Elbow have shared surprise new Black Sabbath-inspired single ‘Adriana Again’ featuring a “mystery band” in the video. Check it out below, along with our interview with frontman Guy Garvey telling us about a new “garage” rock EP.
‘Adriana Again’ comes off the back of the band’s acclaimed 2024 album ‘Audio Vertigo‘ – drawing on the same “naughty and gnarly” vibes.
“We figured that having settled into a different vein on that record, so we wanted to give it another crack,” Garvey told NME, “and also to remind everyone of the album came out back in March!
“It’s the first track of an EP that will come out next year. We really enjoyed making this song.”
With “a groove” to the verse before what Garvey called “some pretty Sabbathy guitars on the chorus”, the rocky and menacing sound of the track matches the “sneaky” essence of the lyrics.
“Adriana is a fictitious character, but based on a few real experiences,” said Garvey. “There was a sneaky vibe to Pete’s [Turner] bass in the verses – it felt like he was up to something. It reminded me of the period of time that I hung out almost exclusively underground in The Temple Of Convenience or Corbiers in Manchester. At one point I was dating a sculptor whose previous boyfriend was one of her tutors. Looking back, that was really out order with a massive age gap. He engaged me in some kind of pseudo intellectual row; just flashing his degree at me in a room full of people.
“It used to happen a lot. I used to hang out with a lot of artists as well as musicians. I would feel self-conscious for not having gone to university, so perhaps indulged in these stupid bloody jousts. It made me giggle and I wanted to go back into it.”
Garvey added: “It was an exciting time as well because I was in the band and things were moving. Like the rest of the album, I’m exploring something that happened years ago rather than writing about how lovely my garden is or how pleased with my son’s school report I am. That doesn’t really tickle me as a songwriter, so I’m going back to my dinge-y past, dramatising it, and making it more dinge-y in a lot of places.”
Quizzed about the identity of the youngsters rocking out to the song in the video, Garvey remained cheekily tight-lipped.
“Who is that mystery band?” he replied. “We just want to put it out there. That’s not someone pretending to be me. They’re a legitimate band, but we just thought we’d have some fun and see if anyone can work out who they are.”
Check out the rest of our interview with Garvey below, where he also told us about what to expect from their new EP, huge shows set for 2025, if we’ll see them at Glastonbury, and the one regret from his career.
NME: Hello Guy. Has writing this EP taken you back to the glory days of B-sides, what with it all stemming from your latest album?
Guy Garvey: “Bands that remember having to do B-sides will remember that sometimes you had to do them in a hurry, and you’d often do something really spontaneous and come to really love it. Then other times, you just sweep them under the carpet and hope nobody notices them!
“We’ve always loved it. Our very first releases were EPs. Ride were a great EP band, and they’d put as much effort into the composition and sleeve design of the EP as they would an album. You’ve slightly more artistic freedom and less pressure. They’re a beautiful thing: a short story rather than a novel, I guess.”
So what’s it sounding like then?
“We’re still working on it, but I imagine it will have some symmetry to it. There could be some found footage on it; we used to enjoy putting some street-recorded sounds on. I think it’ll have some of the garage-yness that the album has. We went back to working in a small room for ‘Audio Vertigo’ and that’s how this song was made; digging in and finding the energy together as opposed to piecing it together on a computer.”
The new single features that rarest of musical treats – a Stylophone solo…
“I very much enjoyed playing it; I’m bringing the Stylophone back, man. It’s a great little instrument and a great way of finding strange melodies. There’s something really oddly Space 1999 about them. You can tune them, so you can bridge the gap between what you can achieve with a laptop and an orchestra. It’s still a pocket version of the future!”
Will you be busting that out live on stage?
“I threw it in as a texture at the chorus. I put it underneath the guitars in the mix as a little bit of a headfuck, then Craig [Potter, keys and producer] found it, turned it up and gave me my own spot. I’m definitely going to play it live – in fact I might insist on extending the solo! I could do 20 minutes like Santana’s drummer, or at least until the batteries die.”
Do you think the spirit of this and the new album will give your upcoming shows a rockier edge?
“I’m sure it will. We put almost half of the album into the set this year, and it went down really well. Off the back off the shows, we’ll probably work quite quickly to make another record. We went through many, many years of very, very carefully constructing songs over months and months and really trying to get to the heart of the matter with every word. That succeeded a lot of the time, but here we are thinking, ‘Let’s have more fun than that for a bit’.
“A lot of people have asked if ‘Audio Vertigo’ is a reaction to the very subtle and delicate record that we made during the pandemic [‘Flying Dream 1’]. I kind of resented that. We’ve always had both of those records in us, but we’re just choosing to swing a little more widely. Who knows where we’ll go next?”
Will you be making your return to Glastonbury next summer?
“We’ve not played Glastonbury in a few years now. We’re not on the bill next summer, but we’ll always answer the call. We’ve got some pretty big shows and we’re going to go back to America too.”
Does America ‘get’ Elbow?
“Yes, but we were never prepared to go out there for as long as it takes to ‘conquer’ America, because we started having kids instead. We still have a healthy audience there and every few years we go and see them. That is literally the only reason we go. It’s not a financial exercise and we’ve never made any money in the States. It’s about going to see our fans and bringing the record to them.
“People travel hundreds of miles in the States to see a show, so it feels like every few albums at least you should make the same effort. We’ve got the most amazing memories of touring there: with Doves, with Grandaddy, with Coldplay, Richard Swift. We visit all the same towns and have friends there.”
At least you’re at peace with that. Do you have any regrets?
“I love the way everything has gone and have no regrets. Actually, I do have one concerning you guys. We were offered the front cover of NME around 1999. They wanted me underwater to represent the lyric ‘I’ll be the corpse in your bathtub’ from ‘Newborn’. I said, ‘We’re not doing it unless the whole band are on the cover’ – so they fucked us off! About six months later we were all like, ‘We should have done that’. It was for the right reasons, but a big mistake.”
‘Adriana Again’ by Elbow is out now, with tickets to their 2025 UK tour on sale with tickets available here.
Elbow’s 2025 UK headline tour dates dates are:
JUNE
13 – Cardiff Castle, Cardiff (with The Coral and Billie Marten)
19 – Westonbirt, The National Arboretum, Gloucestershire (with The Coral and Billie Marten)
20 – Hampton Court Palace, London
JULY
2 – Castlefield Bowl, Manchester (with The Slow Readers Club)
3 – Museum Gardens, York (with Billie Marten and Eliza Carthy & The Restitution)
6 – St Nicholas Park, Warwick
12 – Priory and Castle, Tynemouth