arctic monkeys, Alex Turner Club

Chapter VI

Brooklyn Heights

I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day. I think New York is a good place to write in general because it’s a grid. It’s organized. You know where you are on the map. That centers you and your imagination is perhaps freer to roam. – Alex Turner talking to Vanity Fair in 2011

In 2009 Richard Ayoade began shooting a film based on Joe Dunthorne’s 2008 comic novel about 15-year-old Welsh lad Oliver Tate and his pyromaniac girlfriend Jordana Bevan. Ayoade was reluctant to ask Turner to contribute to his indie film as he knew it was a rather big undertaking.

We knew each other quite well by then, but I was worried – it’s a bit like asking someone to help you move house. Does he really need to be writing more songs now? Maybe he wants a break from an album a year? ‘Alex, can you sneak in another five songs?’ – Richard Ayoade talking to Independent

Later Ayoade would reflect on the film saying that the soundtrack was the best part and a huge reason for the film’s success.

“It was just like getting good stuff for free. I did nothing and it made my film a million times better. That’s the dream collaboration: you do nothing and the other person is great. That’s how I want every film to be from now on. Alex’s music was the thing I worried about least.” – Ayoade

Turner downplayed the whole process and workload admitting that he had songs already half written before he was asked to contribute, and that the songs simply fit the film by chance.

Originally however the two discussed the possibility of Turner recording several covers for the film instead of writing original work in the style of Scott Walker covering Jacques Brel, a famous french Belgian songwriter in poet, who originally inspired the likes of Walker and Bowie. Ayoade was a bit hesitant of asking Turner to write original score as to not appear pompous about his own film needing such a grand request, but clandestinely hoped Turner would suggest it himself.

Some of the songs originally discussed for covers were John Cale tunes – ‘Fear is a Man’s Best Friend’ and ‘Big White Cloud’. A 1965 tune ‘I’m Not Sayin’ by Nico, the German singer & model made famous by Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Warhol’s Chelsea Girls film appearances. Another discussed cover was Irving Berlin’s ‘How Deep is the Ocean’ covered by many famous Jazz singers and musicians for which there is allegedly an unreleased version of Turner’s cover possibly still stuck in a studio somewhere in London.

“I had some tunes that I’d been sitting around playing, I never thought they were really gonna be Arctic Monkeys tunes, just because it were me picking at an acoustic guitar. And that’s definitely not what Monkeys is about. It were just songs that I didn’t really know what they were gonna become…” – Alex Turner

After an exhaustive tour supporting Humbug, Turner found it more suiting and refreshing to be writing and playing acoustic song at his Brooklyn home shared with his girlfriend Alexa Chung, who would occasionally drop in to provide critique or admiration for the new direction. After reading Dunthorne’s novel at Ayoade’s persistent requests, and after watching clips from the film set in Wales, Turner realized that some of the material he’s been working on fits perfectly with the overall direction of the film.

“There was something about ’em – quite sparse, just letting the song be the focus. I had a couple, ‘It’s Hard to Get Around the Wind’ and ‘Hiding Tonight…’ It just occurred to me maybe I should play them to Richard, see what he thought about them. Then I wrote a couple more – not necessarily thinking, ‘Oh, I’m writing specifically for that film.’ But I had it in mind…” – Alex Turner

While Turner swears by the claim that he did not synchronize the lyrics to the scenes while he admits there was some shuffling of song structures to better fit the scenes in terms of length, there are several very strange coincidences with the lyrics matching the film. Particularly the lyrics “”fingers dimming the lights” from “Stuck on a Puzzle” while Oliver dims the lights in his parents’ bedroom to determine if his parents’ level of intimacy. Second one being ‘want the world on a dessert spoon’ from “It’s Hard to Get Around the Wind” which matches a scene of a dessert spoon next to some custard. It’s quiet possible the director was influenced by the lyrics and made sure things match up more, but it’s also quiet possible the whole thing is rather serendipitous.

It’s noted that Turner and Ayoade initially bonded over The Sweeney, a 1970s British television police drama, interest in clowns, and the distaste for clichés. The TV show, The Sweeney, was particularly referenced when Ayoade created storyboards for “Fluorescent Adolescent” music video after the band requested the video feature clowns fighting.

“I don’t think it’s summat I’d be comfortable or feel qualified to do, a film soundtrack,” says Turner in his broad Sheffield accent. “I wouldn’t really know where to start. And now, if somebody tomorrow asked us to do one, I don’t think I’m the man for that job, really. But this was an exception. I’m mates with Richard, and the way it came about, it were like a natural process.” – Turner talking about Submarine

In a funny tid bit story told by Turner, the singer was actually taken aback by the physical similarity between Submarine’s lead actor Craig Roberts and Turner himself. Further accentuated by their choice in clothing and haircuts, causing many fans to believe it was Turner himself on the cover for the album and film poster of Submarine when in fact it was Craig Roberts.

“When we went to the cast-and-crew screening, which was where I met him [Craig Roberts] for the first time, Craig came up to me and said, ‘You do realise we look an awful lot alike?’ Quite funny. But yeah, he actually looks like my dad when me dad was younger. We took some pictures together and showed ’em to me dad…” – Alex Turner

James ford who was once again assigned the seat behind the console described the studio in East London, One Inch studios, as brilliant studio that’s been stripped down to its essentials. A 60s one‑inch eight‑track tape machine and a mono half‑inch from the ’50s resembling a giant oven occupied the studio space.

The entire project was recorded live with Turner singing and playing the acoustic, Bill Ryder-Jones, of the Coral, played electric guitar, while James Ford was filling in on the piano. Ford would later add drums and bass guitar to ‘Piledriver Waltz’ and ‘Stuck on the puzzle’. The process of recording the EP straight into the mono half-inch recorder, and going to the eight track recorder for more complex songs, while preserving the minimalistic analog way of thinking throughout the recording influenced what Ford would suggest for Arctic Monkeys’ new album ‘Suck it and See’.

“It sounded great and we really enjoyed that process of not having to look at a computer, not having the option to tweak and fiddle with things. And Alex is such a good singer and performer — if he’s pushed to do it, he can do the whole take in one go. A lot of singers these days would be like, ‘Oh you can fix that or tune that in Pro Tools?’, and I think that’s a really negative thing. I think he really enjoyed being pushed in that way. So it was with that idea that we went on to approach the Arctics’ album.” – James Ford

Last year I was trying to come to terms with the idea that I’m a songwriter. I’ve gotten into country music, which I never really had a connection with or understood before. But someone like Townes Van Zandt is amazing– that’s what music’s all about, when you hear something and you don’t really have a choice but to think, “Oh fuck, all right, I’m going there then.” That’s what I got with his records.

Also, I read this story about Iggy Pop where he said there was a TV show he used to watch when he was young, and the guy would ask kids to write letters into the show, and the letters had to be less than 25 words– and he applied that to writing “No Fun”. So, since we always do songs with a thousand words, we thought we should try one that had less than 30, which turned out to be “Brick by Brick”. But I got the drummer to sing it because it seemed like the right thing to do. – A.T. talking to Pitchfork

That song introduced us to a new side of ourselves. Even though it is dumbed down, we know it, and it’s got a sense of humor; it says “I wanna rock’n’roll” like three times, which is hilarious. There have always been jokes all over our songs; I originally started writing lyrics to make my friends crack a smile, which is difficult. “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” is like one big fucking gag. I know my lyrics might be weird to some, but they’re not like that to me because I know where they come from– I know the secret. – A.T talking to pitchfork

Sometimes writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you’re thinking like, “This thing is going to come to me.” But on the other hand, you can’t just sit around and wait. You have to just do it and get it wrong sometimes in order to advance. I’ve had a lot of practice with that now. And that’s me usually sitting or standing or pacing around or whatever, but it’s all an internal tussle. – A.T talking to Spin Magazine

While living in New York’s Williamsburg with his then girlfriend Alexa Chung, Turner continued writing songs. He was particularly interested in writing songs in major chord progressions in the direction of “Cornerstone”.

The song “Piledriver Waltz” originally written and recorded for the movie Submarine was used as somewhat of a guide and inspiration for the next full length Arctic Monkeys album. Turner alluding in an interview with Independent:

“Absolutely. It always does, I’ve come to realise. It’s not like they’re that far apart, in terms of when I came up wi’ ’em. But obviously the difference is, those songs that are on the new Monkeys album have been through that mill – you know, the other three lads in the band. But in terms of songwriting, I think always one thing’s built on the last.”

The band opted to continue on with the plans to record the album in California as they reminisced about Humbug sessions. Originally interested in renting out the infamous Shangri‑La Studios in Malibu, named after the mythical Tibetan paradise. The studio had been owned by Bob Dylan and The Band who also lived there on occasion, and was a major source of inspiration for Dylan as well as the likes of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Mark Knopfler, and many others. Arctic Monkeys were also interested in working with another producer, Rick Rubin, who had recently purchased the Shangri-La Studios.

Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be that time for the Monkeys, as the studio was unavailable for the dates the band needed so they looked further down the street and stumbled on another iconic studio, Sound City Studios in Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. The studio most recently famous for capturing the iconic Nirvana’s Nevermind, as well as other greats from the 70s including Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. The band attracted to the very dated 70s look of the studio, as the place had not been majorly renovated since, declared it as the place they will record Suck it and See. The studio also featured a custom built Neve 8028 desk and Studer A800 Mark II 24‑track , and was lacking the built in Pro Tools rig, which was a great fit as the band wanted to continue the analog tape approach to their recording. Ford believed a “Steve Albini” type approach of recording a natural roomy sound without much fluff would serve the album well. The goal was to achieve the type of feel that you are standing in the room with the band, and you can hear the space around drums.

After booking the sessions, the band moved into Hollywood and made the short journey across Laurel Canyon through Hollywood Hills on a daily basis. It was during this period that Turner and the band go to see more of LA’s glitz and glamours of West Hollywood and Hollywood Hills particularly, the latter is where Turner and Helders would eventually make a permanent residence. Turner was especially impressed, noticing LA’s rich rock ‘n‘ roll history and everything the city can provide from vintage recording studios to Hollywood-grade music video production studios.

Turner made a point to have the songs fully finished and well rehearsed before heading to the studio rather than having to make creative decisions on the go.

The band set up live in the center of the live recording room at Studio City just as if they were at their rehearsal space all facing each other trying to capture a pure live performance. Ford using a minimal setup as to not overproduce the band with an overwhelming microphone setup, continuing his production mindset from working on Submarine EP. Borrowing from their “natural” sounding debut album, Arctic Monkeys committed to recording one full song per day, as to not give themselves time to rethink it. Occasionally adding instrument overdubs where absolutely needed such as guitar solos and percussions according to the band. As well as recording most of the vocals separately afterwards. Although frequently using the live vocal take, most prominently noticed on “Library Pictures”.

The entire recording and mixing process lasted just over 5 weeks and was one of the quickest sessions James Ford had ever produced. The album was mixed at studio 2 at Sunset Sound in LA, on a Neve 8088 console with flying faders by Craig Silvey. Silvey, who had recently finished working with Arcade Fire seemed the right fit for the band to continue their analog tape sounding album. The band would show up late afternoons to hear the latest mixes from Silvey, and would occasionally take them out on car drives to blast with the windows down to get a feel for the tracks with the Hollywood Hills sign fading in their rear view mirror. The band declined to do major changes during the mix process other than adding a catchy guitar line in ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’.

“‘She’s Thunderstorms’ was a tricky one. It’s the cymbals thing — I always think loads and loads of kind of swoshy ride cymbals makes it harder to get that sense of space. With ‘The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala’, we added an extra guitar part actually at the mix, which was quite mad. A weird, descend‑y guitar part. Most of the time, we didn’t have to make loads of changes. We were all on the same page.” – James Ford

After the album was finished, the band settled on Suck It and See as the final title after discussing the pros and cons of other proposed titles such as The Thunder-Suckle Fuzz Canyon, The Rain-Shaped Shimmer Trap, The Blond-O-Sonic Rape Alarm, and Thriller. Some of the proposed album names as well as song names were directly influenced by the various creative names printed on the guitar pedals and effect pedals the band used for recordings. They settled on the Suck It and See after one of the album’s Singles. Even though Turner has lived in America for a few years by this time, most of his friends and acquaintances were British which would explain the somewhat provocative LP name. Although the American press pressingly jabbed into the Arctic Monkeys’ album title for it’s more devious and sexual innuendo alternative meaning, the album title comes from a well known British idiom or phrase which in translation answers the question “Is this any good?” by “Try it and find out” or “Suck it and see”.

This sexual innuendo narrative was prominently pushed by Lisa Kennedy, a conservative talk host, while interviewing the band for iHeart Radio. She pressed the band on issues of the album title and if they will have any regrets looking back on their music regarding it’s sexual innuendos. Turner assured her it was not sexual in nature and in fact misunderstood in America. The band new she was out to get them however as she opened up the lighthearted interview with a pleasant “Alex, are you drunk?” before following up with “Is suck it and see the answer to ‘Does your weiner taste like cotton candy?’” resulting in one of the more awkward interviews the band was a part of.

Although not officially counted as a single, the first release off of “Suck it and See” was “Brick by Brick”. The video for the song produced by Focus Creeps was released on March 4th 2011 by Domino. To compensate their absence from the UK and to showcase their loyalty to Sheffield, the Arctic Monkeys started to showcase some of their love for their hometown by featuring subtle nods to Sheffield. The simplistic music video for Brick by Brick features a woman playing the new song on vinyl with Sheffield Coat of Arms on the record label, occasionally smoking while waiting impatiently for someone from the band to appear on the screen.

While there are certain nods to England and Sheffield in particular left only for their home fans to actually recognize, most of the videos on Suck it and See are directly showcasing their new found love for southern California, particularly Los Angeles.

“We were in Miami on tour once and we just got off a long flight to there and we had an idea for a song called ‘Brick by Brick’ and so we wrote it that night just sorta in a bar. But it was quite loose, we thought about it as the concept of a song and all these things that you want to do– brick by brick– and we just made a list of them that was probably three times as long as what it ended up over that night and the next few weeks.” – AT talking to NME

But the first single from the album, “Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved your Chair”, with video once again produced by Focus Creeps, was released on April 12th 2011 followed by the music video two days later.

While “Don’t sit Down cause I’ve moved your chair” features some footage of Wednesday, a popular Sheffield soccer club, it’s mostly just bright psychedelic colors blending in various neons and is more “experienced” than seen. With the heavy handed single out for the masses, rumors and assumption quickly erupted into a mass frenzy that the band had turned too stoner rock or grunge. If anything, fast were mostly let down as the rest of the album is not at all grungy but rather romantic and pop in the best way possible. With it’s massive VHS-esque overwhelmingly red font the writing “Don’t” splatters proudly across a neon green and blue Alex Turner singing on the song artwork. Arctic Monkeys debuted the new single in America live on Letterman. Turner appearing in a black leather jacket, blue jeans, sporting a perfectly messy long hair down to his neck, delivered the perfectly synchronized performance and every bit as tight as the album recording. A week earlier (double check) the band debuted the song in England on Later with Jools Holland, with Turner featuring an exact same outfit and haircut delivering a pitch perfect performance all the same. During the same Jools Holland appearance, the band also debuted “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” and “Library Pictures”.

“The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” was chosen as the second single from the album, initially debuted as a music video on 7 July 2011. The Single was released on 15 August 2011 supported by the B side “Little Illusion Machine (Wirral Riddler)” sang by Miles Kane. Following the trend of earlier music videos, “The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala” was once again directed by Focus Creeps and features the model Scarlett Kapella. The very grainy film style video features the band doing general “rock band” things on the California coast, driving in a convertible or taking glamour shots on the rooftops overlooking the beach.

“Suck It and See” was selected as the third single and the music video was released 16 September 2011. In a rare move the band also released a music video for “Evil Twin” which follows the story of an LA biker and his girl, starring Matt Helders and American model Breana McDow as his “girlfriend”. The two later started dating in real life and subsequently married in Rome in what some would call a perfect movie like ending on a backdrop of a floral canopy at Villa Aurelia, a historic villa with very expansive gardens.

Music video for their fourth official single. “Black Treacle” came out January 5th, and completes the story of Matt Helders and his pursuit of his love interests. Not to miss all the action this time, Alex Turner, makes his cameo appearance as he readies his hair in the bathroom debuting his new “American” haircut for the first time. The single also included a B side, “You and I”, featuring Turner’s idol, Richard Hawley. The band also released a music video of the band recording the song and riding motorcycles around town. The band released the most videos for a single album, a total of 7, marking a new career high for the band confirming their love for the art form.

Arctic Monkeys’ fourth album had once again gone straight to number 1 in the UK followed by a barrage of positive reviews.

Chapter V

The Humbug Poet

“Music with lyrics in a language you don’t understand or no lyrics at all has the power to send vehement shivers through your body. It’s almost as if the melody or something else in there has an invisible direct line to the depths of the subconscious. This interests me greatly.

– Alex Turner

* * *

Josh Homme embodies the true quintessence of desert rock in every sense of the meaning. Born in Joshua Tree, California, and raised in the nearby Palm Desert, a smaller city of under 50k people, Homme learned quickly about the dangers of living in the desert. In one particular story he tells about a man who went for a walk after his car broke down. In this story the man doesn’t bring any water with him on his short walk through the desert and dies before he could get back to the car. The desert is to be taken seriously, and Homme is the perfect tour guide for these young Monkeys to explore its dangers.

Homme was one of the main members of the stoner rock band Kyuss of the Palm Desert Scene, that made the term “desert rock” famous world wide. Homme, wearing a red flannel shirt, is always with a cigarette between his fingers as he towers over his new studio guests, Arctic Monkeys. At muscular 6’4, he looks somewhere between a football quarterback, a Norwegian viking descendent. His slick back blonde hair, and Jim Morrison with his love for poetry, theatrics, and rare words such as “Cockalorum” (a self-important little man) which he explains to Turner as they exchange iPhone notes.

