Your arts from your elbow

Having long been favourites with critics and peers, Mancunian rockers Elbow recently enjoyed their biggest commercial success to date when their fourth album, the excellent The Seldom Seen Kid, entered the UK Top Five. It must feel like just reward for the many years of hard work the group have put in.

“I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t important,” remarks Elbow’s affable and engaging frontman, Guy Garvey, talking to Hot Press in Vicar St. on the day of the group’s recent superb show at the venue. “It’s nice, you can chart our progress quite easily; it’s gone up very slowly and steadily over the past ten years. There are bands who’ve gone on to great success and completely outsold us during that time, but they’ve disappeared again. So we can’t be that negative about the way things have gone, we’re really happy with it.”
There’s a notable guest performance on the album by Sheffield singer-songwriter Richard Hawley, who accompanied Guy and former Pixies frontman Frank Black on a visit to Nashville a few years ago, which saw all three singers play a selection of their own songs with local musicians. How did the trip go?
“I made a friend of both Richard and Frank,” replies Guy. “It was amazing. I can’t believe they paid me for it! Coming back from the Nashville experience, playing Battleships with Richard on the plane, we decided to do a duet. We already had the music, we had a polka, and he came and put some great guitars on it, and some wicked lapsteel. Then I had a couple of months to write a duet, although I’ve not heard many good duets. I’ve certainly never heard a good sincere duet.
“I think ‘Fairytale Of New York’ is probably my favourite, although even that descends into insult, it’s not entirely serious. So we decided it should be an Abbot and Costello, Cole Porter kind of number. ‘We’re a couple of swells,’ that kind of thing. Rich was well up for it. We recorded the vocals in the old school way, stood opposite each other. Not writing something personal was a nice change as well.”
Guy is equally as enthusiastic about Frank Black.
“He’s one of my all-time fuckin’ heroes. Musically, he’s beyond important to me, and he was such a gentleman. Really funny. When you’re talking to him, you can still tell he’s got that visceral, angry soul. He has to check himself. You can see him seething, very, very subtly. He’s an amazing, intense person. But very charming.”
Recent times have also found Guy working with Massive Attack on material for their new album.
“We’re tentatively co-writing,” he explains. “They were fans of the band and got in touch. They knew our stuff through our involvement with the Warchild record. Then Rob found out that we’d done a cover of ‘Teardrop’ a few years ago. So he said, ‘If you fancy ever coming to do some work, let us know.’ We only actually got it together after a good year-and-a-half, cos the Massive Attack boys are quite busy. But he’s a lovely bloke, I had real fun with him. I’d just go down to Bristol for a weekend, and it was top. We’ve done a bunch of stuff in the hope that we’ll get one or two gems.”
At one point during our conversation, Guy turns the tables and asks if I keep all of my interviews. I say I keep the ones I can’t bring myself to tape over.
“I’ve kept some stuff that’s not so much to do with famous folk, it’s just related to important days,” he proffers. “I’ve got a lollystick sculpture that I made, sat at the side of the stage, watching PJ Harvey play at a festival in Portugal. I interviewed her for my radio show on BBC 6, and she remembers that gig as being one of the best of her life. She was so moved by how many poor Portuguese people had spent the equivalent of three months wages to come to the festival. It was a kind of unique event in Portugal, because the style of music doesn’t get that much of an airing out there.
“It was a really odd line-up; Polly Harvey, Stereophonics, Goldfrapp and us. But PJ Harvey gave a stunning performance. I guess one of the roadies must have liked lollies, cos there was this big pile of lollysticks next to me, so without thinking, while I was watching and listening I turned it into this thing. It’s not a very good sculpture, but I kept it!”
Elbow have a remarkable number of fans amongst rock’s A-list, including REM, Blur and Coldplay. Has Guy met those groups?
“Well, we’ve toured with Blur, Chris Martin’s a friend of mine and we’re supporting REM this summer.”
Along with U2, Blur were the first band I really loved.
“We supported them on the European leg of the Think Tank tour. We made a friend of Damon, he’s a lovely bloke. I think he’s music’s Quentin Tarantino, in the sense of reviving people’s careers. It’s just responsible social songwriting – he gives a shit about stuff. He writes fuckin’ great tunes and he’s got a fantastic voice. He’s brilliant.”

The Seldom Seen Kid is out now on Polydor