Idris Elba adds singer to his resume on new record thanks to Lime Cordiale and tequila

It’s not the collaboration you had on your pop star bingo card and Idris Elba and Lime Cordiale’s new mini-album is full of surprises.

If it wasn’t for Australian pop rockers Lime Cordiale – and tequila – Idris Elba may not have found his voice.

The unlikely collaboration between the Aussie chart-toppers and the English film and television star, who started his career in entertainment as a DJ, kicked off early last year when Elba was in Sydney filming the new George Miller film Three Thousand Years of Longing with Tilda Swinton.

The band approached Elba, also a handy rapper, about collaborating on a new version of their track Unnecessary Things.

Idris Elba and Lime Cordiale in music video for What's Not To Like. Picture: Supplied.

So on a day off from filming, the actor headed to a Sydney studio for the session.

“I wanted to break the ice in a typical British way, so I bought a bottle of wine,” Elba says.

“And I think they thought that was quite sophisticated; why not have a little afternoon wine?

“It then quickly escalated to tequila.”

The social lubricant may have broken the ice but it was the cheerleading of Lime Cordiale’s brothers Oli and Louis Lembach which popped the cork on Elba’s hidden singing talents.

That initial session turned into three weeks of writing and recording for their Cordi Elba mini-album.

Elba joined Lime Cordiale at the Enmore Theatre last March. Picture: NCA.

The DJ who has played big gigs from Coachella to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding reception had never been a fan of his own voice but his confidence grew as Oli and Louis “directed” his vocal takes.

“I was always banging on in the studio about ‘Do you think people want to hear me? Maybe Louis should sing this bit’,” Elba said.

“They were always ‘Nah, nah, nah, you do it’ and reminding me that who I am on the mic, whether I hit a bum note or not, it’s my voice, my expression, and that was really freeing.”

The first song to take shape after the reinvention of Unnecessary Things was What’s Not To Like, which the trio released as a single in December.

It sprang from an idea the actor shared with the brothers and got the ball rolling on the four other tracks which made the cut for their Cordi Elba EP.

The Lembach brothers would strategically leave a song half-finished each night in the first week of their collaboration to guarantee Elba’s return.

“You know how you know a girl’s (interested) in coming back when she leaves a jacket at your house? We’d end a session with half a song so Idris would have to come back,” Oli said.

They needn’t have suffered those early bromance anxiety. For Elba, the opportunity to stretch both his acting and musical muscles during his Australian sojourn was “heaven”.

“I was honestly in heaven. When people see George’s film, they’ll go ‘What? You made that album while you were making that film?’” he says.

“It was the largest stretch of my artistry that I’ve ever been on and not to mention my first time in Australia.”

Cordi Elba release their debut mini-album this week. Picture: Supplied.

For Lime Cordiale, the EP also represented an opportunity to explore uncharted musical territory.

Like every other Australian artist, they found themselves at the beginning of 2021 in the vice-like grip of pandemic stasis. Their touring plans for the 2020 No. 1 record 14 Steps To A Better You were on again and off again depending on border closures and mass gathering restrictions.

For sanity’s sake, they wanted to make something new but felt the weight of expectations in the wake of the success of their second album.

How could the classically trained musicians who possessed a wealth of knowledge and expertise indulge their other musical loves like reggae and hip hop and “get away with it”?

Collaborating with Elba gave them their out. The Cordi Elba EP is a bonkers genre-free ride which conjures everyone from Madness to Gorillaz.

A dash of social lubrication ahead of Elba’s debut performance with Lime Cordiale. Picture: NCA.

“Sometimes it feels that when you’re in an indie rock band, or whatever you want to call us, people expect a certain thing from us and if give them something that’s a bit too hip hop with sampled drums and too much synths and no guitars, you can get shut down,” Oli said.

“Idris was our excuse to do whatever and have that accepted. If someone got upset about us using Casio drums on a song, we could just say ‘Oh, that was Idris’s idea.’”

The camaraderie of the sessions is evident throughout the EP with the lads keeping their banter and laughter on the tracks.

Elba’s filmmaking experience also came in handy when it came to making the video for What’s Not To Like? late last year when he was in London and the Lime Cordiale guys were in Sydney.

He came up with the retro-vibed treatment, filmed his performance on green screen and sent the files to Sydney for the Lembach brothers to add their scenes.

Just as the Australian musicians had encouraged him to sing, so Elba rallied them to get “acting” for the clip.

“They’re both pretty solid actors, even though they might not know it,” he said.

“You can tell from the video that they aren’t faking it. They’re doing what I do which is just to perform.”

The Cordi Elba EP is out on January 14.