Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Declan Patrick MacManus, better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as part of London's pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk and new wave movement of the mid-to-late 1970s. His critically acclaimed debut album, My Aim Is True, was recorded in 1977. Shortly after recording it he formed the Attractions as his backing band. His...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth25 August 1954
CityLondon, England
I wanna bite the hand that feeds me. I wanna bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.
I feel like a juggler running out of hands.
Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.
The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
It would be a surprise if people thought I would be playing a lot of rock 'n' roll.
The words that are being spoken are serious, whether you take them at face value or listen to them at all, ... I'm not a preacher, I'm a singer. I can sing about serious things, but I don't think I have to put on a pious face to do it.
The songs will tell a story that I have imagined existing between the lines of Andersen's biography and some of his most famous tales, ... They speak of a misfit's love for an unattainable woman and a struggle between a huckster and someone who composes music in secret.
I've been asked to sing and that's what I do. People come (to this event) for all the right reasons.
I've always thought of myself as a ballad singer who could sing rock 'n' roll, not the other way around,
Seems to me, that the worlds are moving closer together rather than one invading the other. I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
Very similar experience happened last year when we released this album, North. It was on Deutsche Grammophon, it was very, very honest. It was the most honest record I've ever written.
I didn't want it to sound like a pastiche of Andersen,
My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It's an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.
This record may explain what I've been doing during the last 12 years when I haven't had an electric guitar in my hands.