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Back With Another Great Joint
04/04/2004 6:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Ben Gilbert - LAUNCH U.K. & Ireland
Now rightly considered among the U.K.'s foremost rock tunesmiths with experimental teeth, Elbow have been turning heads at LAUNCH towers for some four years. They even came into our Santa Monica studios for a memorable live, semi-acoustic performance in 2001, just as their debut, Asleep In The Back, was being released. Having again floored critics this year with their acclaimed second album, Cast Of Thousands, the band are now long overdue for a new LAUNCH spotlight.
LAUNCH's own Ben Gilbert recently caught up with Elbow frontman Guy Garvey right before the band's sell-out show at London's Brixton Academy, where they discussed the group's new music, new video, and worldwide tour itinerary (which included a stop in Cuba, of all places). Here's how their conversation went:
LAUNCH: How does your new material fit with the rest of Elbow's back-catalog?
GUY: It certainly provides a great core for a live set, the mixture of the two records. A lot of the ideas which we started on Asleep In The Back are realized on Cast Of Thousands. You know, there's a direct correlation between [the Asleep In The Back track] "Any Day Now" and [new song] "Ribcage," I think.
LAUNCH: How are things shaping up for the new album?
GUY: We've been writing in the dressing room, and we've got about 16 or 17 ideas which are really strong and quite bold, so we'll work on those and get Ben [Hillier, Elbow's producer] in and hope to have it out by the spring next year.
LAUNCH: Is it as inventive as your other material?
GUY: I dunno about you, but I'm sick to death of hearing five or six bands that all sound the same. We consider it a musician's job to be inventive. Inventions was originally the name of the last album, and it's something you have to strive for.
LAUNCH: The new single, "Not A Job," is a different version. Did the record company want you to make it more commercial?
GUY: I'm not a fan of the new version of the single, to be honest. We agreed to rework it, on the request of the record company. Yeah, it was to give it a more commercial appeal, but it's not like we had our arm twisted. We're a band, and we have to make money. I think everyone's realized that now we're not a top 10 band, and we simply just want to make enough money to make the next record. We've always tried to succeed without compromising, but sometimes you have to make some sacrifices. It's not like there's some sweaty businessman sitting there in a big chair ordering us around. Most of the time we do what we like.
LAUNCH: Does having commercial appeal bother you?
GUY: No, personally it doesn't bother me.
LAUNCH: Who came up with the idea for the "Not A Job" video, taking place in a cemetery?
GUY: We struggle with videos, to be honest. It's not our strong point. "Not A Job" is basically about a couple of Laurel & Hardy-type funeral directors who mess everything up and they take this coffin and find there's no body in it. It's pretty funny. We basically try to put together promos that are inventive and don't look cheap. We've pushed ourselves before to do things and they haven't worked, so I think in future we're just going to try and work with young people who are full of ideas.
LAUNCH: You've just been out to Cuba. How was that?
GUY: We were out there for a week. We were invited out there and we played a few shows to the kids and they really seemed to enjoy it. You have to remember it's a Third World country and it's a police state, but there's education for all and it's a beautiful place. There's a lot of holiday areas for Westerners, where Cubans aren't allowed in, which I didn't feel too comfortable with. The political side of things wasn't that obvious too us.
LAUNCH: I presume you didn't meet Fidel Castro, like the Manic Street Preachers did when they played there in 2001?
GUY: We were going to see if we could get an appointment with him, but we hadn't really made up our minds what we made of him or the politics.
LAUNCH: You're off to Australia shortly. Do you enjoy all the traveling?
GUY: It's the perfect job for me. I love traveling. We all think we're very lucky!
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