{"id":3521,"date":"2011-08-19T18:57:55","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T01:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3521"},"modified":"2011-08-19T18:57:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T01:57:55","slug":"arctic-monkeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/arctic-monkeys\/","title":{"rendered":"ARCTIC MONKEYS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

ARCTIC MONKEYS<\/h1>\n

After a frenzied five years, it\u2019s time to take a look back\u2014briefly<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Arctic Monkeys instantly became a sensation in their native England upon the release of their punchy, hard-charging debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That\u2019s What I\u2019m Not<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s only been five years, but it seems like a long time ago,\u201d observes frontman Alex Turner. Before heading into the studio to make the new Suck It and See<\/em>, Turner and his bandmates revisited their first album to determine how far they\u2019d come\u2014and what they might have lost along the way. Turner spoke to us about how the Monkeys got\u00a0their groove back.<\/p>\n

How did you approach the album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We tried to write more songs in major keys this time, which is something we shied away from on the last record. And after I\u2019d written a couple songs, [guitarist] Jamie [Cook] came over and we decided to listen to the first record. It was the first time I\u2019d listened to that record in five years.<\/p>\n

How did it sound? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It had been a long time, and we thought it would be quite funny\u2014and it was. We had a laugh. I realized that we\u2019d moved on quite a bit since then. One thing about\u00a0that record, though, is that it was very organized. I had these songs, these solid foundations, and I remember going into that recording being very organized and having the track order in mind. I wanted\u00a0to do that again.<\/p>\n

What else influenced your writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was the first time I\u2019d written not on the ground floor. You can use that as a metaphor however you like. I was up on the fourth floor in New York, and there\u2019s a bit more sky on this album, a bit more weather. Maybe that\u2019s a product of staring out the window and being higher up.<\/p>\n

How does the group write together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Previously our songs had come from practice rooms, just hashing it out. A riff here, a\u00a0riff there, sometimes it\u2019d come from the drums\u2014and we\u2019d piece everything together like a puzzle. This time they came from things I had written on acoustic guitar. We each applied to the song what we felt was going to do it the most favors in terms of the playing. That happened\u00a0a lot on this album.<\/p>\n

Do you record live in the studio?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We always have, but not to this degree before. We didn\u2019t fix anything, we just got a good take and kept it. We wanted to strip it back and not do tons of overdubs. If we were going to do a guitar overdub, it was usually a double of the solo or the chime-y part. We discovered this chime-y, Byrds-y sound. Jamie and I learned how to play the other three strings on the guitar. (laughs<\/em>) We\u2019d never been down there before\u2014or up there, depending on which way you looked at it.<\/p>\n

How have you changed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the first album there was a bit of a frenzy, and we really didn\u2019t know what was going on. We got quite defensive as a reaction, but we\u2019re in a good place now. We\u2019ve gotten comfortable, certainly more comfortable than we were when that album blew up. Don\u2019t get me wrong: We had a great time, and it was awesome to get a\u00a0No. 1 single in the U.K. [\u201cI Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor\u201d] That was unusual for a guitar band. But it wasn\u2019t at all what we set out to do. We set out to make good records, and that\u2019s where our focus remains.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>\u2013Eric R. Danton<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ARCTIC MONKEYS After a frenzied five years, it\u2019s time to take a look back\u2014briefly The Arctic Monkeys instantly became a sensation in their native England upon the release of their punchy, hard-charging debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That\u2019s What I\u2019m Not. \u201cIt\u2019s only been five years, but it seems like a long time ago,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[2429,1634,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3523,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3521\/revisions\/3523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}