Elbow pressure point

Manchester band say there could be a five year wait before their next offering

26 August 2009 - Bury favourites Elbow have said they're feeling the pressure to produce a worthy fifth album and even if it takes years, they'll put the time in to make it great.

Speaking to 6 Music, bassist Pete Turner said: "If it's three, four, or five years time, this next album has got to be the absolute 'dog's' so we'll see."

The band have been writing while on the road and he revealed they already have "lots of bits and bobs down" for the follow to their award-winning and critically lauded record, The Seldom Seen Kid.

Initial ideas were put down when Guy Garvey and co. spent a week in Cheshire, at the studio owned by their fellow Mancunians, Doves.

But Turner said they have a lot to prove to the critics this time round after being awarded the Mercury Prize, along with a Brit for Best British Group, two Ivor Novello awards, a South Bank award, an NME and the Mojo Magazine Song of the Year.

"It's almost like a second album, this next album.  It's the one that people are going to be really interested in."
Pete Turner

"It's going to be good," he explained. "It'll really keep us on our toes and we've always been the underdogs so magazines and radio stations have always got behind us.

"It's one thing if you're an underdog, if you're in the sunshine then I think that there's a tendency to come down on you a little bit."

In the past year the quintet have performed a special show with the Hallé Orchestra as part of the Manchester International Festival and opened for Coldplay and U2's massive 88,000 strong Wembley Stadium show.

"It's almost like a second album, this next album," Turner added. "It's the one that people are going to be really interested in so it means we've got to stop being such lazy bunch, try our hardest and really work at it - but we will do."

Elbow plan to begin work on their fifth offering when their summer gigs and festival dates are finished.

Georgie Rogers