says, “but every song has got a big guitar riff, so it’s kind of like every genre of rock in one album. There’s metal on there, there’s grunge, there’s stadium rock, it’s all guitar music, but produced electronically so The Evolution Of Man is kind of my journey through different genres of music.”
We’re expecting to be exceptionally impressed when the LP hits shelves in November, not least because Blur’s own Graham Coxon is one of the men plucking the strings.
“The whole thing’s been pretty mental, really.” Gleave sighs. “Imagine when I was 13, 14, he was on TV every week and in every magazine and I’d be reading Smash Hits or Fast Forward or whatever. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he was my idol but, I was a massive Blur fan, and then to come full circle… 15, 16 years later and he’s playing guitar on four tracks on my album? It’s just like, ‘that’s mental’!”
Ah. Finally, I’m reacquainted with Example’s ambitious streak.
“It’s a massive statement,” he continues, “considering it’s a guitar album... but also a personal dream fulfilled.”

Example plays Arthur’s Day on September 27. The Evolution Of Man is due for release in November.