Matt Helders, the drummer in Arctic Monkeys, is making an improbable
footballing analogy. “Real Madrid? How are we like Real
Madrid?” asks his bandmate, the singer Alex Turner. “Well, I didn’t say we
were,” chimes Helders. “I just like them.” Turner gently suggests that the
challenge is to pick a team who play their football the way Arctic Monkeys
play their music. “If truth be told,” says Turner, “We’re more of a route
one band.”
The bassist Andy Nicholson is none the wiser: “What does that mean?”
“You know, route one,” says Turner. “Route one to goal. You hoof it upfield
and run. Only problem is, though, that doesn’t make us sound very good.” “It
doesn’t, does it?” concurs Nicholson. “But then a route one band is more
exciting to watch than a route one team. Plus, we score from a lot of set
pieces.” A measured pause. “Like Bolton.”
Turner looks mildly dissatisfied with Nicholson’s conclusion: “Bolton? We’re Bolton?”
“Let’s just be Real Madrid anyway,” urges Helders. “It’s not like we’re not
getting the results.”
He has a point. Arctic Monkeys are currently getting the kind of results for
which most young guitar aspirants would sell a kidney. Blanket coverage in
the NME and heavy rotation on MTV2 are a given for any group in
their position. At the Reading Festival six weeks ago more than 1,000 fans
sang Turner’s words back to him. That in itself isn’t so unusual either. But
for a band with just one available single, Five Minutes with the Arctic
Monkeys (which is a confusing six minutes long), to their name, the
whole thing is without precedent. What clicked?
Direct the question to the eye of this particular storm, 19-year-old Turner,
and he responds with a sleepy shrug. He says he never wanted to front a
band, but three years ago, when he and his schoolfriend Jamie Cook (absent
today) were both given guitars by their parents for Christmas, the band
“sort of formed itself”. Even the name was donated by Helders’s father,
whose younger days were spent playing in a group called — Helders grimaces
as he spells this — the Arctik Monkeez. Although Turner claims that he
finally opened his mouth to sing when no one else volunteered to do it, the
adrenalised clatter of their second single, I Bet You Look Good on the
Dancefloor, suggests that he would have found his calling sooner or
later. Dispensing upbeat couplets such as: “There is no love, no Montagues
and Capulets/ Just banging tunes and DJ sets, dirty dancefloors and dreams
of naughtiness,” he sounds like Liam Gallagher singing the words of John
Cooper Clarke.
Described as an “indie Streets” by some critics, a throwback to the young Paul
Weller by others, Turner says that he doesn’t begrudge the comparisons,
“because they give me an excuse to check out music I’ve never heard of”. His
favourite Jam song is Down in the Tube Station at Midnight — not
surprising, given that it’s the one most readily evoked by Turner’s own
vignettes.
“Elvis Costello — that was another one, wasn’t it?” prompts Nicholson. The
singer nods. Until last year Costello was nothing more than “the bloke who
sings I’ll Never Fall in Love Again in Austin Powers 2
— but I’m right into him now”.
After an afternoon spent with the band in the Sheffield Boardwalk — the venue
where Turner briefly worked as a barman — it becomes obvious that his
greatest asset is a tendency to sit slightly apart from the conversational
traffic. While Helders and Nicholson embark on a debate concerning the best
way to spend a pound in a newsagent (at times Arctic Monkeys seem young for
their 19 years), the singer is happy to watch. “Value-for-money-wise,”
ponders Nicholson, “it would have to be a hundred penny chews.”
“If it were a scummy shop I’d buy a bomb bag,” says Helders, “You don’t know
what a bomb bag is? You stand on them and they explode. It’s water with some
kind of chemical in it.”
“I’ve just remembered,” exclaims Nicholson, “Taz bars.”
Finally, Turner joins in. “Taz bars?” Nicholson: “You know, a chocolate Taz.
Like the Tasmanian devil.”
“Like a Freddo?” chips in Helders.
“Yes, like a Freddo. But it’s a Taz,” confirms Nicholson.
If they had been to my old school, I tell them, they could have gone to a
particularly enterprising corner shop near by, where you could buy an
individual cigarette passed through a single Polo mint. The mint would be
there to obscure the smell. This morsel seems to elicit unalloyed joy from
Turner. “Really?! That’s genius! I can’t believe that someone thought of
doing that!” Would he have been tempted? “Well, I don’t smoke. But that’s a
good enough idea to make me consider starting.” It’s a minor detail, the
non-smoking, but one worth dwelling on. I can’t remember the last time I met
the singer in an indie band who didn’t. It’s indicative of a self-assurance
that quietly announces itself from time to time — most notably during one
exchange a few minutes later.
Asked to expound on his observational style, he seems reluctant. Of songs such
as Scummy (about a stretch of road in Sheffield where prostitutes ply their
trade) and From the Ritz to the Rubble (about an overzealous
bouncer presiding over a nightclub queue), he says, “They’re about the first
things you think they’re about”.
“A bit like Catchphrase (a TV quiz show),” I reply. “A case of
‘Say what you see’?” At this point it becomes clear that though he may
downplay his lyrical style, he doesn’t especially like it if anyone else
does: “Um, well . . . to an extent. But you’ve still got to convey it, or
else . . . well, it’s just as you described it. And there’s got to be more
than that. Otherwise, we wouldn ’t be . . .” He pulls the zip of his Adidas
top over his chin and his voice trails off, as if unwilling to address
explicitly the reaction his band inspires.
The graveyard of pop is littered with the bands who failed to rise above the A&R
frenzy that met their arrival. However, what distinguishes Arctic Monkeys
from all of them is the means of their ascent. Despite the industry’s fears
that file-sharing (the euphemistic term for the often illegal downloading of
music) may undermine record companies and the bands that sign to them,
file-sharing is also the reason that the group’s fans are word-perfect on
the dozen or so songs that form the basis of their set. By the time the
majors cottoned on, Arctic Monkeys were already successful. “When we put our
songs up (on their website), it wasn’t for political reasons,” explains
Turner. “There was no masterplan.”
But then with every major label in the land trekking up to Sheffield to make
their acquaintance, they haven’t needed one. When I Bet You Look
Good on the Dancefloor comes out, it’ll be on Domino, the defiantly
independent home of Franz Ferdinand. It must have taken some strength of
character to turn down the holidays, yachts and sports cars traditionally
offered as incentives by bigger labels.
“Well, there you go, see,” chips in Helders, “that was the problem. There were
none of that. They were trying to be a bit cooler, offering us things like .
. . freedom.”
But Arctic Monkeys still have no trouble telling when a record label isn’t
wholly as committed to the indie ethos? “Yeah,” says Turner, momentarily
dropping his guard, “Cos they’ve got f****** Sugababes signed to them.”
“Dead giveaway, really,” adds Nicholson helpfully.
I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor is released on October 17 (Domino)
You can legally download Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys at www.7digital.com
More sterling bands from Sheffield
The Human League
Synth-pop innovators and the inspiration for a million asymmetric haircuts.
ABC
The sharp-suited Martin Fry and company peddled wine-bar pop for the more
sophisticated listener.
Def Leppard
The poodle-haired heavy metallers laid waste to the 1980s with a string of
sugar-coated guitar anthems.
Joe Cocker
Soulful rocker with lungs like foundry bellows and a voice of South Yorkshire
steel.
Pulp
Led by another Cocker, Jarvis, the arch indie rockers led Britpop’s art-school
wing.
