Elderbook on doubling down on electronic music, weird dance moves, and ‘mumbling until something sounds good’

Elderbrook is one of the few electronic musicians that can do it all.

A Platinum certified vocalist, a multi-instrumentalist, a songwriter, a DJ, and a damn good dancer.

He’s also an artist who isn’t keen to just stick to a tried and tested formula.

His upcoming second studio album ‘Little Love’ is the perfect example of Elderbook’s evolution as an artist.

The album is full of euphoric jams, soaring synths, and the Englishman’s signature hazy vocals.

There are plenty of dancefloor-ready anthems and moments that will have you bopping around with your mates and on your own in your car.

It’s a bit of a far cry from where Elderbook first pictured himself as a musician.

His musical journey kickstarted as a member of an indie band where he was ‘just writing folk songs’ and trying to be a ‘Ben Howard or Mumford and Sons type musician’.

However, even from the early days of his career, he wasn’t content with sticking to a lane.

He began messing around with electronic music and ‘accidentally’ made a tune that people really connected with on SoundCloud by the name of ‘Rewinding’.

More and more he began incorporating electronic music into his own solo art, and fast forward to 2016 he dropped one of the tunes of the year - a collaboration with iconic producer Campelphat called ‘Cola’.

Elderbook told LADbible: “It was amazing, however, it’s only looking back at it that I realise how good it was.

“It was the most Shazamed song in the world and I wasn’t really respecting how big a deal it was at the time. And only now looking back I’m like wow that was good, wasn’t it?”

What started off as a club anthem across Europe turned into a commercial success and a Grammy nomination, and it certainly began to shape the direction in which Elderbook saw his art going.

He said: “At the time, I was electronic but I was definitely more indie-based. And then that came out, and then I started playing it live and that’s when I realised I wanted to do more of that sort of thing because it’s just fun.

“It didn’t dictate me, but it definitely influenced how I made music going forward.”

The success of ‘Cola’ led to some mammoth collaborations between Elderbook and some of the best producers in the scene - Diplo, Hayden James, Black Coffee, and Rudimental, to name a few.

And while his success in the electronic scene didn’t see him completely part ways with his indie roots, his second album is certainly an accumulation of finding his place in that sound.

Elderbook said: “After the first album, looking back at it, it was definitely what I wanted to do at the time but since then I’ve definitely become more of an electronic focus act, so I’ve definitely stayed a little more electronic with this new one.

“And I think that’s just purely because of the number of shows I’ve done since then, and I’ve started DJing now, and I’ve been working with a lot of DJs like Diplo, Black Coffee and all of the guys.

“So yeah the album is definitely a lot more electronic this time, which I’m excited to play out live.”

And while he may not come from an electronic background, you wouldn’t guess as such if you’ve ever seen him play live.

Elderbrook’s live performance is an experience, to say the least, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an artist who brings as much energy as he does.

His live show is a melting pot of all his talents as a musician, with live instruments, live sampling, vocal manipulations, and some outrageous dance moves.

But it’s an energy and expression that hasn’t come quite as naturally to the musician.

He said: “When I started in 2016, and because I’ve come from an indie background when I played live I wanted there to be other people on stage with me because I couldn’t understand what it’d look like if it was just one person on stage - I thought that would look quite dumb.

“But pretty soon after that I realised with my music it needed to just be me, ditch the band and make it just me.

“But the energy, and the weird dance moves that I do, I do them because I didn’t really know what I should be doing so I doubled down and just tried to be as weird as possible so it was out there and would make up for missing a band.

“It’s always evolving because I get bored with what I’ve done.”

And while he’s constantly breathing new life and energy into every aspect of his artistry, it never outshines his true love in his career - songwriting.

In fact, during the pandemic period, he challenge himself to write a song every day, albeit as he admits: “They’re not all great songs [laughs].

“But some of them I went back to and made them great and now they’re on this album.”

As for his process of creating those gems, it’s as unique as everything else.

Elderbook explained: “Mainly I’ll make a simple beat and then I’ll kind of just mumble over it, and mumble what I want the lyrics to sound like and when I listen back I’ll see if I can hear any phrases that make sense.

“A lot of songwriters, you’ll go into a room and they’ll start talking about their life and what they want to write a song about, and that is absolutely not me.

“Whenever I’m with someone like that I’m like ‘let’s not worry about that, let’s just mumble until something sounds good and then finish the song after that’.”

And plenty of mumbles have turned into some pretty incredible tracks, with many of those landing on ‘Little Love’.

The 12-track album epitomises Elderbrook’s evolution as an artist and doubling down on a lane that wasn’t completely natural to him when he first started.

But it’s one that he’s found his own career bliss in, and that’s what he wants everyone else to find in ‘Little Love’.

He says: “A lot of this album, I would like to feel as though there is more euphoria in it. I’m looking forward to playing it on stage and letting those big build-ups release happiness.

“Hopefully, people experience the euphoria.”

‘Little Love’ is out now, stream it below.