Turner appears to change drastically during his time in the desert, after spending considerable time with the American “stoner rock” pioneers. Homme who is an avid smoker, appears with a cigarette in his hand while looking across the room as he commanders the band to do another take. It was after these desert sessions that Turner first appeared to be smoking publicly, even though he never crossed the realm into a “real” smoker usually unveiled by his lack of full inhales, he has been spotted “casually smoking” in front of the camera many times. Usually appearing to suck on the cigarette as it were some fancy cigar then quickly exhaling because hey it’s bad for you.

* * *

Alex Turner first met Josh Homme at a music festival in Belgium. Allegedly Homme bursted into the Arctic Monkeys’ dressing room yelling ‘Monkeys!’ as if he “owned the place” Turner recalls in a funny story. They immediately hit it off due to their same taste in music and movies, a mutual respect for each other’s bands, and a mutual love for interesting words and poetry.

Domino Records boss, Laurence Bell, suggested the band work with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme after finding out that’s all they play in their tour van. It’s one of the few bands everyone in the van could agree on, so they just kept them on. Beside Queens of the Stone Age, the band were also working their way through some of America’s classic bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and solo albums of Roky Erickson as well as his psychedelic outfit The 13th Floor Elevators.

Shortly after playing a joint show in Houston, Arctic Monkeys asked Homme to record their follow up to Favorite Worst Nightmare. Homme quickly obliged. Parts of Humbug were recorded at Joshua Tree studio, Rancho De La Luna, particularly crying lightning, potion approaching, fire and the thud, dangerous animal, among others. 12 songs were recorded in Rancho De La Luna, and 12 in New York. Fire and the Thud featured Alison Mosshart of The Kills, one of the more personal songs on the album according to Alex Turner. He penned the song about his then girlfriend Alexa Chung after she got the offer to relocate to New York for MTV. In an interview with Mojo magazine in September of 2009 he recollected “It’s the most honest song on the record. Some songs are disguises for one little thing that you wanna say. Just to tell someone something. Others are more constructed, formulaic and traditional. Show-offy. Whereas this song, is not so considered. Visceral.”

Originally it was intended that Alison Mosshart sing the song fully, and a version of her singing the entire song was recorded but never released. Turner made the last minute decision to re-sing it due to the personal nature of the lyrics about his ex girlfriend.

But Humbug wasn’t a perfect release without a stumble. Originally, “Pretty Visitors” was chosen as the 3rd single to be made into a music video, but was changed last minute to “My Propeller”. This choice proved to be a poor one as “Pretty Visitors” became much more loved by the fans, and is still being played on tours in 2018 while My Propeller was made fun of for what many fans thought was about Turner singing about his “Propeller” not working. A sexual putdown of some sort by his distractors.

Following the footsteps of Favourite Worst Nightmare in 2007, Humbug was released first in Japan, on 19 August 2009, followed by Australia, Brazil, Ireland and Germany, on 21st of August 2009 and finally released in the UK on 25th of August 2009. In the US it was released on August 24th. Several Arctic Monkeys Japanese releases had extra songs added to it. On Favourite Worst Nightmare it was Da Frame 2R and Matador, and this time on Humbug it was “Red Right Hand”, a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds cover. Established bands generally in Japan a few days before everywhere else to discourage importing CDs from EU & US. This is due to the fact that Japanese fans can import CDs cheaper than buying the local versions due to government regulations. Bands often have to include extra tracks in the Japanese releases to give a larger incentive to the fans to pay the higher price. Another reason is Japanese Record stores do not want to advertise an imported version of the album, and fans do not want to pay the higher price for an identical album.

Lyrics usually come to me in the morning, in the first 15 minutes of the day, or when I’m out in the middle of the night, I carry a notebook, and I’ll write a line down in a bar, then maybe the next day I’ll look at it and think, Ah, that’s interesting, I’ll put this in a song. But other times, it just says ‘John Lennon is a TV chef’ or something.

– Alex Turner talking to Vulture

“I was listening to a lot of country music when I wrote it [Cornerstone], and it had that formula where the verses always end the same way. That happens a lot in Patsy Cline tunes. I started with the line ‘I smelt your scent on the seat belt.’ In reality, I was sitting in the back of a taxi and I got this scent in my nostrils of whomever I was longing for. I may have also had the names of the pubs in mind. Not to sound like a wanker, but with that song, I had an idea and it wrote itself. I’m not sure how I ended up with the girl’s sister in the last verse, though. When I was in school, I think I probably fancied my girlfriend’s sister or something.” – A.T talking to Vulture

“My mouth hasn’t shut up about you since you kissed it. The idea that you may kiss it again is stuck in my brain, which hasn’t stopped thinking about you since well before any kiss. And now the prospect of those kisses seems to wind me like when you slip on the stairs and one of the steps hits you in the middle of the back. The notion of them continuing for what is traditionally terrifying forever excites me to an unfamiliar degree.” -AT love letter to Alexa

Speaking to the BBC the band admitted being influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Jake Thackray, John Cale, Nick Cave, Roky Erickson and The Beatles on this new album. While those are true, upon closer examination it becomes clearer that sonically and stylistically Humbug vastly draws from the ideas of Jim Morrison and The Doors, as well as Josh Homme and Queens of The Stone Age. Both of the latter acts are prominent California rock bands who were associated with pioneering the California desert sounds and vibes. And while largely influenced by those two acts Turner avoids sounding derivative or unoriginal, mostly by incorporating his sharp wit and his most fluid poetic delivery of tongue twisting lines such as Crying Lightning’s “With folded arms you occupied the bench like toothache / Stood and puffed your chest out like you’d never lost a war / And though I tried so not to suffer the indignity of reaction / There was no cracks to grasp or gaps to claw” or on Pretty Visitors: “And the bicycle wheels all struggle to move ’round/ In your muddy mind, blatantly caked and / Unwilling to wind uncooperative time /So he sits on the springs ’til the muck goes dry”. It’s as if John Cooper Clarke and Jim Morrison wrote songs together and Josh Homme and John Lennon played guitars. It’s this perfect fusion of different influences that breaks the barrier into brand new creative territory for Turner.

Humbug marks a new milestone in the band’s career as it was the first LP to be fully recorded and produced in America. Josh Homme took the band to Joshua Tree’s famed Rancho De La Luna Studio made famous by Josh Homme’s musical projects.

“We didn’t talk much on the drive, we just listened to mix-tapes we made for each other. I felt like I was their guide to the Amazon: They came to me: ‘Will you take us to the weird and the strange?’” – Josh Homme talking to Rolling Stone

Alex Turner cleverly dropping a Jim Morrison influence hint in his description of what it felt to be there at the Joshua Tree studio with Josh Homme.

“I remember getting there, being as far from home as I’d ever felt, but also very much at home. You start thinking of what are people going to think about it. But it all went away and we were able to just do this…the doors of perception swung open.” – Alex Turner speaking to Uncut

While taking breaks in between the songs, the band would gather on the studio porch and swap turns of firing air rifles into the distance and go for drinks in the nearby Pioneertown, a movie set built in the 1940s portraying a vintage USA town for Wild West films.

“Joshua Tree was different from any situation we’d ever been in before, so we felt like, ‘We can do anything,’ I think it surprised us how much we were like, ‘Wow, this is a special place.’” – Alex Turner talking to Rolling Stone

The band split the record between Homme’s Rancho De La Luna and James Ford’s work at Mission Sound Studio in Brooklyn where Turner was living at the time. There were some early concerns about the vastly different studio recording environments set on two far away US coasts and that it would produce divergent sounding songs. But the early work with Homme set the mood for the record which the band continued with Ford’s sessions. It’s truly remarkable that in the end there are no noticeable differences between the two vastly different sessions to the listener.

Josh Homme recalled first hearing the first batch of the rough unfinished demo tracks for the album and being blown away by the direction and close proximity to his own musical ambitions. “I’ll be damned, these motherf**kers want to paint landscapes.” prompting him to jump on board full heartedly. Homme always wanted to work with artists he believed are here to leave a long lasting impression, to create a classic album, one for the ages that will live long after we are all gone. He truly believed he had found that with the new Arctic Monkeys direction. Josh Homme is also credited with selling the band the idea that playing slow is harder. And would often encourage them to slow it down and experiment with new sounds and beats. And when the band were insecure or wondering if their new direction was “too weird” he would often stop them in their tracks to tell them it is in fact still Arctic Monkeys. It’s clear to see this album would never have sounded this way without Homme’s heavy hands on approach.

Josh made us believe in ourselves, really, he’s got a charm, he can persuade you to do things. We’d never done slow, heavy rock songs. It was a different world to us. I don’t know if we’d have gone there if it hadn’t been for Josh. He used to tell us, ‘It’s harder to play slow.

