When I mention I’ve just spoken with Guy Garvey, the response from my colleagues is immediate. “I think I love him, was he extremely lovely?” asks one. “My mum is obsessed,” goes another. Particularly now, in the current climate, there’s something comforting about the thought of Garvey, the frontman of one of Britain’s best rock bands, Elbow. The sound of his dulcet tones on your kitchen radio is as warm and welcome as the whiff of a Sunday roast in the oven. National treasure status will surely be awarded any day now.
It’s hard to believe that next year will mark 30 years since Elbow formed, while Garvey was at school in Manchester with bassist Pete Turner, brothers Craig and Mark Potter on guitar and keys, and Richard Jupp on drums (Jupp left the band in 2016, replaced by Alex Reeves). Will there be a cake, a party? “Probably not,” Garvey tells me. “They’re horribly unsentimental, my boys.”
That’s a surprise, given their rousing anthem “One Day Like This” has provided the soundtrack to a number of hugely sentimental moments, from the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London to countless first dances at weddings. They do majestic very well: the swelling strings that open “One Day”, the sombre march of “My Sad Captains” or the foot-stomping drama of “Grounds for Divorce”. But their songs can be sexy, too. “The Bones of You” opens with the sharp strum of an acoustic guitar as Garvey is struck by memories of a past love; “An Audience with the Pope”, also from the band’s Mercury Prize-winning 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid, shivers with a flurry of piano notes and sultry bass hooks.
There’s a solid case for them as the UK’s most dependable band: 10 critically adored albums, sold-out tours around the world, a regular (brilliant) 6 Music show for Garvey and all of it without a blemish to their name. It’s no surprise to hear that The Cure’s Robert Smith, curating this year’s Teenage Cancer Trust gigs at the Royal Albert Hall, messaged Garvey personally asking if Elbow wanted to headline. Not everyone loves Garvey, though. Years ago, with just one album to their name, they were supporting the indie-rock band Grandaddy in Salt Lake City, playing to around 300 people, when a man raised his arm with a “thumbs down” gesture in their direction and stayed like that for the rest of the set.
“We finished the gig and had to walk through the audience to get off stage, and I knew if I didn’t have hold of Mark Potter he’d kill this bloke,” Garvey says. We’re speaking over video call – he’s in his office, a wall of framed photos and other bits and bobs on shelves behind him. “Mark knew I’d stop him as well, so he bolted but I caught his belt and pushed him up the stairs – that guy would have been mincemeat!” He’s walked out of gigs, too, once shouting “bulls***” at an unnamed musician who spent more time tuning his guitar than acknowledging his audience. “I think I expected a skein of people following me in my indignation,” he says, laughing at himself. “Of course, I just missed a really good gig.”
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Garvey enjoys a spot of mischief. Elbow were on tour a while back when his unsentimental bandmate, Turner, came up to him with a gripe. “He said to me, ‘Guy, I didn’t wanna mention it and I feel silly, but you haven’t thanked me for the last three nights.’” It turned out Garvey had left Turner out while introducing the rest of the band at intervals during the gig: “Craig Potter on the keys, Mark Potter on guitar…!” Garvey was guilt-ridden at first, but he made up for it. “The next night, I told the audience it was Pete’s birthday, when it wasn’t. And I did that every night for the rest of the tour, until his actual birthday, when I didn’t do it,” Garvey says, with uncontained glee. Suffice to say, Turner never complained about being forgotten again. “You know, they’ve all got microphones,” he points out, pretending to be disgruntled. “Have they ever done that for me? Not once. What about my ego?”
Garvey is wonderfully ego-less, although he definitely isn’t always the teddy bear many of his fans think. I should know: we last spoke over a decade ago, when I was a rookie music writer and Elbow were releasing their Lost Worker Bee EP. He doesn’t remember at first and I don’t blame him – it was a boozy afternoon spent sinking pint after pint with him and Turner in the backyard of their local pub, near the studio where they’ve recorded the majority of their albums. They drank me under the table.
What I do remember clearly, though, is meeting Garvey’s now-wife, the Olivier-nominated actor Rachael Stirling, whom he’d just started dating. He was already besotted with her then, fussing over her chair and making sure her skirt didn’t trail in a puddle. “We’re still like that now,” he confirms. They moved to south London a few years ago with their nine-year-old son, Jack. They’re quite the creative power couple – she can’t make the Royal Albert Hall gig because she’s starring as Felicity Corsland in a Broadway production of Giant with John Lithgow, after it transferred from the West End.
How strange to hear Garvey never imagined himself as a dad; he lets out a burst of laughter when I tell him that, even before Jack was born, he gave off major dad vibes. “According to my wife, it was only me who couldn’t see the idea of me being a good one.” Before Jack came along, Garvey was a sort of father figure to younger musicians, encouraging them, championing them. But there’s something of the Peter Pan in him too, in his boyish grin and fondness for winding up his bandmates. So he took some convincing from Stirling (though apparently not too much, as Jack was born a year after they were married, in 2017). Garvey’s own father, Don, died of lung cancer, aged 83, 18 months after Jack was born. But he got to meet his grandson: “There’s this miraculous photograph of my dad holding Jack up, looking at his face, and he’s got this wide open smile – you can see he’s looking at [the family resemblance] in Jack’s face.”
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The minute Jack was born, Garvey felt he was part of something bigger than himself: “I was no longer the point of my own life, you know?” He recalls hearing Belfast writer Peter Curran tell the playwright Patrick Marber on their podcast, Bunk Bed: “You realise how much like your father you are, and it’s folly to consider yourself your own person.” His relationship with his dad wasn’t the easiest – he’s spoken previously about how they struggled to communicate when Garvey was a teenager; of Don’s initial disapproval of his music pursuits. “I wasn’t always happy with him. He wasn’t always happy with me,” he says. “We had our ups and downs – but if you have a tricky relationship with either parent, it’s actually only in the summing up, as they die, that you go, OK, they were great. You know? That’s if you happen to have great parents, which I do.”
When young artists look to Garvey for advice on practical matters, he shares his experiences and tries to help wherever he can. As for the best advice he’d give anyone? “Have as much sex as you possibly can, and I mean that – as much as you possibly can – because one day it won’t be an option, and you’re gonna want those memories,” he says, with complete sincerity. He plans on sharing this advice with his son, as soon as it’s appropriate: “Don’t be a d***, but please have as much sex as possible.”
He said in an interview a few years back that he had to reach back to his hedonistic days for songwriting material, now that he’s more settled, and I wonder if that’s still the case. “I’m just really glad I got so much hedonistic stuff in!” Garvey says, cracking another wide grin. “The only regrets I have are once or twice hurting somebody, because I was a d*** in my early twenties. Apart from that, I have not a single regret. And the only thing I’d regret if I died tomorrow is not getting to spend more time with Jack and Rach – because I’ve had the most amazing time so far, and it’s not showing any signs of stopping.” No wonder our mums are obsessed.
Elbow are the opening headliner of Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday 23 March. Also appearing are Mogwai, Manic Street Preachers, My Bloody Valentine, Garbage and Wolf Alice, as well as Robert Smith’s Comedy Favourites. Visit www.teenagecancertrust.org/gigs for ticket information.
