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Elbow.
Elbow's second album 'Cast Of Thousands' was one of last year's more deliberately understated albums. Simultaneously raw and delicate, the recording literally featured a cast of thousands: the second to last track, Grace Under Pressure, features the singing of the Glastonbury 2002 crowd. Thousands of audience member's names collected from the band's website adorn the CD's inner sleeve.
Having spent much of 2003 touring on the album, Elbow seemed to be having a quiet spell over the Christmas and New Year period, which I assumed was still the case when I spoke to keyboardist Craig Potter last month. In fact, the band had only just returned from a short trip to Cuba, a "last minute sort of thing organised through the embassy".
"It was pretty hot there, even though it was winter. You don't get any English sort of bands or any other sort of bands really, going over there very often. One of the towns that we played in had never had a band from outside of Cuba playing there before, so they were all pretty excited," says Potter. For the band, it seemed to have become a holiday after all.
"We got played on the radio, but it's very difficult, because they don't actually sell any CDs out there, because of the whole communist thing going on. It's a very strange one. The whole country is quite bizarre really. No one is in a rush to do anything," he explains. "It was great, yeah, one of the best trips we've ever had. It's weird, because we were only going out there to entertain, really. Because we're not really selling anything. But everyone was really nice."
Elbow spent a couple of weeks last year touring North America with Grandaddy, but Potter expects the band to play a more extensive tour there some time in the next year, just as soon as they can work out who to tour with.
"We're waiting for maybe a good support to come along," he shrugs. "We wanted to tour with an American band, rather then an English one. We've been over with Doves in the past, and with South as well, but you just tend to play to the same audiences; lots of Anglophiles, lots of Brits who are over there. They've heard of you already, so you're not really gaining any new fans. So we pretty much want to tour with an American band."
Potter reveals that Elbow have been asking to play with Placebo for quite some time, and with both bands being represented by the same agents, it was just a matter of time. "This is a really good support to get. We are doing some of our own shows as well, so we get the best of both worlds, really."
Reporting that the band have just "started writing again," Potter explains the plan for the next album. "We're only just sort of getting into it, really. I think we're aiming to get the album done by November this year and released INJanuary next year, which is going to be quicker than last time. That's what we're aiming for, anyway."
"In between the first and second album, we didn't really do much writing, up until we had to write for the second one. So it was quite difficult," Potter points out. "We had such a big break because we did a lot of touring. And we realised that we shouldn't have stopped writing in between, we should always keep writing. So this time, we kept writing, and so it's flowing really well and we've got loads of good stuff."
The band spent years writing the debut album 'Asleep In The Back' and Potter is unsure how the relatively short time writing and recording this time around will affect the direction of the new record. "I don't know really, we've got set ideas about how we want to record it, and what sort of vibe we want to get, but you never know what we're going to write. We want to try to get more of a live thing going on with some of the songs. We're going to start recording it ourselves, just us, because we've got some Pro Tools gear we've had for a couple of years now. I don't know, we're working in lots of different ways, so it depends what songs come out, really."
The band seems eager to see how far they can go on their own this time. "At some point we do want to work with producers, but at what stage? We're not sure. We definitely want to work with Ben [Hillier, long term co-producer] again, because he's brought quite a lot to our sound, I think," say Potter. "If it goes terribly, we might get some producers in sooner rather than later!"
Eddie Chan
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Elbow support Placebo at Thebarton Theatre on Mon 15 March, and 'Cast Of Thousands' is out through FMR.
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