Dirty Talk
It's a happy coincidence that this week, CityBeat music editor Peter Holslin and I both get to interview and write about our favorite bands. For Peter, it was the pygmy-influenced indie rock of Gang Gang Dance. For me, it's a humble band from gloomy Manchester, Elbow.
No, I wasn't. I was actually on holiday, but yeah, we really kept on top on the news to find out what was going on because it was quite frightening. I mean, it's very frightening. I think if you speak to any Mancunians, they just think it was just a really sad period. It seemed to be just people taking advantage of the situation and getting things for free. Do you know what I mean? There was no political motive, or anything to it, the shooting of that guy. It all spiraled out of control. I just think it's very sad. I think it was that the initial upset was then hijacked by people that just wanted things for free. It was pretty ugly, really.
It seems like, coming out of it, there's been a lot of national and local pride. I saw somebody launched an "I Heart MCR" campaign.
Well, that's it. Things like that, if there's a silver lining. I mean it's just absolutely terrible. It's horrible to watch it and being away, it was absolutely awful. A lot of people got together as well to sort of clean up the streets, which was a really nice thing. It's just one of those horrible things that just got out of hand.
I listened to the whole album again this morning, Build a Rocket Boys, this time paying very close attention to the bass. If I had to take a guess—and tell me if I'm completely wrong—I would say "Neat Little Rows" or "High Ideals" was probably the most fun song for you. Am I far off?
"High Ideals" came together in a little farmhouse in Cheshire that the Doves use, where they've written in the past. We went there for a week and that was a song that just came out of a jam. It was just me and Guy just kind of going back and forth with a groove. That song actually was the most difficult to piece together. It was one of the first things that we started and it was probably the last thing to be finished. We kind of struggled with it. Guy was finding it difficult to come up with the chorus-y section, because it's so big and bold and everything wasn't working. It was again, a "Grounds for Divorce" thing, where it's like maybe you just don't need a vocal line there, the riff speaks for itself. That was a loads of fun, actually, I love that one.
We don't actually play "High Ideals" live. I think we'll probably get that into the next stage of touring in the new year, when people have had time to get their heads around the album.
"Neat Little Rows" actually makes a lot more sense when we play it live, because you really get a stomp going. We kind of extend it and get it really grooving before Guy and Craig come in. That one's certainly a lot of fun to play live. We were looking at a little bit, more of a glam stomp that met an Echo and the Bunnymen-type chorus. Sort of like an early-'80s alternative. "Neat" is a lot of fun to play.
Take me through the process of how you take an album and transform it into a stage performance.
We tend to do new versions of those songs. I don't think they're ever absolutely the same as the way it sounds on the album. That would kind of be a little bit boring. There's some times, like "Lippy Kids," that we can do a version that's pretty much exactly the same, but then, there are songs you can't, because we don't have all the sounds you have on the albums. This album and, actually, Seldom Seen Kid—it was very easy to take from that body of work and make them work live. I remember with Cast of Thousands and Leaders of the Free World, we kind of found that quite difficult, really. It's basically just doing a version of that song, getting the most important things in. You can kind of get those little sounds on backing tracks and stuff, but we try just to do as much as we possibly can so we're not relying on backing tracks.
If you Google you, the thing that comes up most is a story about you knocking a dude's tooth out recently. What happened with that? All I've ever read is Guy's version of it.
Well, Guy absolutely loved reminding me of it the day after. Basically, we were doing a big interview for a magazine called Q. So we had quite a few drinks there in the afternoon, then our friend's band called The Villagers were playing in town, some chaps from Dublin, and so we went for some food with them and we just basically got very, very, very, very drunk. I don't remember it. But Jeremy from a band called Everything Everything, a really good friend of ours, was walking into the club as I was walking out for a cigarette. We both went to give each other a hug, you know, and I kind of just sort of lunged at him to give him a hug and knocked his tooth out. He was really kind about it. I phoned him up as soon as I found out the next morning, and he was actually just coming out of the dentist. I was just so apologetic. I've never knocked anyone's tooth out. I've never punched anyone in my life, do you know what I mean? I'm really worried that people are going to think I was bit of a nobhead, going around and hitting people.
