If you want to chat to Arctic Monkeys these days, you'd better be able to swing entry to the most private of members' clubs in London's trendy Shoreditch. Lucky for TONY CLAYTON-LEA, he knows the secret knock. Inside, shy Alex Turner, who is at odds with his mouthy characters, tells him about the band's new purist songwriting and that maligned new album cover
EVERY BURB has its time in the spotlight, and this season it’s Shoreditch. Currently London’s trendiest spot, this eastern area of the city features more skinny jeans per square yard than any other part of the UK. It is no surprise, then, that we find ourselves in Shoreditch House, a private members’ club so private it doesn’t have an identifying sign outside. It is also no surprise to discover that inside this bastion of exclusivity is one of the best and most commercially successful British bands of the past five years – Arctic Monkeys.
A recap: since the release five years ago of their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, this Sheffield band has grown in profile and stature. Music industry garlands and awards notwithstanding, successive albums (2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare,2009's Humbug, the imminent arrival of Suck It and See) have borne witnessed the emergence of frontman and lyricist Alex Turner as a songwriting force to be reckoned with. Allied to his work with the band are admirable side projects such as The Last Shadow Puppets (with friend Miles Kane) and the excellent soundtrack to surely this year's oddest and most charming film, Submarine.
He's a busy boy, is Turner. He's a shy lad, too, which is why it helps that his bandmate, bassist Nick O'Malley, is sat alongside him at Shoreditch House's main bar. As it turns out, Turner's famous reticence cloaks a wariness that he soon lets fall to the floor once he realises he isn't going to be asked questions about his well known television presenter girlfriend, Alexa Chung (whose face peers out of the cover of Vogueat nearby news-stands).
O’Malley, then, will get a canny word in edgeways now and again, but mostly it is Turner who will talk. It’s a far cry from the days of the first album, he admits. Those early, reticent times in a nutshell? People who haven’t done or experienced a lot, who don’t know a lot about music despite being lauded as pioneers of a new kind of Britpop, find out fairly quickly there isn’t very much to say.
So Turner has grown up, done loads, experienced much, and knows more about music now than he ever did. He and his band have also achieved an album release strike rate that, these days, is unusually prolific if not unheard of – four quality albums in five years (not counting The Last Shadow Puppets and the Submarinesoundtrack) is an embarrassment of riches.
"It feels almost quite a leisurely pace," he says. "Last summer we were off for the entire period, so we were writing songs and coming up with ideas. I didn't have a lot else to do, to be honest. It doesn't seem like we were that busy at all, really. I'll admit that the follow-up to the first album was a bit rushed, but I'm glad we did that, otherwise we'd still be sitting around trying to figure out things. The third album, Humbug, seemed more considered by comparison."
“Not letting him have any other hobbies is the key,” remarks O’Malley of Turner’s seemingly unstoppable productivity. The bassist is clearly jesting. “We don’t let him play any computer games, or anything like that. He tried to get in Sky Digital, but we took that away from him. Television? It’s a gateway to writer’s block, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t have a telly when I were in New York,” says Turner, looking ruefully at O’Malley. “But I like keeping busy, and it’s not that I feel any pressure to do that. It were a decision that we made with the new album to get a sturdy foundation of songs together, and that was summat I tried to do last summer. I enjoy doing that, to be honest – it whiles away the hours.”
When Turner talks about a sturdy foundation of songs he means it. Suck It and Seeis the strongest album yet from the band, and a collection of songs populated by characters (mouthy, almost crudely assertive) who seem at odds with their creator's somewhat timorous personality. The songs rock, for certain, but it's as if Turner has taken a leaf out of songbooks by, say, The Kinks and The Jam, and twisted them into varying shapes and shades of classic pop.
"The tunes were written on guitar, rather than previous songs, which were welded together, jigsawed together, more or less, on previous albums. What we've learned over the past year or two is that no matter where we go, or who we work with, what makes the sound we make – what Arctic Monkeys sound like, in other words – is built into the four of us playing together. So this time out we wanted the song in its purest form: chords, melody, lyrics. In some ways, there's also a definite connection between these songs and the ones I wrote for Submarine."
