Anyone who spends a long enough stretch of time as an Elbow fan has that moment.
That instant where the Manchester quintet’s sophisticated soundscapes, in combination with the acute lyrical potency and delivery of frontman Guy Garvey, articulate something deeply profound.
For some, the ‘Elbow moment’ probably occurred back in 2001, when their arrestingly evocative first album Asleep In The Back snuck its way into the listening diets of the Quiet Is The New Loud movement and alongside popular new UK acts like Doves, Gomez, and Athlete.
For a larger majority, their connection to Elbow came a decade into the band’s career, when they claimed 2008’s coveted Mercury Music Prize for The Seldom Seen Kid, opening up their emotional, erudite work to the wider mainstream – who have held the group as dear as those earlier adopters.
It’s striking (and a little heartening) to hear then that not even the band’s own members are immune to Elbow’s poignant charms.
For Richard Jupp, his ‘Elbow moment’ – the “killer tune,” as he puts it – is the drum-less ‘Lippy Kids’, curious perhaps given he’s the percussion-playing contingent of the five-piece, but as with their fans, it’s what the tune means to him personally.
“It’s quite a strange one,” Jupp begins, his native accent plucking at his genial tones.
“My cousin came out from London – travelled around Latvia, he loved it… but unfortunately he had bi-polar and he took his own life when he was on a high,” Jupp reveals.
“He thought ‘you know what? It doesn’t get any better than this, so I’m gonna go. Now.’”
The drummer received the devastating news while on tour in Italy, “just outside of Venice and when ‘Lippy Kids’ came on, I was just streaming,” he says.
It’s largely down to frontman Guy Garvey’s “way with words – I don’t know how he does it.”
Indeed the affable singer’s “uncanny habit,” as Jupp calls it, to eke profound insights from everyday minutiae and aphorisms, delivered in his warm Manchester brogue, has seen him typified as a barstool poet who could have even the toughest of working class waxing philosophical and sobbing into their pints (filled perhaps with Elbow’s own branded brew?).
“It’s an amazing mix that we’ve got in Elbow that we all understand each other’s position.”“It still blows my mind when he can conceive an idea to the finished thing and what he goes through to make sure the lyrics are right is just an incredible process,” Jupp glows of his bandmate. “But going back to [my cousin]… I’m sure that ‘Lippy Kids’ tonight is going to be a bit of a moment.”
‘Tonight’ being Elbow’s headlining set at Positivus Festival in Latvia, where Jupp and co. are currently “chilling in our hotel room, preparing ourselves” before being transferred to the site.
It’s the lifestyle of the European summer festival circuit, which the Brits are currently in the middle of.
Come October, they’ll be “match fit” for their headline shows in Australia, a prospect which Jupp is particularly excited about – a place where the band have “loads of memories,” including the time he went surfing on the Gold Coast only to get sunburnt like a “typical British idiot.”
“An amazing day. Couldn’t move. Got absolutely battered, caught two waves and bailed on a few. But yeah got absolutely burnt to shit.”
Keeping indoors is on the agenda this time, inside “[the] beautiful theatres that we love playing,” including the Sydney Opera House, “pretty much the perfect venue for us,” Jupp adds.
Elbow’s arrival is to celebrate the release of their sixth and latest album last March, The Take Off And Landing Of Everything, which Jupp describes as “a bit of a documentary” of the “juncture in our lives where we’re kind of, hopefully, halfway through,” he heartily chuckles.
“You get to that point where you think ‘Christ, we’re lucky enough to still be doing this. How did we get to this point?’” he reflects.
“We’ve got to 40 – we’ve made it, almost. So it’s a bit of a celebration,” he continues. “Of getting here, looking forward, being pragmatic about it. But also looking back and remembering the past,and remembering how you got to this point in your life – that’s what the album means to me.”
Being a group of adults with families seems diametrically opposed to the demanding lifestyle of a touring rock band but Elbow are now in a position to make a few demands of their own.
“We’re quite lucky in the fact that we’ve got to a level where we can dictate how long we’re away for,” Jupp explains, keeping their touring to regimented three week blocks, “two ideally.” It helps ease the tyranny of distance from loved ones, in Jupp’s case: wife Sarah and 12-year-old son, Dylan. Though advances in technology have also played their part, too. (“You’ve got Skype, Viber. Dylan’s got his own bloody phone now!”)
