Elbow – The Making Of “Build A Rocket Boys”
Elbow were founded by Guy Garvey and Mark potter in 1990, so they’ve been around now for only 20 years but its only recently that they have come to receive the recognition they deserve. Originally called Mr Soft, the group released their first album in 2001, entitled Asleep In The Back.
Their big breakthrough came in 2008 with the release of “The Seldom Seen Kid”, this album has sold over one million copies since its release.
Their influences are stated to be Genesis, Talk Talk and Radiohead. Guy Garvey has said: “I grew up listening to every Genesis record. I learned to write harmonies by listening to Peter Gabriel.” He has also claimed: “There would be no Elbow without Radiohead.” He credits the band’s sense of dynamics to the influence of Talk Talk and has said: “Volume dynamics are an essential part of classical music, but a lost art with guitar music. I think it’s incredibly boring and short sighted if a band sticks with just one sound song for song. An album should take people on a journey”
In respect of the new album guy Garvey stated “I’ve never been at this stage of making an album before and still had any faith left in it” Given the bands recent track record, who would bet against this being their next monster hit. Work on the fifth album, “Build A Rocket Boys” as almost complete now and Guy Garvey’s enthusiasm for it is infectious. This has been the quickest they’ve managed to put an album together, this has only taken eighteen months compared to the more usual two and a half years.
Talking about the new album Guy explained that the title came from a lyric in the opening track, “Lippy Kids”. Apparently the song came about as a result of Guy moving back to his old neighbourhood and all the resultant memories it brought about. A lot of the album is about his memories as a child in the north of England.
It is the first album released by Elbow since “The Seldom Seem Kid” in 2008, an album that picked up the 2008 Mercury prize. Although this may have turned some bands into a more commercial outfit, Guy is adamant that this wasn’t the case for Elbow: ” No, we very consciously didn’t think about it. The temptation is to try and write to hits and just continue your success that way. But we also didn’t want to go in the opposite direction and make something churlishly inaccessible for the sake of appearances. So we tried to do what we’ve always done and write as much as possible from the heart.”
Elbow – The Making Of “Build A Rocket Boys”
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