Arctic Monkeys talks about new album

t's probably a good thing that when I interview the Arctic Monkeys I get to speak to their frontman, Alex Turner, three times. The first time, we meet in a private members' club in east London (where Turner lives with his girlfriend, TV presenter Alexa Chung) and he is quiet and reserved, with lots of silences punctuated by flashes of dry Sheffield humour. The second time, at the photo studios with the rest of the band (guitarist Jamie Cook, bass player Nick O'Malley and drummer Matt Helders), he seems more relaxed. And the third, talking on the phone from the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Carlisle, he is friendly and charming, signing off with a cheery, "Nice one, love!" Clearly Turner is slow to burn with new people, as is the rest of the band. It goes some way to explaining how, in the early days of their meteoric rise, the Monkeys gained a reputation for being difficult, uncommunicative — "mardy bums" if you like. But when I ask Turner about this, he describes it as "a bit of a defence mechanism that kicked in". "When the first album blew up, we shut a lot of people out, just to try to keep some sort of control." The Monkeys were barely 20 at the time of their 2006 debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. It remains the bestselling debut in British history, beating Oasis, going quadruple platinum and garnering Brits, a Mercury and an Ivor Novello award, not to mention that namecheck from Gordon Brown. Going on to headline Glastonbury in 2007, the Monkeys were the first of the MySpace bands to be promoted on the internet by fans, via free demos and file-sharing — and were credited with scaring awake a sleeping music industry. There followed 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2009's Humbug, and now the release of their fourth album, Suck It and See. Article continues below Everything considered, not bad going for what Turner describes as "not centre of attention kind of people". At first when I speak to Turner, there are eerie pauses and a lot of "it's hard to recall", more than seems feasible for a 25-year-old. But when he warms up he is sharp, droll and, it turns out, genuinely bad at remembering certain details, such as writing the first lyric, giving the first autograph: "It all seems so far away now." His initial aversion to eye contact reminds me that, in the early days, rehearsing in his parents' garage — "Just wanting to make a row, make friends laugh" — Turner tried to find someone else to sing in the band. Does he still find it hard to think of himself as a natural frontman? "I've grown into it, though I don't think it was destiny or anything." Tight melodies The good news is that Suck It and See is brilliant. Songs include Black Treacle, the first single, Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair, She's Thunderstorms, The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala and Love is a Laser Quest, and there's not a dud among them (except, perhaps, the monotonous Brick By Brick). It's full of tight melodies, prowling guitars and reflective yet pithy lyrics, bringing to mind everything from Captain Beefheart, the White Stripes and the Beach Boys to Nick Cave, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Iggy Pop (the group have become huge Stooges fans), all powered by a dark rock/country pulse. It's a departure from the provincial roar of the first two albums. Suck It and See also differs from the more opaque, guitar-heavy third album, Humbug. I meet up with all the Arctic Monkeys when they're getting their photograph taken. Like Turner, his bandmates are polite, occasionally wary and drily humorous. When I ask them about the financial rewards of being in a band, O'Malley says quietly, "It's our only motivation." Cook, O'Malley and Helders still live in Sheffield, although they don't seem at all tribal about it. Are they treated like local celebrities? "Nah," says Helders, "it's not that kind of place." The previous night, they'd been on Later with Jools Holland, performing Reckless Serenade, Don't Sit Down and my favourite from the album, the anarchic Library Pictures ("Give me an eenie minie mo/And an ip, dip, dogs**t, rock 'n' roll"). Talking about the Arctic Monkeys' past, it becomes clear that their rise wasn't "overnight" (there was the usual jumble of incidents, accidents, false starts, local pub shows and hard graft). However, it was pretty close. "I hate to say organic, like vegan," says Turner, "but it was like that." As for Humbug, all the band say they're proud of it, and relished their time in the Mojave Desert studio (which sounds like rehab for blocked indie rockers). Some of the criticisms of Humbug are rather strange. It would have been a tragedy if their early material hadn't sounded like young boys from Sheffield having a scream, but by their third album, it would have been a tragedy if they'd still sounded like that. Turner claims he doesn't read reviews anyway: "Either it's really bad and you get a sour taste in your mouth, or it's really