arctic monkeys at splendour in the grass, australia, 2007 (x)
transcript:
interviewer: alright now boys, we are talking about festival romance today. you're very busy men; you've got a number one album, you're doing awesome stuff, how do you find time for the ladies, for a little lovin'?
(alex reaches for nick and nick presses a quick kiss to the back of alex's hand)
alex: it’s um…yeah we’re just- it’s easy to just, y’know, keep it amongst ourselves.
nick: keep it amongst our circles.
alex: we’re- we’re not so- we’re not rushing into things, y’know what i mean?
"Recently, I went to see the [Arctic] Monkeys when they played in Sheffield and they all texted me individually to ask if I was coming to see the gig. All of them. There was no management or anything. I thought, ‘Well, I’ll go along and maybe there’ll be a guest area’. They got me a fucking car, man. They drove me straight into the dressing room area next to the tour buses and within five minutes we were having a beer and a joke. They haven’t changed. All that massive success they’ve had, their level of success is up there with Joe’s [Cocker], it’s huge and I can reliably inform you that they’re not arseholes. They’ve not changed and it’s beautiful to see. And it means I’m right as well! It’s not some kind of myth about this Sheffield idyll that Hawley has invented, it’s true. That level of success they’ve had, not only can it mess with your head, but it can destroy you as a human being. There are examples of that in similar bands where people are gargantuan arseholes. Again, I’m not naming any names, but you see it all of the time. Like I said, if you’re going to turn into a fucking balloon, make sure you’ve got someone to hold that string."
Richard Hawley talking about Arctic Monkeys in The New Cue, published Oct 23, 2023
Alex Turner leaving the stage to throw and celebrate an imaginary strike, then having to steal Nick O'Malley's microphone because he's back too late to continue singing Pretty Visitors into his own microphone
thinking about the fact that Alex said in the Track by Track interview for TBH+C that ballads such as "The Ultracheese" are "his default" and "where he feels most comfortable" and how Alex, if left to his own devices, would churn out song after song so full of melancholy and yearning it'd shatter all our hearts into a gazillion pieces - this is why he needs Jamie and Nick and Matt and Miles - so they reach out their hands to him and go "there is a whole world out there" and he turns around and writes the Arabellas and Pretty Visitors and She Looks Like Funs and Sculptures of Anything Goes and She Does The Woods of his career
theleadmill We cracked open the Leadmill Archive and picked out these incredible photographs of the legendary Arctic Monkeys, from when they played our main stage back in the early 2000s! ✨
This time next week, we'll be celebrating these Sheffield legends in all their glory at our AM Weekender. Get ready to sing your heart out to their greatest hits over two sensational nights 🎸