– Jamie Cook

“For as long as I’ve known the Monkeys, they’ve always wanted to play that most dangerous of games, which is to grow and change with each record that they made, while retaining their sense of themselves at the centre of it. It’s the most dangerous thing a band can do, and also the most necessary. If you’re lucky enough to be a musician, you have to take risks. If you risk nothing, you get nothing.

You’re constantly enticed by labels and fans to sort of mimic yourself. But you have to shut that out. Certainly, after his album with the Last Shadow Puppets, Alex was ready to grow in meters instead of in centimeters. The Arctic Monkeys were on a search for themselves, and nobody who attempts mimicry can understand that. They needed to be with someone who had pursued that, and I have always thrown myself into the fire. I also have a lot of experience blowing it, which is the key to getting things right. So we were of absolute like mind and of similar taste. When we started, we already had more in common philosophically than we understood consciously. And that understanding made for quick friends.” – Josh Homme talking to sound on sound

The band booked the first sessions in September of 2008 to officially begin work with Josh Homme who officially got reigns as the album’s co-producer in the sense that he produced half the album, and Alain Johannes, who also served as a touring member of Homme’s Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures, as the engineer. Homme asked the band if they want to be pushed and molded as a band or if they wanted someone who will just click record, they quickly settled on the former. The end result is a beautifully catchy pop album that has been dragged through the desert and drugged with various psychedelics along the way.

“Those prog‑rock elements like in ‘Crying Lightning’, all those weird passages tucked right in the middle of a pop single, I love the guts of that, because it is very sexy and it paints a dark and imposing picture without alienating anybody. I love how much of an infiltration that stuff is.” – Josh Homme talking to sound on sound

The makeshift house studio in the desert was mainly being run by David Catching after his co-founder Fred Drake died of cancer in 2002. Catching, who performed with The Eagles of Death Metal embodied the desert rock motto, lived at the studio while the band recorded. Each part of the house had it’s “studio purpose” as vintage guitars proudly occupied the bedrooms, living room served as the recording HQ and bathrooms were even used for certain guitar sounds.

“It’s unbelievable how good an amp sounds lying on the toilet facing the ceiling,” – Josh Homme talking to WSJ

The casual nature of the setup and it’s bare and quiet surroundings provided for a very relaxed and calming experience.

“You didn’t feel like anyone was breathing down your neck,” – Alex Turner

The album name isn’t a Christmas or Charles Dickens’ popular “Bah, humbug” reference from the novel A Christmas Carol although it would be applicable there as well.

The band’s album name Humbug actually comes from a British hard boiled candy with a soft center, usually with black and white stripes and with a peppermint flavor. This candy is most commonly found in the UK or one of it’s old colonies. The band referred to this candy as a metaphor for their current sound while referring to their old albums as Jelly Babies and Starburst.

Dickens’ usage of the word humbug indicated a bitterness or dissatisfaction with the Christmas season rather than referencing a type of candy. However, it is now common and ironic to offer Humbug candies as part of the joke in many cultures around Christmas time. Turner and the band toyed with the idea of calling the album “No Artificial Flavor” or “Dupery” (as in being duped), but opted for “Humbug” due it’s double meaning in the end.

“We were comparing our third record to this candy as opposed to the first two records perhaps being a bit softer—like Jelly Babies or Starburst,” – Alex Turner

The process of completing the Humbug lyrics was an unusual one for Turner as he lost his notebook, a brown notebook with a picture of a fox on it, in an alleged robbery which contained almost finished works for the album. Turner set out to quickly rewrite parts he could recall from memory, jotting down ideas in his Moleskines notebooks for hours. The process of trying to remember his earlier ideas in return helped him write new and fresh endings to his original lyrical ideas. In the end, the process of losing the lyrics notebook ended on a positive note as the final product shines with lyrical brilliance evoking tremendous waves of positive feedback and praise from critics and fans alike.

Alex Turner now living in New York City year around when he’s not touring, felt comfortable with the idea of not going back to England to do any of the recording.

“Crying Lightning” was chosen as the first single and debuted on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show on July 6th 2009 and made available digitally online. It debuted at number 12 on the UK Singles Chart in the first week, and the single would eventually peak at #1 on the UK Indie Chart. Shortly after the trippy music video of the band sailing through the rough sea on a dinghy boat with Turner as it’s proverbial captain. Dressed in a red turtlekneck, black coat, and long wavy hair covering part of his face, Turner yells the poetic lyrics into the storm ahead as the waves get rougher. The music video produced by Diarmid Scrimshaw for Sheffield’s Warp Films was directed by their friend, Richard Ayoade, once again. Although the music video appears to take itself much more seriously than Ayoade’s previous attempt, it does take a comedic turn towards the end as Turner rises up from the ocean to play the guitar solo. as to not take themselves too seriously, the rest of the band follows suit.

“Yeah, a bit Lord of the Rings… I think the idea was to have a very over-the-top video, with them as giants. I always think that’s quite funny in music videos, cos it’s such a pompous thing to do. Like in the Jackson 5’s ‘Can You Feel it’.” – Turner on Crying Lighting music video

The second single was selected as “Cornerstone” and was first released on November 16th 2009. The song being one of the more “pop” tunes on the album that were recorded by James Ford in NYC rather than the desert alongside “My Propeller” and “Secret Door”. Turner has repeatedly called this song one of his favorites pieces of musical and lyrical writing to date. The inspiration for the song comes from a writer Jake Thackray who had a knack for witty writing.

There is this guy called Jake Thackray and he writes these sort of narrations that are kind of humorous. In some of his live recordings he will sort of pause so that people can laugh. There is this song of his called “Lah-Di-Dah,” and it’s about all the sort of nonsense he feels he is going through now that he has agreed with this girl that they’re in love and they’re going to be married. And it’s, “And now I’ll meet your auntie and stroke her cat, and talk to your Dad about the war.” In each verse he sort of starts the same way and describes a different angle of it. And that sort of stood out to me in the way that you are always right there with him.

AT explaining the inspiration for Cornerstone

Some of the more abstract poetic lyrics came to Turner in the middle of the night in his half awake state.

“I wrote a lot during the middle of the night. I’d wake up, jot things down, then get back to sleep. And some of them became songs about that time of day, when you’re not as alert.” – Alex Turner

And other’s more coherent thoughts came to him in the morning, such as writing Cornerstone, as he told Uncut Magazine.

“There’s something to be said for writing in the morning. At other points in the day you’re a bit more defensive. I saw it as a challenge to write something in a major key, but that wasn’t cheesy.” – Alex Turner talking to Uncut

The 10” inch release of “Cornerstone” single features some more of Turner’s brilliantly poetic tunes such as “Fright Lined Dining Room” and “Catapult” which would probably be included on the LP if the band weren’t so keen on keeping their LPs short and concise. The B-sides on “Cornerstone” once again proving that the band takes all of their releases very seriously and is not just trying to collect money by pushing out leftovers.

Richard Ayoade was once again hired to direct the band’s newest single, but this time opting for a much more simplistic low budget idea as if they spent all their money on “Crying Lightning” earlier in the year. Turner appearing in a red turtleneck sweater, iconic long hair, vintage headphones and voice recorded, looked and sang straight into the camera as he vividly expounded the details of the story of looking for a girl around town but only finding lookalikes before settling for her sister. Ayoade opted out for a single camera, continuous shot without a single cut, while maintaining a vintage 90s VHS look for the production. Even with no other band member or person appearing in the music video, it received numerous praises by media outlets for it’s original idea and execution.

Turner was also praised for his ability to carry the music video alone. The music video was nominated for NME video awards in 2010, but eventually lost to Biffy Clyro’s ‘The Captain’. The band did however win ‘Best Live Band‘ at the same awards. NME Awards are not to be taken too seriously however as Alex Turner was also nominated for ‘Hero of The Year‘ (which went to ‘Rage Against The Machine‘), while ‘Humbug’ was nominated for both ‘Best Album’ and ‘Worst Album’ at the same event, winning neither.

“I think our music’s usually got humour in it. We try to carry that over to the videos….try to make it like a non-video. But that video was definitely summat we could have only done together [with Ayoade]. I was probably still reluctant doing it even with Richard [Ayoade]. We did a version of it in his living-room one night, where I just couldn’t get through it without laughing. It was the same when we actually shot it – both cracking up, trying to keep a straight face as I did a little pirouette.” – Alex Turner talking about Cornerstone music video shoot

The band decided to follow up “Cornerstone” with “Pretty Visitors” alongside three B-Sides for a 10” release, but had a change of heart at the last moment and switched it to “My Propeller”. The decision was somewhat misguided as the song did not appear to be one of the more popular songs on the album while “Pretty Visitors” became a live favorite. The rumor started somewhere out of Germany initially that the song and particularly the lyrics “My propeller won’t spin and I can’t get it started / when are you arriving,” is an innuendo about erectile dysfunction. British magazine The Guardian was most notably harsh on the review of that song pushing the story further. Turner addressed the rumors on CBC Radio Canada and somewhat laughing the whole thing off in stride.