good, and you get a bit too satisfied. You're never left in a good place." It must be hard though, after that initial huge impact (awards, plaudits, bestselling albums by 20, Glastonbury by 21), to keep replicating that kind of momentum and excitement? The Monkeys just shrug — it's not an issue, it's still exciting. According to Turner, there was never a masterplan anyway. "One thing just led to another until that thing became ‘we're going to play Glastonbury'. That was a turning point. You do this thing that seems huge, you're really nervous, you don't think you perform well, it's raining, the sound doesn't seem loud enough. Then you come back down to earth." After Glastonbury, the Monkeys played a club in Oslo. "I remember this feeling of, ‘That was it, you got to there, now where do you go?' And the answer is, ‘You go to Oslo.'" I ask them whether they can see how musicians go crazy and come to need that kind of high all the time. "It's not really like that for us," says Turner. "We want to get better rather than get bigger." ‘More comfortable' Talking alone to Turner, I suggest he is hounded by an early lyric from Fake Tales of San Francisco: "You're not from New York City, you're from Rotherham." Like Pete Townshend's "I hope I die before I get old," it's become a stick to beat him with in every interview, with the implication that he is now the person he was criticising. "No," Turner corrects. "I'm now the person those people were pretending to be." He grins. "That suddenly felt very crass coming out of my mouth. That lyric was just for a small circle of people, to make them laugh. It didn't occur to me that it would end up striking a chord with a larger circle." How does he feel about fame? "I've become more comfortable with that. At the same time, it's not like I'm Lady Gaga." Fire and the Thud, on Humbug, includes the line "I'd like to poke them in their prying eyes" and I ask him whether it's a comment on media intrusion. "No, I wouldn't write songs about that." Fire and the Thud is also supposed to be about Turner's decision to move to New York with Chung when she was working for MTV. Following your girlfriend to New York for her work is quite "new man" for a Sheffield lad, I say. "I was glad she asked me to go with her." Clearly Turner doesn't appreciate people nosing into his private life, which is fair enough. However, there is no denying his lyrics have changed in places, become more thoughtful, tender and part of the reason may be that he fell in love. There are songs on Suck It and See where he sounds in awe of one woman, others where he sounds in awe of all women. In the past, Turner thinks he used to put either too much of himself into the songs or too little. "I needed to strike a balance between the two, and hopefully with this album it's like that." There was definitely a sense of social commentary in their earlier stuff — the kind of lyrics that could go into a space capsule to represent a moment in place and time. "While it was describing those situations, I wasn't necessarily offering an opinion on them," says Turner. ‘Entertainment' What do they think the job of a rock band is? "Entertainment," replies Helders. "I can't think what else it would be." Really? There are other levels, surely. Just before the Monkeys go to have their photographs taken, we are discussing the human impulse to make a mark and Turner says: "I remember Leonard Cohen talking once about wanting to move to New York to be a writer and, it's like, he just wanted to be good. There's nowt wrong with that, I think." Certainly you get a sense that Turner has grown into more than just the singing. Four albums in, he has finally decided to publish his lyrics. Oddly, considering his awards, and quite touchingly, he says it took him time to identify himself as a songwriter. "I just misunderstood what it was, I think. But then I started to recognise that it was a craft, you know, something you could get better at. Then it dawned on me — I do write songs. That's me." The final time I speak to Turner, it's over the phone, with a crowd roaring behind him, as the band waits to go on at Carlisle. The conversation turns again to the wider world and the question of whether bands should reflect the times. Whether, for example, they form the soundtrack to a war even if they're not directly about it. "I think we touched on it the other day," he says. "You were saying, do you read the newspapers, are you interested? I know you're not talking about protest songs and, of course, I'm aware of what's going on to a degree, but..." He considers. "I just don't think I'm equipped to soundtrack the times. There might be someone out there who can do that, but I haven't cracked it. "To quote another songwriter who had a crack at that, it ain't me, babe." Right now, with the new album coming out, he says he's not nervous at all. "I get nervous about gigs sometimes, but not with records — I always get excited. With every record we've done, the moment we've finished it, we've been really proud. We just want people to hear it — to share it."