All-round good guys Elbow are about to fulfil their musical potential and get their just deserts. Lead singer Guy Garvey talks to Tony Clayton-Lea about being the democrats of rock'n'roll

Don't they belong to that anonymous bunch of UK bands that flitter around the limelight like moths, only to disappear once the switch is flicked? The kind of band that's difficult to pin down because there is very little remotely exciting about them?

Damned with faint praise, and cursed by a commercial timidity that has seen none of their singles crash into the UK Top 10, Elbow are the band that Chris Martin admits ripping off for his own world domination ends (a part of Grace Under Pressure for his own Fix You). With Coldplay lurking somewhere in the background - not so much an influence as a receptacle - the time is coming when Elbow might just nudge their way out of such tight corners.

Although they've been around for nigh on 15 years (six of which were wisely spent learning to play their instruments), it's only in the past five that the Bury five-piece have begun counting the dividends of years spent touring, writing and performing. Their 2001 debut album, Asleep in the Back, cracked the UK Top 20; two years later the follow-up, Cast of Thousands, dented the Top 10. Their new record, Leaders of the Free World, is picking up four- and five-star plaudits from Auckland to Ardcath and looks set to graze the UK Top 5.

Understandably, lead singer/lyricist Guy Garvey, is chuffed with the reviews.

"Someone wrote that the new record has a heart as big as its music, which is a nice thing to say, isn't it? A lot of my favourite songs are quite emotional, personal, written by people who say what they feel. It's hard to put my finger on exactly what we're doing. Initially, I got into music to show off, but over the years that has changed. Now, writing lyrics has become the most important part of my job - that, and getting some depth and sincerity out of them."

Garvey is one of UK rock's nice guys; polite to a flaw, calling you by your first name, concerned that a disconnected mobile phone line wasn't his fault. He says he's matured over the past five years - the band's busiest time, and a period that has seen them graduate from unlikely lads to likely contenders. His heart has been broken, too, which is always good for inspiration.

"It's a bit bizarre, because Elbow is so closely linked to my life that it's hard to imagine what the rest of my life would be like without it. So much revolves around the time the five of us spend in a room together. Now that some of the lads are fathers, sometimes it's part of your social life as much as your personal life. In that case, music feels like a hobby.

"On other occasions, if you have a deadline to make, or if you're working overseas and are missing home, then the band becomes your paymaster, and you can find yourself resenting the irregularity of it all. Ultimately there are times, more often than not, when I'm thinking that I'm the luckiest man in the world. I'm hoping that comes through in the music - that I'm offering a balance of sincerity and fun in everything we do."

Leaders of the Free World sees Elbow self-produce for the first time. On went the hard hats, the steel-capped boots, and a level of self-discipline they hadn't experienced since before they signed a record deal with V2.

"Previous to being signed," says Garvey, "you could set your own deadline and work at your own pace. Once you have a record deal, of course, then you have to meet certain deadlines, but working at your own pace makes it difficult to regulate yourself, especially when you haven't got a producer who is being paid by the hour."

The band went into the studio for 12-hour shifts, from 11am to 11pm, with a break for dinner in the evening.

"That suited everybody - babies could be seen, tea taken at home, all that sort of thing. But it was a little odd, getting into the routine of it and treating it more like a regular day job than we had been used to in the past. To a degree it was pointless, as being creative is not something you can put a time limit on. We made it inspiring for ourselves by keeping it fun, though. We'd have unanimous decisions on certain things, or we'd turn it into a game. Things like that kept it interesting."

Garvey says Elbow could very well have given up after their first spiky brush with the record business - prior to signing to V2, they made an album for a major label but the deal went belly up. While disheartening, there was never a temptation to quit. He feels vindicated as much as surprised and flattered. If you let your optimism slide, he reasons, it might go for good.

Is it difficult balancing light and shade? Garvey reckons so. Certain songs didn't make Leaders of the Free World in order to strike that very balance. Forty songs were chosen initially; these were whittled down to 13, which were then whittled down to 11. More than ever before, he says, a record shouldn't just be a mountain to climb every two years or so, but rather a dispatch from where you're at in your head, heart, and collectively as a group.

"If we were to put as much effort into every record as we did with the first one, then it would break you in no time," he says. "To forget your audience is the key to doing something artistically, musically pure. You know when something sucks, and you know when you've compromised. We're each other's best mates and harshest critics, and even though I'm the only lyricist in the band, they comment on and criticise my words all the time. I can get a veto if I want to, but for the vast majority of the time I invite their criticism."

This all sounds very sensible, humble and equable. No dictatorships here, then?

"As far as I can see," says Garvey, "we're the most successful and long-lasting democracy in the world. Fourteen years without any corruption at all. That's pretty good, isn't it?

Elbow play Dublin's Vicar St on November 9th