“If that was a euphemism, then I wouldn’t be saying that my propeller wouldn’t spin – ‘cos you wouldn’t wanna go shouting that out, would you? It’s more describing a mood more than an organ. A descent. It’s about a descent.” – Alex Turner

The video for the single came out on March 18th 2010, a few days before the 10” which came out exclusively at Oxfam charity stores. The psychedelics monotone black and grey CGI music video is attributed simply to ThirtyTwo production, a British network of creative music and media founded by Toby Slade-Baker who previously worked with Franz Ferdinand, while not publicly revealing director or producer for the video.

However, Turner and co. outdid themselves once again on the B-sides of “My Propeller” single with LP worthy songs “Don’t Forget Whose Legs You’re On” and “The Afternoon’s Hat” both of which are probably more exciting than the album opener. Calling any Arctic Monkeys release a failure however would be a false one since “Humbug” would eventually receive critical praise before capturing the #1 spots on UK Album Charts, #1 on US Independent, and #1 on Irish Albums, as well as going Platinum in the UK.

The band would be praised for taking risks and going into the desert to work with Homme which would be touted as the pre-requisite to make their next few albums that were influenced by “Humbug” while veering off in their own creative directions.

The album was officially released on August 24th ahead of the ban’d Reading and Leeds Festival Appearance. The change in the band’s approach to music is also evident in their choice of Album cover. For the very first time the band opted to be included on the cover. The photo taken by the New York based fashion photographer, Guy Aroch, at the band’s wrap up sessions at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. The psychedelic mood of the album is supported by the photo which shows fading mirror images of the band members.

Chapter IV

The Last Shadow Puppet

“It’s like watching footage of an explosion in reverse. It’s like John Lennon meets… Paul.”

– Alex Turner talking to NME about The Last Shadow Puppets origins

* * *

Alex Turner’s childlike playfulness can go from zero to a hundred within the same interview. Transitioning from seemingly cute and charming to what some have called full blown arrogance or nuisance depending on his company and how much he respects the interviewer. Some would say he’s at his worst when he’s being attached to the hip by faithful and eternal musical companion —Miles Kane.

Their connection at times bordering between brotherly love and full-on bromance. Conversations are abruptly paused while the two stare into each other’s eyes. Synchronizing their breathing and their thoughts process in order to complete each other’s sentences. Long parts of the interview seem to get away from the interviewer as the two “long-lost brothers” aim to move from interview to an acapella duet performance of a random Beatles song. [double check how they met] Turner and Kane first met through mutual friends in the local music scene. While the two admit bonding on their first shared tour.

“We supported Arctic Monkeys a couple of years ago and the connection was mind-blowing, wasn’t it?” Kane said in their first joint interview to NME. “Yeah! It was always us four (Arctic Monkeys) and them three (The Rascals) going out together. A sachet of delight! (both laugh) It wasn’t for another couple of years until Miles and I…” Turner paused waiting for Kane to interject. “Got on the path of the tunes,” Kane took over the sentence.

It’s a normal occurrence while interviewing the two rockstars together. “Yeah, I remember speaking to you one Saturday afternoon on the phone. I was in town and it was raining and we were discussing ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do something’,” Turner explained. Kane’s face lit up with excitement as they resisted their origins. “But before that we’d joked about doing it. We’d joke that on the cover we’d be in white polo necks, with a cigarette burning on the piano and that joke has gone into real life!” Kane replied enthusiastically. It received a visual applause from Turner’s face.

While unofficially it is thought that Turner is the brains behind the songwriting operation, officially the duo share the songwriting credit equally. “He struts around the room and I sit down with the pad, we say we’re Guy (Chambers) and Robbie (Williams)!” Kane exclaims. “But it’s different every time! We say ‘Who’s going to Robbie this time?’!” Turner quickly interjects. “We have to take it in turns! We can’t both be Robbie,” Kane concludes the thought.

* * *

“Some lyrics are declarations of love or hate written in blood or carved in a bus stop, in need of little or no melodic illumination,” Turner said, discussing his new songwriting process. “Some, I believe, are there almost entirely to facilitate it. If I ever thought about it at all I’m sure I used to think the melody was the vessel that carried the lyrics but more recently it has occurred to me that the opposite is often true,” Turner concluded with a seriousness in his eyes. As Turner explains his songwriting process it’s difficult to know if he’s quoting a famous philosopher or one of his own songs. Miles Kane on the other hand is more straight forward character.

Miles Kane was born on March 17th 1986 (just a couple months after Turner), in Merseyside county, North West England. Like Turner, Kane was an only child. It’s a possible explanation for the two’s often visible display of brotherly love. Kane learned to play the saxophone before learning the guitar. He eventually joined The Little Flames, an indie rock band from Hoylake, England, when he turned 18. The band quickly signed to Deltasonic, a Manchester based record label, and went on tour with Arctic Monkeys as a support band. Turner was a big fan of Kane‘s band and was often seen wearing the band’s T-shirt live on tour. Arctic Monkeys eventually even covered The Little Flames‘ song “Put Your Dukes Up John” for a b-side release of “Leave Before the Lights Come On”. The Little Flames split up before their LP was to come out. Kane instantly formed a new band, The Rascals, taking some of the old band members but this time with him as the lead singer.

Kane’s new band immediately got back on the road opening up for Arctic Monkeys once again. It is rumored that Miles Kane was the first candidate to replace Andy Nicholson as the band’s new bassist, but his newly tasted love for being in front of the microphone commanding the audience influenced his decision greatly. It was further rumored that Kane might join Arctic Monkeys full time as a 5th member. “I really wanted to be a frontman at that time. I hadn’t been a frontman. I had a hard-on for that,” Kane confirmed to Q Magazine.

During their time touring together, Kane and Turner hit it off immediately. They started writing songs backstage before and after shows while also finishing each others thoughts and sentences. They seemed to share the same love for big orchestral arraignments and Scott Walker song themes. They quickly agreed to co-front the new band they titled “The Last Shadow Puppets”.

* * *

“I was listening to the Kinks’ Face to Face a lot, though we’d already written the first record before I started to appreciate Ray Davies’ storytelling,” Turner told Pitchfork. “For me, as far as lyricists, it goes from Ray Davies to Nick Cave to Method Man. Rappers have to put so many words into one song, so keeping that interesting is just a really cool fucking craft. I stepped out of rap for a while, and it’s only in the last year that I’ve gotten into Lil Wayne and Drake, who are amazing,” Turner reflected. “There’s a lot of that on the Monkeys’ jukebox at the moment. Around this time is also when I started spending a lot of time with Miles Kane, who I made the Last Shadow Puppets album with, and we got into Scott Walker’s Scott 4, which really blew my mind. That’s when I started to want to sing,” Turner explained.

Turner moved away from singing about nights in Sheffield and adopted a more cinematic view of love, lust, and heartbreak. Equally influenced by Scott Walker and the soundtracks to the movies such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly by Ennio Morricone, Turner and Kane moved to France to capture their new exciting vision.

“I’ve had the phase where I enjoyed being part of a ‘well-oiled machine’ and I’m currently subscribing to the notion that the most unpredictable or unlikely moments are probably the most entertaining. This is also a reflection of an approach to songwriting. I think it’s the predictability in a lot of modern pop that prevents it from making us feel anything,” Turner told Telegraph.

Alexa Chung, born in 1983, was working as a TV presenter when she met Turner in London, England. The two quickly hit it off and moved in together into a flat in London in 2007. Chung equally as accomplished and widely known in England as both a TV presenter and fashion icon got a job offer from MTV in New York. It was too good to pass up. The famous couple first settled in Williamsburg, a trendy hipster part of Brooklyn, NY. (Chung later moved to East Village, buying a small 190 square foot apartment after the couple broke up in 2011.)

Album Cover taken from one of iconic photos from the 1962 by the Prix Nadar award winning British photographer, Sam Haskins, who died just a year after the album was released in Australia. Chung was a long time fan of the photography book, Five Girls, containing these images used by The Last Shadow Puppets. Chung is thought to have been responsible for suggesting they use one of the photos from the book for their album art. The model on the cover was a South African art student, by the name of Gill, who was not a professional model at the time.

“One final parallel I’d like to draw between songwriting and being on stage is they both sometimes feel like a series of intermittent interpretations and impersonations of various artists I admire. Interpretations and impersonations that are hopefully colliding aggressively and rapidly enough with one another that the origins of the inspiration is largely obscured and from it comes something original,” Turner told Telegraph.

“This all happens deep down inside and is something that has developed incrementally over time. It’s not as thought out as this analysis might suggest. I’m not rehearsing in front of the mirror with the hairbrush before a gig or anything, although that’s not a conclusion I’d be opposed to you drawing,” Turner continued. “In fact I quite like the idea that the performance suggests there’s just been a De Niro in Raging Bull style self-pep talk backstage before I emerge, where I gaze deep into my light bulb bordered reflection and speak profound words of encouragement to myself,” Turner said in the same interview.

