They’ve been around since the late 90s, but Elbow have come of (prog) age on their 10th album, Audio Vertigo. Guy Garvey and Craig Potter map their evolution from a bunch of rock fans with lofty musical ambitions to award-winning, chart-topping art-rockers whose fans include Peter Gabriel.

Words: Grant Moon

“Close To The Edge was one of those records [we listened to as teenagers]. And Crime Of The Century and In The Court Of The Crimson King. There was some Pink Floyd and some Santana too – we used to cover Santana tunes early on.”

Guy Garvey

Prog fans? Elbow? They wear their prog armbands with pride.

Image: Peter Neill

By the time Guy Garvey joined his guitarist mate Mark Potter’s band, Mr Soft, in 1990, his music-savvy sister, Becky, had already ensured the 16-year-old was schooled in the good stuff –from Genesis’s Selling England By The Pound onwards. “I have a deep love of prog rock,” says Garvey, who turned 50 in March. “Mark liked more meat-and-potatoes rock back then, AC/DC in particular. He’d come around to my mum’s house, we’d sit in the kitchen and write songs on a guitar. Then one day –I’m still flattered by it –he said, ‘I get my wage this weekend. Can we go into town and will you buy me a record collection?’” That Saturday the pair trooped around Manchester’s Corn Exchange and Afflecks Palace, sifting what gold they could from the markets’ secondhand music shops.

“Close To The Edge was one of those records,” the singer recalls, “and Crime Of The Century and In The Court Of The Crimson King. There was some Pink Floyd and some Santana, too –we used to cover Santana tunes early on.

“Starting out, we sounded just like what we were: a bunch of lads who have only had a few hours of playing together. Then straight away we were writing songs with three movements in them: ‘This will be the fast bit, then it’ll break down and come back to the first bit!’ And of course, it was all awful, for fucking years… But it was ambitious.”