Guy Garvey has been inspired to change Elbow’s way of working after viewing a David Bowie exhibition.
The One Day Like This hitmaker was exhilerated by the new immersive experience in London centred around the life and music of the late Jean Genie singer, and he’s urged his bandmates to work together more in person on their next record.
However, the 52-year-old singer thinks the most effective approach will be to do so in smaller groups, rather than get all five of them together at once.
He told NME: “I recently saw the new David Bowie immersive exhibition at the Lightroom in King’s Cross. What a treat! I came out of it and phoned Elbow on our group chat. I said: ‘I love the way we work.
“But, for the past 15 years, there’s been a lot of passing files between us. I don’t think you can write ‘Life On Mars?’ at either end of the M6. You’ve got to be in the same room. Furthermore, I don’t think you can do it with five opinions in the same room.’
“I asked how they’d feel about me writing in a room on my own with Craig [Potter] for a couple of days and with Mark [Potter] for a couple of days. Because everybody loves and trusts each other, it was: ‘Go for it. We’ll bandalise it afterwards.’
“So yesterday, I was in Mark’s garden, on the wrong side of too much caffeine and a spliff, and we wrote two songs. Me and him haven’t done that since we were 16. It was magic.”
Although it has been 25 years since Elbow released their first album, Asleep in the Back, they insist it doesn’t mean their best days are behind them.
Gus argued: “If you can keep your verve and energy up, combining it with wisdom and experience, then you stand to get something completely new.
“Does Tom Waits get older and better at the same time? Yeah. Does David Byrne? Did Johnny Cash?
“Being in a band for us is not just a young man’s game. For us, it’s: ‘Are we still allowed to do this? Brilliant!’”