Speaking of drinking: San Diego has kind of become America's craft beer capital, and so I can't let you go without asking about the Build a Rocket Boy beer coming out. In fact, that might be the thing that people here are most interested in once I write this up. What is it? How did you guys come to release a beer?
It's very strange, believe me. I didn't think that this was going to happen. We were approached by a brewery in Stockport, Robinsons, and I think it's been around for a couple of hundred years or something. It's a Northern company, a local company. It's like a family business and they just approached us about whether we would want to go down, test a load of beers and come up with one that we really like. We thought that it would be something like a cask ale in Robinsons pubs around Cheshire and Stockport area, but then they decided to do it in bottles, then the supermarkets all got in and said, "Yeah, we'd like to stock it." So, it went a bit mad really, but we just thought it would be really fun. The beer tasting day was great.
Did you guys disagree on what beer tasted the best?
It's like everything with us, it's that democracy thing that we do. Sometimes it can be a real pain in the ass. With our music, we do a lot of talking and while we were tasting beers we just talked about and kind of figured out what we wanted. We'd wanted a stronger one because we were going to call it "Rocket Fuel," but we were then told that, "People want to drink bitter. It's the beer you drink in the sunny afternoon and then onto evening. It needs to be around 4 percent."
What would you compare it to?
It's a really nice bitter. It's refreshing, it's quite light in color. It's got me drinking a lot more bitter than I used to. I always like my Guinness and a good lager, but I do enjoy bitter these days. It will be fun the first time and I go and order a pint, because I know that one of my locals is stocking it.
Elbow plays the Greek Theater in Los Angeles this Saturday, and I'm going. If I let myself, I'd gush like Cameron Crowe about this band, which has been one of the few constants in my life since 2003, when I moved to Manchester for grad school. But I'll stop right there.
The band, led by singer and poet Guy Garvey, is, for lack of a better word, chill. It's slow music to listen to while hiding in bed from the rain, or standing out in it. It's introspective music for finding solace alone; it's romantic music for tender moments; it works in arenas and pubs. If we're making comparisons, Elbow is like Radiohead without the experimentation, Coldplay without the stardom. The band's timeless; it could've done well in any year since the late '70s.
With its latest album, Build a Rocket Boys, Elbow turns from heartache to nostalgia, while still issuing a release that's consistent in tone and quality of the four previous. And for this latest album, the band is also introducing a new ale in its name in about two weeks.
Yeah, ale.
I had the opportunity to interview Elbow bassist Pete Turner about a variety of subjects, from the England riots to knocking a guy's tooth out. And as for the ale, it turns out crafting an album isn't all that different from crafting a beer.
Elbow, with bassist Pete Turner on the left
Source: www.facebook.com/Elbow
You're the first Mancunian I've actually talked to on the phone since the riots happened. Were you in England at the time?
No, I wasn't. I was actually on holiday, but yeah, we really kept on top on the news to find out what was going on because it was quite frightening. I mean, it's very frightening. I think if you speak to any Mancunians, they just think it was just a really sad period. It seemed to be just people taking advantage of the situation and getting things for free. Do you know what I mean? There was no political motive, or anything to it, the shooting of that guy. It all spiraled out of control. I just think it's very sad. I think it was that the initial upset was then hijacked by people that just wanted things for free. It was pretty ugly, really.
It seems like, coming out of it, there's been a lot of national and local pride. I saw somebody launched an "I Heart MCR" campaign.
Well, that's it. Things like that, if there's a silver lining. I mean it's just absolutely terrible. It's horrible to watch it and being away, it was absolutely awful. A lot of people got together as well to sort of clean up the streets, which was a really nice thing. It's just one of those horrible things that just got out of hand.
I listened to the whole album again this morning, Build a Rocket Boys, this time paying very close attention to the bass. If I had to take a guess—and tell me if I'm completely wrong—I would say "Neat Little Rows" or "High Ideals" was probably the most fun song for you. Am I far off?
