my local rag - typed in, cause my scanners playin up ! excuse any typos.
You don't really expect to be speaking to guy Garvey at 9 oclock in the morning. From the lyrics he write you might assume the elboe frontman would be in bed with a fuzzy head, the aftermath of a few too many ales the night before, consumed while talking into the wee hours with a handful of close friends - "shaking off a heavy one" to quote their barnstorming hit One Day Like This.
"Yes I am up rather early" he says wearily. "I have very interesting sleep patterns before an album comes out - on account of all the anxiety dreams. We all have them, the whole band. "I had one recently where my friend had posted all my lyrics online. There was a hit-count in the bottom corner of the screen and people were giving me horrendous criticism too, real damning stuff."
No in depth analysis required here, but you do have to ask why Guy garvey, one of the most celebrated romantic, poignant lyricist of our generation would be lacking in confidence when it came to his prose. "I know i'm praised for my lyrics but i'm not a natural" he says humbly. "i have to work really hard to get them to a standard i'm happy with. i feel an incredible responsibility to the rest of the band, and to the song aswell".
New album build a rocket boys, which is out on Monday contains more than its fair share of lyrical greatness. Jesus Is a Rochdale Girl is a particular stand out, detailing Garvey's first love when he was just out of his teens. "Wer'e great friends now," he says, "I danced at her wedding. the songs about how important she was to me back then. She was my saviour when i was 21, she used to steal me food from her dads restaurant."
Now, aged 36 Garvey admits to being in a very happy place. The band, too, is in rude health with a new found relaxed atmosphere running through the recording sessions of their fifth album. "We used to bereally hard on each other about everything", he explains. "If someone was 15mins for anything, we'd all play hell. If one of us hadn't done enough work, we'd all feel guilty about it. it's only recently we felt we could say, 'I don't want to see you at the studio if there's something else you need to be doing.' we got to the point where we all trust one another enough to know that the others will act in the best interest of the record if your'e not there". There's also the added security of the stature afforded them since releasing Mercury winning TSSK. "This is the first record we've made without some sort of financial spectre hanging over us - we weren't writng with a collapsing record label behind us, or a record deal, or doubts about the future. "We've made all our other albums shrouded in instability, but this time we were as safe as houses, and we made enough money on the last album taht wer'e okay for at least another couple of years, We feel like a proper band." Foe elbow fans loyal since AITB, the praise heaped upon TSSK was not undeserved, but also surprising. there was no magical change in direction or new sound that finally attravted the masses. it was the more indescribable phenomenon of timing that saw elbow click. "It was very odd hearing people say we'd arrived after our last album", ponders Garvey. "We thought we'd made it after we got our first record deal. We'd been a band for 10 years before that. But the wonderful thing about the success of the last record is that build A Rocket Boys! is going to be heard a lot. "Whether people love it or hate it, it's got a platform that we've never had before. And that's what the album was designed for, for people to hear" Garvey said.
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Subject: Evening Express 3/3/11 
Thu 03 Mar 2011, 20:06
