Q&A: Guy Garvey of Elbow
Ed Power has the questions. Elbow's Guy Garvey has the answers...
Elbow
- There are numerous references to death and divorce on your new album, The Seldom Seen Kid. Have you been through tough times?
The album is about personal experiences. There have been good and bad things happening. Both the Potter brothers [guitarist Mark and keyboard player Craig] have had babies again. At the same time, we lost a friend of ours. Bryan Glancy, a singer-songwriter, died a couple of years ago. There's nothing that makes you appreciate your mates more than losing one.
- The standard line on Elbow is that you're an "anthemic" band, in the tradition of Coldplay and Travis. Do the comparisons annoy you?
I think one of our jobs is to tackle the slightly bigger questions that a lot of contemporary music doesn't. We're an album band. I guess this record is about what's happened to Elbow as we move into our thirties. Fatherhood and the loss of a friend both make you reconsider your mortality and re-evaluate your priorities. When I wrote [2001's] Asleep In The Back, I couldn't see past getting out of Bury and getting off my head.
- One of the best songs on the record, The Fix, is a duet with [Sheffield bluesman] Richard Hawley. How did you hook up?
Me and Hawley went over to Tennessee to do a sponsored gig for a whiskey company that doesn't need any more publicity. Frank Black did it as well -- the three of us got on like a house on fire. Travelling back together, Rich and I were on the same flight. We share a love of old songs. We also share a love of battleships. We were on a long-haul flight shouting F3! or C5! across the aisle and doing quite politically incorrect impressions of German sailors drowning: "Acthung, you English pig dog!" So we decided to work together.
- You've described The Seldom Seen Kid as the most important album of your career. Do you need to take things to a higher level sales-wise?
It's not like we're just solely about the art. There are little Elbows to feed. We had the luxury at 17 of saying "f**k the man" -- these days it's more like "the baby needs new shoes". But you can only compromise so much or you should be in a different area of work. You can only compromise to a degree -- like taking a big sponsorship off whiskey companies. (laughs)
- You must have been honoured when [former Velvet Underground guitarist] John Cale chose your song Switching Off as one of his Desert Island Discs?
It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I remember watching a television programme called the Seven Ages Of Rock. One episode was called the Art Rockers -- it started with the Velvet Underground and moved through to David Bowie and early Roxy Music. We were watching it and thought "that's our heritage, this is where we come from". And John is a guy who very much has his finger on the pulse. I met Tony Christie and asked him what kind of music he liked. He was like: [adopts fogey-ish accent] "I like the old guys". John's a bit more open-minded.
- Elbow is one of the few Western bands to have toured Cuba. Your impressions?
It's not what it's projected to be. It is very much a secret police culture, much like the Soviet Union used to be. It's terrifying -- the propaganda used to be that every third Cuban national is a government informer. Locals are discouraged from mixing with tourists. We met three hip-hop guys who we really got on with. They had a little too much to say for themselves politically and were picked up in front of us and carted away. Don't give that place your money.
- As a self-proclaimed "album" band, do you fear download culture threatens the survival of the LP as we know it today?
Yes, it worries me greatly that downloading single songs is killing off the album as an art form. I don't know if you're aware of this but, with the biggest download sites, the ones you really need to get your music out there, the artist doesn't have a choice as to how you bundle the songs. You don't have the option of bundling your whole album. Which is what I understand led Radiohead to release In Rainbows elsewhere -- so that the whole album wouldn't be available as individual tracks.
- Care to comment on rumours that Shrek and Shrek II are the most popular DVDs on the Elbow tour bus?
Yes, that's right. It's down to the fact that the lads have kids. I also enjoy an old war movie. Something with John Mills in it, like We Dive At Dawn. There isn't a man alive who can watch Noel Coward in In Which We Serve without cracking up with emotion. n
- Ed Power
