Trade Secrets with Elbow

One of the highlights of the seminars was the arrival of special guests Elbow to talk about their experiences pre and post signing to a major record label.

The band from Bury have been together for 10 years and have just released their debut album. More than many other bands they were able to give an insight into some of the pitfalls for bands in their infancy. Doing the interviewing was famed music pundit Robert Sandall.

Here are the highlights from the seminar, or you can watch the seminar in full.

The Manchester scene
Mark: "We were in Bury a long time and realised we had to get amongst it. Not necessairly move to Manchetser, but play in Manchester and get involved in the scene that has been building up over the last ten years."
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Keeping the band together
Guy: " I'd like to say it was a conscious decsion but it wasn't really. We burnt all our bridges at 16/17!"
Mark: "We all had our down points but all it took was one great rehersal, one great song to keep it going for us"
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Trying to get a deal
Guy: "A handful of us were working at a nightclub called the roadhouse in Manchester and through them we promoted a gig. We changed the name of the band cos everyone had a demo from usat thayt point, WE changed the name to Elbow. We put this gig on and got some local press support and we entered for In the City . We were one of the joint winners, I suppose, along with Muse and K. In reality, Island records were the only people buying at that point"
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Recording and Playing live
Guy: "We used alot of the demo material. Powder Blue was done on 16 track underneath a charity shop in Preswitch, called Noise Box, which explains the title of the EP. We haven't payed them a great deal for doing the recording. The flipside to that is Newborn which was recorded at Real World, Peter Gabriel's place, so it (the recordings) really does come from all over the place"
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New material and promoting the album
Guy: It's a funny thing, I've never heard of a record company take into consideration the time you need to write another record. They think it happens on holidays and weekends! We're trying to write on the road at the moment but it is very difficult. The second album won't come out until we're finished, but we do feel the pressure at the moment."
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Watch the seminar in full.