{"id":687809,"date":"2026-05-22T17:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687809\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T17:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:57:09","slug":"elbows-guy-garvey-talks-wonderful-man-robert-smith-and-teases-sonically-ambitious-new-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/687809\/","title":{"rendered":"Elbow\u2019s Guy Garvey talks \u201cwonderful man\u201d Robert Smith and teases \u201csonically ambitious\u201d new album"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guy Garvey<\/a> has spoken to NME about his friendship with \u201cwonderful man\u201d Robert Smith<\/a>, and revealed that Elbow<\/a> are working on a \u201csonically ambitious\u201d new album.<\/p>\n

The frontman caught up with NME on the red carpet for the Ivor Novellos yesterday (Thursday May 21), and looked back on his recent performance at the 2026 Teenage Cancer Trust gigs<\/a>, with the gigs hand-picked by The Cure\u2019s Robert Smith following The Who\u2019s Roger Daltrey stepping down as curator.<\/a><\/p>\n

Elbow joined a stacked line-up including Mogwai<\/a>, Manic Street Preachers<\/a>, My Bloody Valentine<\/a>, Garbage<\/a>, Placebo<\/a> and Wolf Alice<\/a> at the charity series, and kicked things off with a selection of their biggest hits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for what it felt like to be hand-selected by The Cure frontman to take part in the 2025 edition, Garvey told NME: \u201cIf Robert Smith gives you a call, you better get there! He\u2019s a wonderful man, and we\u2019ve wanted to support the Teenage Cancer Trust for years, so it was a really great opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if it was the \u2018Just Like Heaven\u2019 singer who reached out to invite them to the event, Garvey replied: \u201cYeah, it\u2019s him direct. He does everything! Even if you get sneaky tickets to a Cure gig, it\u2019s his handwriting on the envelope.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo he\u2019s a wonderful man. He types in capitals too, and he\u2019s just really sweet and kind and polite\u2026 And he\u2019s really funny as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After going on to name UK alt band MRCY<\/a> as one of his favourite artists at the minute, Garvey went on to reveal that Elbow are heading back to the studio and working on new music, which will be the follow-up to their 2024 album \u2018Audio Vertigo<\/a>\u2019 and the 2025 EP \u2018Audio Vertigo Echo elbow EP 5\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re writing another album, which will be our 11th. We\u2019re just about to get together and make that happen,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s too early at the moment [to say how it might sound], but it\u2019s all sonically ambitious.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut quite often it does take a few turns before we put it to bed\u2026 so I don\u2019t know just yet. I\u2019m just so happy that we\u2019re all together. I\u2019m just so proud of being in the band for 35 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garvey also said that he was excited about Elbow\u2019s debut album \u2018Asleep In The Back<\/a>\u2019 recently turning 25 this year, and revealed that he had \u201cbeen looking back through that stuff\u201d and noticing how it was \u201ca much edgier record than I thought it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back at it, you can feel the disgruntlement, which was part of life when we wrote it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for whether they had any plans to celebrate the milestone, the frontman kept his cards close to his chest, saying: \u201cWatch this space. There will be something.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The interview at the 2026 Ivor Novellos came just over a year after Elbow teamed up with the Co-Op Live arena in Manchester to help donate sound equipment<\/a> to the city\u2019s grassroots venues.<\/p>\n

When asked why they wanted to play their part to help support local music spaces \u2013 particularly as July 2024 and July 2025 alone saw 30 UK grassroots venues lost forever<\/a> \u2013 Garvey explained that those venues were not just integral for musicians, but for artists, authors, and the community as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just musicians that came through spaces like the Night and Day Cafe in Manchester. It gave a platform to us, Jane Weaver<\/a>, Doves<\/a>, Badly Drawn Boy<\/a>, but also you had novelists like Gwendoline Riley working behind the bar there! There was Stanley Chow, the Grammy Award-winning illustrator, and actor Benedict Wong hanging around there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put a venue together, you start something for all of the arts. That\u2019s how this stuff grows, and it should be looked after,\u201d Garvey added. \u201cSo when you axe something with that much history, what you get after is soulless. So I think the small venues of a city are its soul, and they have to be looked after.\u201d<\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s Ivor Novellos, Rosal\u00eda was crowned International Songwriter Of The Year<\/a>, Radiohead<\/a>\u2019s Thom Yorke<\/a> was handed the Academy Fellowship award by surprise guest Harry Styles<\/a>, and George Michael<\/a> posthumously received the Academy Fellowship, too.<\/p>\n

Other winners included Jacob Alon getting the awards for Rising Star and Best Song Musically and Lyrically, CMAT<\/a> getting Best Album, Fraser T Smith<\/a> and Kae Tempest<\/a> winning Best Contemporary Song prize, and Sam Fender<\/a> getting Songwriter Of The Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guy Garvey has spoken to NME about his friendship with \u201cwonderful man\u201d Robert Smith, and revealed that Elbow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,1770,136,1771],"class_list":["post-687809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-indie","tag-music","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}