* * *

In the studio, Kane and Turner are dressed in all black. Wearing their Chelsea boots, turtlenecks, mop tops, vintage guitars, looking every bit Lennon & McCartney while singing in complete unison. Their voices are at times overlapping indistinguishably. They are swapping chairs as they swap the rare 60s iconic burgundy red Martin GT-75 hollowbody Electric and the Gibson Acoustic guitars in between songs. Without paying very close attention you might miss all of this, as their appearance is nearly identical by this point.

The Last Shadow Puppets recorded several live acoustic performances of their singles at the Avatar Studios (Studio A) in New York City in March of 2008 shortly after their debut album was released.

To capture the album, The Shadow puppets moved into a 60s era secluded and private hotel & studio in France, known as The Black Box Studios, where they recorded the majority of the material. The 250 square meter converted barn studio is neatly located in the French countryside of the Anjou region, near the Loire Valley, an hour and a half by train from Paris. Several songs were additionally recorded in London at RAK studios, a 70s era recording studio compound located in central London near Regent’s Park. The orchestra score was composed by the Canadian composer, Owen Pallett, and recorded by the London Metropolitan Orchestra at the historic British Grove Studios, owned by Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler.

“It’s was in the north of France somewhere, about an hour from Nantes. It was just us, James Ford who produced and played drums and an engineer, we didn’t get out much or see anyone,” Kane explains the recording process. “We rode a bicycle one Saturday afternoon right at the end of it and properly got freaked out. We rode a bike like a mile,” Turner continued making sure the conversation never turns too serious. “We had our tops off as well!” Kane jokes, causing them both to laugh in unison. “I wasn’t going to say that,” Turner says with a more serious expression.

Those two weeks spent in the French countryside studio are shrouded in mystery as both Kane & Turner keep their personal cards close to their vests. The assumption that all the songs on the album were about one girl, was shot down by Kane in an interview. “It isn’t just one person, though, the girl on the album,” Kane objected to Telegraph. “More an amalgamation of several female characters from different situations we’ve been in with girls over the years,” Kane explained.

The band’s producer, James Ford, admitted to Telegraph that those two weeks in the studio were frequently interrupted by endless and crazy phone calls from girls and “weird things going on”. Like much of the Turner’s private life, you are left fill in the blanks and ponder what might have been going on in the lives of two young British rock starts during the pinnacle of their world wide fame & success.

“In the first song we wrote together, we were swapping the vocal every line, and we’d have probably taken it as far as singing alternate words if the producer had let us,” Kane laughed in Telegraph interview.

The first single, “The Age of the Understatement”, came out 14 April 2008 in the UK on Domino Records containing two covers; “Wondrous Place” and “In The Heat Of The Morning” originally made famous by prominent British singers, Billy Fury and David Bowie respectively. David Bowie himself commented on the cover, calling it a “delight” and “lovely”. A nodding head of approval for Turner & Kane’s take on the song.

On June 28th 2008 The Last Shadow Puppets performed a surprise gig at Glastonbury. The Duo ran into Jack White who was performing with The Raconteurs earlier that day and asked him to join them when they met him back stage. White using Miles’ ipod to listen to the song, “Wondrous Place”, backstage and learned the few bars of music, or so the rumor goes.

“So the album is a third of tunes we did completely together. Then a third of his ones which we finished off together and then a third that were mine which we finished off,” Turner told NME.

The music video for their first single, “The Age of The Understatement”, was shot in Moscow, Russia by the award winning director, Romain Gavras. “I want it to be grand!” Kane got excited. “Tanks! I want tanks, and James Bond!” Turner exclaimed half jokingly as the two exchanged ideas back and forth for the music video. The music video does indeed take heavy influences from James Bond, featuring the band riding on Russian tanks and alongside heavy Russian infantry presence. They band would go on to win Best Cinematography at the UK Music Video Awards for the video.

The second single, “Standing Next To Me”, was released on July 7th, 2008 accompanied by 3 B-side songs not included on the debut album. Music video was shot in London by director Richard Ayoade, the same director who was responsible for capturing Arctic Monkeys live show for the Live at Apollo DVD a year earlier. The duo looking like a stylish fusion of The Beatles and The Everly Brothers stood with a guitar and a tambourine and sang intently while a group of mod style girls danced in rainbow colored leggings.

The b-sides of “Hang The Cyst”, “Gas Dance”, and “Sequels” every bit as good as some of the songs on the LP were omitted from the LP inclusion even though the debut runs just 35 minute in length. A move some thought was uncommon for artists at the time. Turner always had a taste for short and concise albums as to not bore the listeners with too much repetitive material, none of Turner’s albums ever reach an hour in length.

The third single, “My Mistakes Were Made for You”, perhaps the band’s biggest hit, was released on October 20th 2008 alongside some notable covers and acoustic version of the album songs. “My Little Red Book”, a song made popular by Manfred Mann, an English rock band from London, who recorded the song for the 1965 film “What’s New Pussycat?”.

The second cover is “Paris Summer”, recorded live at New Theatre Oxford, a song originally made popular by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood in the early 70s. Both Turner and Kane professed great love and admiration for 60s and 70s era music, especially those by Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood. Alison Mosshart, the singer from The Kills, sang on “Paris Summer” as a guest which was recorded live at The Olympia in Paris.

“When you’re on your own (as a frontman), the momentum is kind of your responsibility. When there’s two of you, especially if you can get to that place where there is an unspoken understanding, then you generate potentially even more momentum,” Turner told Telegraph.

The music video for “My Mistakes Were Made for You” was also directed by Richard Ayoade. It borrows heavily from, “Toby Dammit”, a segment from the film “Spirits of the Dead”.The film segment was directed by the famed filmmaker, Federico Fellini. (The music for the film is done by Giovanni “Nino” Rota who was later cited as influence by Turner for the his work on “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino”.)

The video was shot at Pinewood studios and features Turner’s girlfriend at the time, Alexa Chung, in the car that appears to have crashed moments earlier. Pinewood studios, the historic film and TV studio, located in located in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, is famous for producing James Bond’s Dr. No in 1962, among many James Bond movies as well as Tim Burton’s Batman.

Turner choosing to work with Ayoade at the iconic studio shows his love, knowledge, and deep appreciation for the 60s era British film making, it also reaffirms the re-occurring theme of James Bond themed music through out his career. The video for the single would end up winning The Best video award at the 2009 NME awards bringing another round of awards to the large list of accomplishments to their resume.

“I’m glad we got to talk more after the show last week. I felt during our meeting in the afternoon I’d sort of sat myself too far away from my internal cue cards and few sentences made it to the finish line. I’m not always that way, there is the occasional Danish phoner where I’m on fire, I assure you,” Turner said in an apology to the telegraph reporter.

“I’m still figuring out what ‘The Shadow Puppets’ is to be truthful. It could just be another pit stop on my drift towards superfluity, however it’s one I couldn’t resist. A couple of years ago Miles and I were working on what were intended to be songs for his next record. During a moment of vocal harmony experimentation I was invited to imagine what the second record from the two of us might sound like. This middle 8 (as we say in showbiz) seemed to have a strong relationship with the feel and sound of songs from ‘Age of the understatement’ but with a scintillation and vivacity that hadn’t really been invited to the party in 2007,” Turner told Telegraph.

Chapter III

Coolest Man on the Planet

We did the triple, but in all honesty, I suppose we’re suppose to display some gratitude in that of course, ‘voted for by the people’ and all that, we’re very happy about that, but who else were gonna be best British band among ye?

—Alex Turner at NME awards in 2006 after winning 3 awards.

* * *

In 2007 nothing was the same for Alex Turner. With a successful world tour in his rear view mirror Turner is focused on the future.

“I don’t think I’ve changed drastically. I don’t feel that different when I’m in town or at home or whatever,” Turner shrugs. “When I get home and watch telly, I don’t feel like a pop star. I know I’m making pop music but I don’t feel like a celebrity. I don’t think I’ve got it in me to act like a fucking pop star,” Turner told NME. However Turner’s reputation by this point had turned a bit cockish. Accusations of rock star arrogance were flying in the British media. “I dunno. Maybe I got pure adrenaline from it all kicking off and when I started having to do interviews or awards, I probably got more defensive, my guard went up,” Turner offered the explanation. A misunderstood-shy or “frightened kid” he would often counteract.

“Maybe a bit, and a bit frightened as well. I was 17. It didn’t seem frightening at the time but looking back, it were a bit unnerving. Back then, you just thought ‘fuckin hell, come on!’ and walked up to collect an award like you were Liam Gallagher or something,” Turner admitted to NME.

It’s the winter of 2007, in the UK, and Alex Turner is wearing a grey military style peacoat, black scarf, and washed out blue jeans. He’s sporting a bruce lee style haircut while using all of his limbs to explain the influences behind Arctic Monkeys’ new album, Favourite Worst Nightmare. He credits ESG, Prodigy, Breakwater, Queens of the stone age, and The Coral for the influence. (The rhythm section of ESG’s first album in particular sounds like it had a heavy influence on Favourite Worst Nightmare.)