According to Turner – whom you sense isn’t the kind of rock star geezer who talks up something just for the sake of it – the new album feels close to a milestone for the band. “It has elements of all the other three albums in it, yet it’s a departure too. It feels like we’ve reached an interesting point.”
He’s right: growing in stature, musically and lyrically, the album is effortlessly up there with the year’s best to date. And the lyrics are excellent, with Turner maintaining the level and quality of wordsmithery that has marked him out from day one.
"I think I'm all right as a lyricist, you know? But then what will happen every couple of months or so is that I'll hear a song I've never heard before and feel I've gone right back to square one. Recent examples? That Nick Lowe song, The Beast in Me,which is just brilliant.
“It doesn’t happen too often that I’m blown away by someone else’s songwriting, but I’m sure that is going to continue. I mean, I’m quite young and there’s so much music I haven’t heard yet. Being blown away by certain songs teaches you how songs should be constructed, though, so I’m always listening.”
Suck It and Seeis released June 3 and will be reviewed next week. They play Oxegen on Saturday, July 9
The randomiser: Matt and Jamie answer all sorts
Submarineor Titanic?Matt: "I really liked Titanic, but Submarineis probably a better film. Epic!"
Will there ever come a time when you'll slow down on releasing albums?Matt: "It doesn't seem that we've been doing it that long to be sick of it."
Favourite girl band: Girls Aloud or The Supremes?Jamie: "Oh, The Supremes – great songs, pure and simple. Although Girls Aloud are a guilty pleasure. I have a calendar!"
What do you listen to on your tour bus?Jamie: "All sorts – anything from Black Sabbath to Jackson C Frank. Music you listen to together is listened to differently, isn't it?"
Which is the best band to have come out of Sheffield?Jamie: "Many people would say The Human League, but I'll go for Pulp, who I got to like through listening to my older brother's records. And I like Richard Hawley."
What music did you listen to before the band formed?Jamie: "We were lucky to be teenagers around the time that loads of guitar music came about – The Strokes, The Vines, The Coral, The Libertines. You could go a great gig every week in Sheffield. Compared to now, we're lucky."
Favourite gay icon – Shirley Bassey or Lady Gaga?Matt: "Gotta be Shirley! I can't imagine people will look at Lady Gaga in 40 years time and see anything there. Hard to say for certain, of course, but I reckon Gaga's music will sound dated. Whereas Bassey's songs – Goldfinger, Diamonds Are Forever– are classic tunes sung brilliantly."
The way you live now compared with six years ago?Matt: "We wouldn't have been let into somewhere like Shoreditch House six years ago! But then, we wouldn't have wanted to come in here. You have to adapt, don't you? It'd be strange if you didn't want to."
If Arctic Monkeys weren't around, what would you be doing?Matt: "Probably a trade. But when you're 16, do you really know what you want to do for the rest of your life? For someone that age, choosing between being in a rock band and training to be a plumber – well, which would you go for? It's whatever has the least homework!"
Favourite album cover – Dark Side of the Moon or Suck It and See?Jamie: " Dark Side of The Moon!Actually, it's the one we were going to use for Suck It and See, but which no one will ever see."
Crap cover? The case for the defence
Alex Turner responds to criticism of the cover of Suck It and See:
“Once we decided to call the album what it’s called we just decided to go with something very plain and simple. It slowly became apparent that that type of cover was ideal for it. What else would you have otherwise? An image of a person with a lollipop in their mouth? Probably not.
“And I actually like the way it looks, aesthetically. It draws me in, and I like it that people are talking about it, discussing what album art actually is. Some people have been writing that album cover art doesn’t really matter now that downloading is taking place so much, but that isn’t what this cover is about. I’m totally not from that school of thought, because I love album covers.
“The cover is the cover because the music is really quite simple. There isn’t any marked level of overdubs on it, and it’s recorded quite basically.”
