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22 illinoisentertainer . com april 2024 continued from page 20
GUY GARVEY : I got on a train to Manchester . I live in South London now , so all the usual suspects were there . I got on the train with Peter Jobson from I Am Kloot , who also moved to South London and married an actress . And when we got there , the band were there and all the old faces , and we ended up being big hams on Oxford Road . And I ended up trying this stuff called … beer ? It was very good ! And I got quite a lot of scotch , and I got quite a lot of T-shirts with logos on them . What else happened ? But yeah , it was one night only because my wife was in final rehearsals for a play , so I had to get back to look after the little one .
IE : Years ago , the first time I interviewed Bowie , he ’ d just turned 50 . And it seemed so intangible and far off , so I asked him how it felt . And he said that at 50 , you ask yourself two questions - how much time do I have left , and what the hell am I supposed to be doing with it anyway ? GG : That ’ s about right . But it was kinda fun , and I ’ m still having fun being 50 . So it ’ s kinda like , yes , how much time do I have left , etc , but also none of those feelings like ‘ What have I done with my time ?’ I ’ m quite pleased with what I ’ ve done with my time , although questions about how much of it I ’ m gonna REMEMBER in the future may be thrown up . But hey ! tenth album , and entering into my sixth decade was quite a nice … coming together of historical events .
IE : Looking back on your life , were there any other potential careers you might have chosen instead ? GG : Well , I suppose I accidentally became a broadcaster because I ’ m still doing that 17 years on . I ’ ve still got my program on the BBC ( Guy Garvey ’ s Finest Hour ). Except it was always TWO hours long . But now it ’ s three hours long - they gave me an extra hour last year . I prerecord it here in my studios , which are built out of the back of my house , and I make it a few days in advance . And my sister still does all my archive research and finds me interesting snippets to talk about and bits of music to play . So I make it wherever I am , but normally I ’ m in this room .
IE : Have you investigated any new fields ? I saw you did a recent TV series soundtrack for Hellraisers . GG : Oh yes ! I ’ ve done some soundtracks . Pete ( Turner , Elbow bassist ) and I got into soundtracks , so I did Hellraisers , and I did another one called Life , and I did a couple of movies , one with Sheridan Smith . And I ’ m also sort of making a gentle foray into musical theatre , so I might try to see if I can shake that genre up a bit . It ’ s too early to say officially , but let ’ s just say that I ’ m adapting a very beloved British text and seeing if I can turn it into a musical .
IE : How does one actually do that ? GG : Well , I know what I DO like about traditional musicals and what I don ’ t like about them , and so I kind of do what I normally do as a songwriter , although it ’ s a little more straightforward than writing your own songs , actually . I have a character , I have to move the drama from one place to another , and I have all the tools at my disposal that I ’ ve learned down through the years of being in Elbow . And also , with the music in . musical , the songs are just one part , one moving part , one tessellating piece , so it ’ s also about working very closely with the book writer and the director , and I guess eventually the actors , as well .
IE : Just your random use of the word ‘ tessellating ’ hints at the whole new mastery of vocabulary you wield on Audio Vertigo . Visceral descriptives like the “ girl with the Plantagenet fringe .” You can instantly visualize her oddball Henry VIII haircut . GG : Ha ! You can see that Plantagenet fringe , though , right ? You KNOW what I ’ m talking about ! There ’ s a few of those , there ’ s a few of those strange references on the record . I ’ m having a lot of fun on this album . We had a lot of fun making it , and it extended into creating characters out of various phases of my life , and there are some pretty nerdy scientific references in there , as well .
IE : And you somehow managed to work “ Long Tall Glasses ” singer Leo Sayer into a song , inexplicably . GG : Ha ! Yeah ! I knew I could trust you to pick up on that one ! I wrote , “ A cannon loosed / A golden goose ,” and then I wrote , “ Sayer of the unsaid soothes .” And then I thought , “ If I ’ m saying ‘ Sayer ,’ I ’ ve gotta say ‘ Leo ’!” So yeah - Leo Sayer makes an appearance .
IE : I also particularly enjoyed “ I ’ m the dashboard hula girl of nodding self-deception - another visceral image , and you either get it or you don ’ t . GG : And that reference comes from the first present I ever bought my wife . We were watching a video by Here We Go Magic , and I was trying to turn her onto that band . But then she saw a hula girl , and she said , “ Oh , I ’ ve always wanted one of those !” And I thought , “ Well , I can grant that wish .” And that was the first present I ever bought her . But the inspiration for the song “ Things I ’ ve Been Telling Myself For Years ” was it started with a few things that my wife really enjoys pointing out that I ’ m wrong about and have always BEEN wrong about . And then the lyric - through the slider of the song and Mark ’ s ( Potter ) blistering guitar solo - made me explore the character in the song a bit further , and I started wondering , “ What if I hadn ’ t been surrounded by my excellent friends ? What if I ’ d gotten really into amphetamines earlier in my career ? What if I ’ d basically turned into a dick ?” And then the rest of the song becomes me if I HAD . So yeah - there ’ s a lot of fun to be had there .
IE : Ah , yes – the ‘ road not taken ’ ( and full disclosure : this writer took an insane detour down the Breaking Bad path back in the halcyon of the late 1980s - my apologies to any innocent bystanders I careened into until a Midwest rehab finally taught me the life-saving mantra of You use ? You die , But I digress .) GG : Exactly . And I think , actually , the road not taken is possibly … well , it goes back to when I had a little bit of therapy , probably ten years ago now , and it was very instructive , very useful . But when the therapy ended , my therapist admitted to having been an Elbow fan early on , which was very