By the time joined his guitarist mate Mark Potter's band, Mr Soft, in 1990, his music-savvy sister, Becky, had already ensured the 16-year-old was schooled in the good stuff – from ’ onwards. “I have a deep love of prog rock,” says Garvey, who turned 50 in March. “Mark liked more meat-and-potatoes rock back then, in particular.
He’d come around to my mum’s house, we’d sit in the kitchen and write songs on a guitar. Then one day – I’m still flattered by it – he said, ‘I get my wage this weekend. Can we go into town and will you buy me a record collection?’” That Saturday the pair trooped around Manchester’s Corn Exchange and Afflecks Palace, sifting what gold they could from the markets’ second-hand music shops.
“ was one of those records,” the singer recalls, “and and In . There was some and some too – we used to cover Santana tunes early on. “Starting out, we sounded just like what we were: a bunch of lads with only few hours of playing together.
Then straight away we were writing songs with three movements in them: ‘This will be the fast bit, then it'll break down and come back to the first bit!' And of course, it was all awful, for fucking years.. But it was ambitious.
” Mr Soft would go on to refine their songwriting process and wisely rechristen themselves Elbow later in the 90s. Their stunning 2001 debut album, , was part- recorded at Real World, where the band met and struck up a friendship with the gaffer, . He would go on .