Desert Storm

For a moment there I thought I’d stumbled on to the set of a Led Zeppelin biopic.

When Hot Press last spent quality time with the Arctic Monkeys it was regulation indie crops all round, but now three-quarters of the band have the cascading curls favoured by Plant ‘n’ Page in their lemon squeezing prime. Even the one conscientious objector, Matt Helders, has been getting up to some decidedly rock star hi-jinx recently with his new bezzie mate P. Diddy (more of whom anon).
The long hair meant they fitted right in when Josh Homme whisked them off to Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree to record a large chunk of their new album, Humbug. Famous among stoner rock fans as the setting for Homme’s Desert Sessions, the one horse southern Californian town was put on the musical map in 1973 by Gram Parsons who availed a little too freely of the local peyote and ‘shrooms and OD-ed there, and has subsequently played host to everyone from U2 and The Rolling Stones to The Eagles and Donovan who interior designed his own suite in the Joshua Tree Inn.
“It’s like something David Lynch or Wim Wenders might have dreamt up,” laughs Alex Turner with a toss of his Timotei main. “There was this place nearby we frequented called Pioneer Town, which was built for a movie set and had a really cool bowling alley that we hung out in quite a bit. You’d walk up to buildings thinking, ‘Great, let’s check this out’, only to discover that they were just facades. I don’t know if the Joshua Tree of U2 fame is still there (It isn’t, know-all Ed.) but there are thousands of them dotted around the desert, which you imagine to be a bit featureless but is full of all these amazing rock formations.”
Did they check out the area’s more, shall we say, exotic flora and fauna?
“Peyote and stuff?” he says catching my pharmaceutical drift. “You don’t need to ‘cause everything looks psychedelic naturally. All you had to do to think you were tripping was look at one of the sunsets!”
“Our strangest experience,” takes over Alex’s guitar playing colleague Jamie Cook, “was doing a bit of recording in this wooden structure called The Integraton, which was built in the 1950s by a ufologist called George Van Tassel who claims to have been given the plans by Venusians. It was supposed to have the power to rejuvenate human cells but George could never get it to work properly. Them aliens must have been in to their hi-fi because the dome part is acoustically perfect. If you stand in the middle and speak, it sounds like your voice is all around you. It’s mental!”
The product of the Monkeys’ extraterrestrially assisted recording session is ‘The Secret Door’, a stripped-down affair which finds Alex Turner hitting notes he couldn’t have reached with a hydraulic ladder a few years back.
“Josh wanted Al to develop into more of a more singer, which I think he’d already started to do on the Last Shadow Puppets record,” bassist Nick O’Malley reflects. “If somebody had said ‘vocal harmonies’ to us while we were recording the first two albums we’d have looked at ‘em funny, but we can do all those musicianly things now.”
Another big difference between Humbug and its predecessors is that it contains – cue Smiths fans going into cardiac arrest – proper foot on the monitor guitar solos!
“That’s the Queens Of The Stone Age influence coming through,” Matt Helders chuckles. “Working with Josh was initially an experiment, which either of us could’ve knocked on the head if we’d felt it weren’t going in the right direction. I was a bit nervous when he came to pick us up, but as soon as we got in the car it was, ‘Have you heard this tune?’ and ‘I’ve got this idea for the album.’ He’s a really easy bloke to get on with. We needed taking out of our comfort zone, and Josh was always encouraging us to try things we hadn’t done before… like guitar solos! We’d done punky little solos in the past that had lasted two or three seconds, but without taking us down the Jimi Hendrix route he got us to let rip.”
Although this was their first time working with him, the Monkeys had run in to all 6ft 5in of Josh Homme before on tour.
“If you ran into Josh literally you’d be out cold for a week!” Alex laughs again. “He’s as wide as he is tall, so when he says ‘jump’ you’re like ‘how high?’ Our first encounter with him was at a festival in Belgium when he stormed into our dressing room and shouted ‘Monkeys!’ We sent him some demos, and then I had a chat with him on the ‘phone which was when we tapped into each other’s sense of humour a bit. I said to the others, ‘Even if it don’t work out, this’ll be a bit of fun!’
