elbow - Leaders Of The Free World

8th July 2005
To : The Reader
From: Elbow
Re: Leaders Of The Free World - 12th September 2005

Dear you,

I'm sure you know the history but just in case… we've been playing together 14 years. We signed in 1998 to Island Records. We were then dropped before anything was released in 2000. We re-signed in 2001 to V2 Records and our debut album, 2001's "Asleep In The Back", was acclaimed and nominated for the Mercury Music Prize.

Our second record, "Cast Of Thousands" was also very successful and we played our biggest ever UK gig at Brixton Academy on the tour for that record. We were last seen at Glastonbury in 2004, what a lovely day it was.

So while we criss-crossed the globe we realised how much time is wasted waiting around. So, we started writing the 3rd record on the road on a wee porta-studio. In June last year we decided we wanted to record this one ourselves at home. So we looked around Manchester and Salford and eventually found THE BIG ROOM at Blueprint Studios. We filled it with instruments and snazzy new recording equipment and set about collaborating, developing and re-recording a big bunch of ideas started everywhere from Havana to Berlin to Dundee. 40 ideas become 30 songs and the album started taking on a shape. However, we were concerned that the amazing space we were in could be even better used so we bought a ping pong table.
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