"High Ideals" came together in a little farmhouse in Cheshire that the Doves use, where they've written in the past. We went there for a week and that was a song that just came out of a jam. It was just me and Guy just kind of going back and forth with a groove. That song actually was the most difficult to piece together. It was one of the first things that we started and it was probably the last thing to be finished. We kind of struggled with it. Guy was finding it difficult to come up with the chorus-y section, because it's so big and bold and everything wasn't working. It was again, a "Grounds for Divorce" thing, where it's like maybe you just don't need a vocal line there, the riff speaks for itself. That was a loads of fun, actually, I love that one.
We don't actually play "High Ideals" live. I think we'll probably get that into the next stage of touring in the new year, when people have had time to get their heads around the album.
"Neat Little Rows" actually makes a lot more sense when we play it live, because you really get a stomp going. We kind of extend it and get it really grooving before Guy and Craig come in. That one's certainly a lot of fun to play live. We were looking at a little bit, more of a glam stomp that met an Echo and the Bunnymen-type chorus. Sort of like an early-'80s alternative. "Neat" is a lot of fun to play.
Take me through the process of how you take an album and transform it into a stage performance.
We tend to do new versions of those songs. I don't think they're ever absolutely the same as the way it sounds on the album. That would kind of be a little bit boring. There's some times, like "Lippy Kids," that we can do a version that's pretty much exactly the same, but then, there are songs you can't, because we don't have all the sounds you have on the albums. This album and, actually, Seldom Seen Kid—it was very easy to take from that body of work and make them work live. I remember with Cast of Thousands and Leaders of the Free World, we kind of found that quite difficult, really. It's basically just doing a version of that song, getting the most important things in. You can kind of get those little sounds on backing tracks and stuff, but we try just to do as much as we possibly can so we're not relying on backing tracks.
If you Google you, the thing that comes up most is a story about you knocking a dude's tooth out recently. What happened with that? All I've ever read is Guy's version of it.
Well, Guy absolutely loved reminding me of it the day after. Basically, we were doing a big interview for a magazine called Q. So we had quite a few drinks there in the afternoon, then our friend's band called The Villagers were playing in town, some chaps from Dublin, and so we went for some food with them and we just basically got very, very, very, very drunk. I don't remember it. But Jeremy from a band called Everything Everything, a really good friend of ours, was walking into the club as I was walking out for a cigarette. We both went to give each other a hug, you know, and I kind of just sort of lunged at him to give him a hug and knocked his tooth out. He was really kind about it. I phoned him up as soon as I found out the next morning, and he was actually just coming out of the dentist. I was just so apologetic. I've never knocked anyone's tooth out. I've never punched anyone in my life, do you know what I mean? I'm really worried that people are going to think I was bit of a nobhead, going around and hitting people.
Speaking of drinking: San Diego has kind of become America's craft beer capital, and so I can't let you go without asking about the Build a Rocket Boy beer coming out. In fact, that might be the thing that people here are most interested in once I write this up. What is it? How did you guys come to release a beer?
It's very strange, believe me. I didn't think that this was going to happen. We were approached by a brewery in Stockport, Robinsons, and I think it's been around for a couple of hundred years or something. It's a Northern company, a local company. It's like a family business and they just approached us about whether we would want to go down, test a load of beers and come up with one that we really like. We thought that it would be something like a cask ale in Robinsons pubs around Cheshire and Stockport area, but then they decided to do it in bottles, then the supermarkets all got in and said, "Yeah, we'd like to stock it." So, it went a bit mad really, but we just thought it would be really fun. The beer tasting day was great.
Did you guys disagree on what beer tasted the best?
It's like everything with us, it's that democracy thing that we do. Sometimes it can be a real pain in the ass. With our music, we do a lot of talking and while we were tasting beers we just talked about and kind of figured out what we wanted. We'd wanted a stronger one because we were going to call it "Rocket Fuel," but we were then told that, "People want to drink bitter. It's the beer you drink in the sunny afternoon and then onto evening. It needs to be around 4 percent."
What would you compare it to?
It's a really nice bitter. It's refreshing, it's quite light in color. It's got me drinking a lot more bitter than I used to. I always like my Guinness and a good lager, but I do enjoy bitter these days. It will be fun the first time and I go and order a pint, because I know that one of my locals is stocking it.