“It’s said that a young girl, ’Elsie’, haunts the chamber, and unexplained faint whispers have appeared on recordings in the past,” Turner described the studio vibe to Rolling Stone in a somewhat serious tone.

Arctic Monkeys recorded their highly anticipated second album in East London with James Ford and Mike Crossey in charge of the production duties. Miloco Studios, a conglomerate of the music studios and combination of Milo Music, The Garden and Orinoco Studios, was chosen as the main location. The three studios merged as one and are responsible for producing some of the UK’s great albums by the artist such as Oasis, The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Prodigy, Roots Manuva, Coldplay, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds etc, Jarvis Cocker, and many others.

Favourite Worst Nightmare was written from song ideas the band would get in between sound checks and backstage “jams”. The repetitive nature of touring made the band fidgety on and off the stage, always messing around, playing covers of various new and old material.

“Some were written on the road – but I always try to write songs,” Turner shrugged. “Like right now, I’ve written about six tunes since the record. Some are just me with an acoustic, but others come from when we’re in practice – there’ll just be like a riff or a drumbeat we’ve recorded on a phone or something, and we’ll build it up from that. There’s loads of bits and then we put them altogether. You can only go so far strumming with an acoustic – it can become a bit one-dimensional,” Turner told Uncut.

The first single off the new album was “Brianstorm”, an up tempo song about a smooth talking and fashionably dressed character they allegedly met at a show in Studio Coast “Ageha” in Tokyo, Japan. The man described as a laid back Los Angeles character wearing a T-shirt and tie combination that left a mark on the band, enough to write their leading single about him.

The video was directed by Huse Monfaradi at Pinewood Studios, who directed the music video for “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”. The entire film crew and the band would stop working to watch Arctic Monkeys’ mailed-in Brit Award speech live on TV in the studio as it was happening on the same night. Monfaradi was largely inspired by 90s RnB videos and hired United Visual Artists, a London based artists group, to create a large LED backdrop for the video visuals. The decision to shoot the band entirely from behind was a risky move and not supported by everyone initially, but the end result surprised everyone and was highly praised by the fans and critics alike. The music video premiered on MTV on March 17th 2007 but failed to produce any award nominations.

“Brianstorm” was officially first released as a Single on April 2nd 2007, debuting at number 21 in the UK Singles Chart. It charted at #2 on the UK Singles Chart nearly dethroning Beyoncé and Shakira’s “Beautiful Liar”. The music video for the single was being recorded the same day as the Brit Awards Ceremony causing the band to have to mail-in two video acceptance messages. One where they appeared as The Wizard of Oz characters and the Village People in the other. Their manager hired a real builder, Chris ‘Stussy’ Newton, to appear with them in the Village People video spoof after spotting him on a building site and asked him to appear as a joke in place of bassist Nick O’Malley.

The costumes garnered an extraordinary amount of media attention in the aftermath of the Brit Awards that the costume shop owner Fiona Gallagher decided to put them up for sale. The seven costumes included Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow alongside the sailor, policeman and native American Indian from the Village People and were auctioned together as one item. The top bid allegedly went out to a local Hard Rock Cafe who would put it up for display. The Wizard of Oz theme runs through out the album concluding with “Old Yellow Bricks” and the line “Dorothy was right”.

The band took their costume fascinations further when they won the Brit Awards for best album dressing up in traditional English country and hunting outfits, caps, pipes, and all, and even bringing a plastic duck with them to the stage. Their speech would ultimately be cut short from the TV broadcast due to what the producers of Brit Awards perceived to be a somewhat rude tirade about the BRIT School. The school best known for producing the likes of Adele, The Kooks, and Katy B among many others, benefits financially from the Brit Awards. Turner appearing under the influence of alcohol mocking the Pop-factory school. “I’d like to thank the Brit school, of course, which I graduated from,” Turner said mockingly. He continued to single out school’s alumni in the crowd while the broadcast was cut to a backstage interviewer.

The protest from Turner and the band was thought to be a sort of a rebellion against what they perceived as the professionalizing of pop music in the UK. It is widely thought that Brit school alumni have an unfair advantage in the UK’s ultra competitive music industry.

According to some of the people in attendance, the scene turned chaotic very quickly thereafter as the band realized they were abruptly cut off. Allegedly, the band furiously threw their microphones into the audience and tried to catapult the lectern across the stage but to no avail. It was firmly bolted to the ground. “It was chaos and the Monkeys didn’t look happy about being cut off,” an eyewitness recalled. “They were clearly drunk as they were slurring their words, but they wanted their moment in the spotlight,” the person familiar with the event commented.

Adele, a Brit school alumni, took issue with Turner’s diss of the program. “He’s [Turner] not even working-class, His parents are f***ing teachers.” She told Telegraph. “When have I ever said I am working class?” Turner fired back. “I didn’t even know what the Brit School was before that night. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it really, though, is there? So long as you’re good at something, it doesn’t matter where you went to school… And I can see why people who did go there wouldn’t want to see some c*** in a flat cap ridiculing their institution,” Turner concluded.

The band joked that they were deliberating naming the album Lesbian Wednesdays, Gordon Brown (UK’s prime minister at the time), or Gary Barlow (lead singer of the British pop group Take That) but eventually settled on taking a phrase from a song on the album D is for Dangerous.

“But there’s a lyric in the ‘D Is For Dangerous’ song, and it seemed to tick all the boxes for what we were after in a title. As far as concerns what is your favourite worst nightmare, I think I’d describe it by saying it’s like someone with a gambling addiction – they get something out of it, but they know it’s bad for them. But in the song it’s more to do with… a woman,” Turner told Uncut.

The second single, “Fluorescent Adolescent”, officially came out on 4th of July 2007 alongside three B-side tracks; “The Bakery”, “Plastic Tramp”,and “Too Much to Ask”. Band opted to extend the intro to “Fluorescent Adolescent” for the Single release, and cut it down for the LP.

Turner’s then girlfriend, Johanna Bennett, is credited with co-writing the song while on holiday. The two decided to cut away from the News and the Press without access to television they kept each other entertained by singing random lyrics to each other, eventually stumbling on some interesting lines for the song.

“We were on holiday and had cut ourselves off from everything. We were in a really quiet hotel and didn’t watch TV or listen to that much music,” Bennett told The Observer. “So as not to drive each other mad we started messing around with these words like game, singing them to each other,” Bennett explained. “It’s great to think that it came from something we did for fun on holiday. It’ll always be a good memory for Alex and I. He doesn’t usually write lyrics with other people, though I think he enjoyed it.”

Bennett described the process as a more of a “word play game” than song writing. Turner had not collaborated on lyrics before that point, but Bennett believes the process as well as the positive outcome had changed his mind on collaborations. Thematically, the single borrows a lot from John Cooper Clarke, but it’s never hidden from the audience as Turner included Carke’s poem inside of the CD version of the Single.

Miles Kane, Turner’s unofficial sidekick at the time, contributed some very intricate guitar parts to the studio version of the songs for the first time. Appearing on “The Bakery”, “Plastic Tramp”, and the LP’s very dark cinematic closing track, “505”.

On the questions of why he’s writing more honest-love-songs, Turner offered the explanation: “It’s natural, perhaps I’m confronted with it more. I had a girlfriend most of last year so it weren’t like I was going mad after gigs or anything, but perhaps there’s more temptation and stuff now,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of temptation in the album. ‘D is for Dangerous’ is like a fantasy of having done the deed and you need to escape the surrounding you’ve been led to, but it’s more just a fantasy about it, knowing you haven’t actually done it. And ‘The Bad Thing’ is these three things that happened, meeting three lasses on separate occasions and it all ended up in there,” Turner told NME.

“The Bad Thing” offers up a fantasy of hooking up with another man’s woman. “Things just happen don’t they, sometimes? I don’t ever feel like I go out to look for someone or anything. Those two times I’m on about when I were, like, ‘in love have just come along. It’s easy to be very cynical. The idea of meeting someone in the street, that seems like it’s just from films and that, but that did happen to me,” Turner offered a glimpse into his personal life as a new rockstar on the scene.

“I don’t think we got it that bad really, we were never on the front page, but the only thing that was bad about it was when they were ringing up our friends, and trying to get goss out of us mates, and that was a bit much. And my ex-girlfriend got a bit of hassle – ‘If you Were There’ has a bit of a go at that, but it doesn’t really dominate my thinking, so it would have been a bit weird for that to dominate the record. When that all happened there were a few lines about all that kind of stuff, but as the year went on, they got replaced with more important things that I want to sing about every night,” Turner told Uncut.