“We’re all in the same position where we all miss our families,” the drummer continues. “So we’ve all got each other’s backs in that sense, so if somebody needs to go home – you fuckin’ go home, you know what I mean? Home is everything. So it’s an amazing mix that we’ve got in Elbow that we all understand each other’s position.”
“It was funny when I got married, I was thinking ‘I can’t play my own tune at our wedding!’ But ‘Mirrorball’ perfectly encapsulates… everything.”That sense of community and dedication includes crafting the perfect setlist. The 10-song recent weather-triumphing appearance at the all-important Glastonbury for instance, allegedly caused a bit of a grudge match.
“It can be,” Jupp chuckles, “it’s gotten better over the years, I must say. Obviously with more material it kind of gives you a broader scope to placate each member of the band but we’re all good at giving it a ‘journey’ especially with the new stuff because it fits in with the old tunes,” he explains.
“You’ve got your favourites to play and you want to stand by them, that’s the reason why we’re still hacking away at it is because we’re living in a democracy.”
And the songs Jupp tends to fight for? “Of the new ones, ‘Real Life’. I like ‘The Birds’, obviously ‘Grounds For Divorce’. I’m quite lucky that the bigger tracks are quite drum-led.”
Certainly Jupp’s drumming style – masterfully understated and disciplined – is the crucial, underrated driving force to the dimensions of Elbow’s compositional elegance.
From the minimalist approach of the quieter, introspective material (‘This Blue World’ is naught but an insistent snare pattern), the charging gusto of the rousing anthems (‘New York Morning’, ‘One Day Like This’) to the snaking bluster and stomp of their heavier tunes (‘Bones Of You’, ‘Neat Little Rows’).
Particular mention should be made to The Take Off…’s lead single ‘Fly Boy Blue/Lunette’, written in the latest album sessions by the rhythm section (Jupp, bassist Pete Turner, guitarist Mark Potter) while Garvey and keys wizard/producer Craig Potter were absent.
“It’s very rigorously built, our tunes are very dynamic [like that],” remarks the sticks-smith. As a result it means he doesn’t need to go “off pace” in the live setting.
“It’s literally just the physicality of playing is enough because I know that out front it sounds clear, Guy’s lyrics can be heard, and it’s part of the five cogs that are working on stage.”
The talk of mutual respect brings Jupp to an amusing anecdote about ‘Mirrorball’, another treasure from the band’s songbook, stocked with plenty of Garvey’s pearlescent turns of phrase (“we kissed like we invented it”).
“It was funny when I got married, I was thinking ‘I can’t play my own tune at our wedding!’,” Jupp tells with another sly laugh. “But ‘Mirrorball’ perfectly encapsulates… everything: “and now everything has changed.”
“And you just think, ‘shit, how can I… no, I can’t. I definitely can’t play my own tune’,” he continues comically.
“But it’s trying to separate the objectivity and subjectivity of being in a band that you love playing the music. It sounds a bit sick, really. But when you’re touring you’re objectifying the music that you produce in the studio. So you can actually lean back – even though you’re playing and you’re there in the moment – you can actually lean back and you’re seeing people’s immediate reaction to the tunes. And it kind of reinforces the point of the tune.”
For Jupp, there’s the same marvel at what he and his cohorts produce as there is in those listeners that cherish each of ‘their’ songs – hitting like a personal ode.
“‘Fly Boy Blue/Lunette’, the (second half) is just amazing! And pretty much every night I’m playing it but it’s like driving, it’s an unconscious thing at that point in the track – then you see people seeing along and they’re crying,” Jupp says, before amusingly undercutting his sincerity; “It’s either that or picking their nose.”
For Jupp, it’s really all about the ‘Elbow moment’, whether it’s experiencing that intangible sense of acuity himself, or ensuring that the band’s fanbase do each time they play live or release a record.
It’s that personal connection – between their audience and each other – that’s kept Elbow so vital over the years. A fact not lost on the band themselves.
“We have worked hard to get to this point that but we are very lucky in the fact that we can still do it and we’re still relevant,” Jupp refelects. “Which makes it more important to make sure we can do the best show we can possibly do.”
Elbow Australian Tour 2014
Saturday 25th October – Sydney Opera House, Sydney NSW – SOLD OUT
Sunday 26th October – Sydney Opera House, Sydney NSW
Tuesday 28th October – The Forum Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Wednesday 29th October – The Forum Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 30th October – The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD
All tickets and info: www.elbow.co.uk and www.livenation.com.au
