CityLife

Elbow set to pen children's music

NEW DIRECTION: Elbow

WITH an acclaimed Mercury Music Prize-winning LP now in the bag, Elbow’s Guy Garvey has revealed they plan to take a rather unorthodox route for his next project.

The Bury frontman told Billboard.biz, they intend to start work on a collection of children’s music and an accompanying animated film.

He said: "We initially thought that it would be great to make music for children because the lads in the band have got kids and they were saying how little really decent music for children there is.

“The more that we thought about it the more that we liked the idea.

"We've quite often been up for having songs on children's animated films, but we thought that it would be great to actually be at the starting point for that process."

Garvey also allayed any fears for fans feverishly awaiting a more grown-up follow-up to The Seldom Seen Kid, with work on the as-yet-untitled project set to take place alongside writing and recording of the group's official fifth album.

Complete

He added: "It might not be something that's complete before the next record.

"The first thing to do is find the story and that's great fun to research. I want to do something that really fires kids’ imaginations. I think you can go somewhere in writing for children that you can't do with adults.

"I think adults would just say 'Oh, that's bizarre' and shut their ears. Whereas [when writing for children] you can really go absolutely nuts and kids will follow you and love it."

In terms of an inspiration for the children’s project, Garvey has cited Jeff Wayne's 1978 concept album ‘The War Of The Worlds’ based on a book by HG Wells.

Following their universally well-received Mercury win, the quintet’s LP has set up camp in the top ten after initially jumping from 61 to seven in the charts.