For the music video of “Fluorescent Adolescent”, the band hired the IT Crowd director, Richard Ayoade, who reached out to his film production company, Warp, based in Sheffield and London. Ayoade floated around the idea to the film company he was working with that he was interested in making a music video, and subsequently the film company put the two parties into contact. Richard Ayoade modestly admitted he was friends with Turner as the two were living in London at the time and moved in similar circles. For the music video the band hired actor Stephen Graham, who they previously hired to act in “Scummy Man” and the “When the Sun Goes Down”, to play the lead clown. The music video borrows a lot from the poem “Out of Control Fairground” (the poem printed inside the CD case) by John Cooper Clarke and portrays a group of clowns fighting people in regular clothing, with flashbacks to a better time.

The video made a lot of headlines and eventually received a nomination for the best music video at the UK Music Video Awards. Both Turner and Cook regarded it as the best music video they’ve ever made. In the end however, the music video failed to win the award, losing to the Supergrass’ “Bad Blood” in 2008.

The band agreed “Teddy Picker” was to be the album’s third and final single for the album and was first released on December 3rd 2007 alongside three covers, “Bad Woman”, “The Death Ramps”, and “Nettles”. Turner again showcasing his deep interest in obscure 60s underground garage rock music. The cover song “Bad Woman” was never a major hit or a well known song from the 60s. It was written and recorded by Patrick Sickafus (who also goes by Pat Farrell or Pat Garrett) in 1969 under the name “Pat Farrell & The Believers” at a studio in Reading, Pennsylvania.

For “Teddy Picker”, the band chose a french director, Roman Coppola. Coppola was to direct heavily Strokes influenced music video of a band playing live and hanging out at the iconic RAK Studios in London. Several shots include the band walking outdoors presumably to the pub. Once again the band recorded a live song much like their very first music video for “I bet you look good on the dancefloor”.

Choosing Coppola isn’t by accident, as he was responsible for directing several music videos the band admired, including “Last Nite”, “The Modern Age”, and “Someday” by The Strokes, “Get Free” by The Vines, “Long Distance Call” by Phoenix, and many more. The band loved Coppola’s quick and dirty approach as they completed the entire music video in a single day. The band won Best Video at the 2008 NME Awards.

On this second album Turner showcases some of his most intimate observations with songs such as “505”, “Do Me a Favour”, and “Only Ones Who Know”. “505”, a song riddled with longing for his partner, and “Do Me a Favour” a song about the ultimate goodbyes between lovers. “It’s about a goodbye, really, and about me being a bit of a knob,” Turner explained the songs’ backstory. “Perhaps I were craving to experience something else and looking back and feeling like you were a bit of a knob-head, just in how you perhaps treated that person. It’s just describing a goodbye. That’s another thing, when you’re with someone they seem happier in photos before you met her, or happier in stories from before. I always think they do,” Turner told NME.

“I’ve been quite fortunate to dodge heartbreak. The only heartbreak I’ve had has been brought on myself. In hindsight you just think, ‘Aw, shit’; everyone has that first love thing, but there’s too much other stuff pulling you away from it,” Turner confessed to NME.

“It’s natural, perhaps I’m confronted with it more. I had a girlfriend most of last year so it weren’t like I was going mad after gigs or anything, but perhaps there’s more temptation and stuff now,” Turner admitted. “There’s a lot of temptation in the album. ‘D is for Dangerous’ is like a fantasy of having done the deed and you need to escape the surrounding you’ve been led to, but it’s more just a fantasy about it, knowing you haven’t actually done it. And ‘The Bad Thing’ is these three things that happened, meeting three lasses on separate occasions and it all ended up in there,” Turner said with a smile.

On December 3rd, Domino Records released a very limited 7” vinyl from The Death Ramps, alias name for Arctic Monkeys, containing the two songs “Nettles” and “Bad Ramps”. The pressing was only limited to 250 copies making it a very exclusive hard find today. Officially the label refused to admit Arctic Monkeys were behind the project, but all but said it with a funny comment, calling it a band with “a certain romance”. The two songs were later included in the official Single release of “Teddy Picker” CD and vinyl.

Arctic Monkeys covered Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” (who also like the Monkeys became a British breakout star in 2006 with her album Back to Black) on Jo Whiley’s Live Lounge on BBC Radio 1 while promoting their first single “Brianstorm”. Also at Glastonbury Arctic Monkeys Covered the James Bond theme Diamonds are Forever by Shirley Bassey who also played at the festival two days later.

“Cookie [Jamie] is a good barometer for things like that,” Turner said of covering songs. “He’ll always go; ‘No, I’m not doing that’. I probably would be more easily led if it weren’t for him. Maybe not so much now but earlier on,” Turner explained.

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The band wanted to do something different for the album artwork, hiring the Juno design agency again who worked on the band’s debut album artwork. The goal was to create a physical art display in an old abandoned industrial building. The agency played a few tracks from the new album to spraycan artists De5ign 4 from Southampton area. The artist spent several days spray painting inside of a house in Garston, Liverpool which was marked for demolition.

The original work done by the artist was deemed to explicit to be used directly for the artwork as it was described as “mad psychedelic shit, with lots of “cocks”. Lots of “pink cocks”. People who witnessed it in person described it: “One of the rooms has got little sperms; they’ve got cocks for heads. There’s a giant holding a severed cock”. The illustrators used the ideas they saw at the house to create the album artwork with the spray painted art visible in the windows from the street outside. It had to be toned down for mainstream consumption.

Just as their band name logo was becoming iconic they decided to switch it up, using a brand new one for the second album. They would continue on this trend throughout their releases against the advice of the labels and the music industry to stick with a logo long term for recognizability sake. Proving once again that Arctic Monkeys are not willing to play by the rulebook.

Turner doesn’t hide the fact on what’s occupying his mind during the making of the album: “I don’t know – probably girls again. It’s normally that, isn’t it?” he shrugged. “They get under your skin, don’t they? I think they leave us alone a bit – we don’t get recognized most of the time, and I think that’s a good thing,” Turner confessed to Uncut.

On the questions on what is next for the band and if he feels “grown up”, Turner offered a glimpse into his mindset: “Nah, I don’t feel like a man yet,” he laughed. “I still feel very much a boy. Maybe this is the year it’ll change, but I do feel very much a boy. I’m probably in a bit of a Neverland kinda way. We haven’t had to really grow up. I still feel quite young and this is just starting,” Turner said with a grin to NME.

Favourite Worst Nightmare sold over 220,000 copies in the opening week, and just like Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not went straight to number one in the UK, but sold 100,000 fewer copies than their big debut. “Brianstorm” and “Fluorescent Adolescent” quickly became UK Top Hits with “505” trailing closely behind.

The Album outsold the rest of the Top 20 combined by shifting 85,000 units, and all twelve songs from the album entered the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart.

The album debuted at #7 in the USA, selling roughly 44,000 units in the first week.

The band narrowly missed out on the Mercury prize as the award went to Klaxons for their Myths of The Near Future, which was coincidentally also produced by James Ford.

Interviewer: “You’ve never been very hurt, emotionally?”

Turner: “No.” Bites his lip, “I’ve got that to come.”

Foreward

Arctic Monkeys

* * *

Rock & Roll

Yeah, that rock & roll, it seems like it’s fading away sometimes, but it will never die. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

—Alex Turner

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Arctic Monkeys’ frontman, Alex Turner, is a prototypical bonafide male rockstar: women wanna sleep with him, and men wanna be him. Although, if you were reading online commentary on the band’s music videos you’d find many straight men also professing they might wanna sleep with him. All of it is too much for Turner, who shuns social media entirely, opting for a simple flip phone to reach his band mates, managers, friends, and family.

And with his charming good looks, wry wit, and a fashion sense worthy of a GQ cover, it’s no surprise Turner has this effect on all genders and sexual orientations.

How do you write a biography of a world famous man who has kept an impeccably tight lid on his personal life? Can you write a good book without the drama, without the filth? These are the questions writers has faced when contemplating a book such as this one. While selling millions of records and garnering the love of millions of fans around the world, Alex Turner has kept a rather quiet life in the mainstream media. Perhaps what sets him apart from the likes of John Lennon, Jim Morrison, or Freddy Mercury is the lack of trouble he seems to get in and the lack of public drama in his life.

It’s not as if he hasn’t had opportunities to make it to the tabloids, after all, he’s a famous millionaire living in a Hollywood Hills mansion with a model for a girlfriend. It’s Los Angeles, the trouble and temptation are always a short walk away. And while many other rockstars of his stature have either had run-ins with the law, fist fights, public drunken outbursts, or drug offenses, the only blemish on his record seems to be the band’s alleged tax avoidance accusation for which the public has barely batted an eye. He’s one of the very few rockstars that keeps no known social media accounts to interact with the outside world.

It’s rational to conclude that Turner is universally and widely beloved by his close group of friends, that simply no rumors, stories, or gossip ever leaves the inner circle. His closest friends, family, and ex-girlfriends have historically refused to utter a single bad thing or accusation in his direction. So how do you write a book about a famously brilliant musician with no dirt, drama, or bad childhood to write about? Focus on the good stuff.

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