“We’ve done quite a bit of traveling,” he continues, “but I don’t think anything has felt as far away from Sheffield as Rancho de la Luna. It’s basically Dave Catching from Eagles Of Death Metal’s house, which has been converted in to a studio. The drums are in his dining room, and half the vocals were done on the outside porch where there’s a big barbecue pit. Just being there provided multiple possibilities, which you wouldn’t get back home.”
Is Josh like the football manager who gives you the hairdryer treatment when you’re not pulling your weight, and a cuddle if you need a bit of encouragement?
“He’s got strong opinions but doesn’t mind listening to other people’s viewpoints, which is a bit like me I suppose,” Alex proffers. “We’ve been in to the Queens Of The Stone Age since we started playing together, so there was definitely an element of us trying to show off – which Josh knew and encouraged ‘cause he wanted a big performance out of us.  With him being in Kyuss and Screaming Trees he’d made three records by the time he was 19, so he’s vastly experienced.”
Now that they’ve got the measure of Rancho de la Luna, are they hoping to return there for a Desert Session?
“It’d be an honour to be asked, but I imagine there’s a long waiting list.”
Youth is something that’s always been coveted in rock ‘n’ roll, but I remember Joe Strummer saying to me – rather poignantly as it turned out – that he could feel his powers growing as he got older. Is that something which, approaching his quarter-century, Alex can relate to?
“Definitely,” he nods. “I don’t think I’d dare come up with such a strong quote as ‘I can feel me powers growing’, but looking at those first two albums it felt like we were catching up with ourselves. We banged Favourite Worst Nightmare out in two weeks, which was fine back then but you couldn’t keep it doing that way. This was the first time we took a breath and applied some consideration to what we were doing.”
I wouldn’t be so bold as to preempt her review on page 92, but if Lauren Murphy doesn’t give Humbug five out of five and hail it as a latter day Pet Sounds I’ll set P. Diddy on her!
In one of the year’s more unlikely tweets, the boy Coombs announced to his 1,668,576 followers on March 28th that he was: “Just kickin it wit my boy matt from the ARCTIC MONKEYs! I’m the newest member of the GROUP! I’m signing him to badboy!”
The bromance became official two weeks later when appearing alongside Helders on a video blog the rapper reiterated that, “I’m the newest member of the Arctic Monkeys. Now I’m not going to be singing. I’m not going to be playing any instruments, but I am part of the crew. I’m part of the entourage. If y’all even look at my guys weird backstage, I’m gonna jump on that motherfuckin’ British Airways flight and come backstage and stick my foot so far up your ass.”
Pardon my French, but what the fuck is all that about?
“I was at the Winter Music Conference in Miami,” explains the aforementioned Mr. Helders, “which sounds very formal but is actually just a week of getting pissed and going to dance gigs. Diddy – who’s genuinely a big fan of the band – invited me and a few other people back to his mansion where he cooked us food and showed us his Grammys.”
What was on the menu?
“Grits, bacon, French toast, fresh fruit, the works! He has a house rule that you take your shoes off – I’d be the same if I was a mansion owner – but otherwise he’s a really friendly down to earth bloke who has incredible enthusiasm for the things he likes.”
Does he have a guy on 80k plus benefits doing his tweeting for him?
“No, he’s a self-tweeter. I’ve seen him write some of the messages that have been picked up the day after by the press.”
Proving that his affections are anything but fickle, Diddy was in the moshpit last week when Helders and the chaps played an intimate gig in New York’s Highline Ballroom. The Monkeys have seen a lot of the Big Apple this year having gone there after Joshua Tree to finish Humbug off with Simian Mobile Disco man James Ford. Given that Ford produced Favourite Worst Nightmare and The Last Shadow Puppets’ The Age Of Understatement, was it like going back to your girlfriend after a fling?
“No, David was really cool about us working with Josh ‘cause he likes to experiment himself,” Alex insists. “There were a few tunes we hadn’t been able to nail that he dragged out of us. We stayed in Brooklyn for about three weeks and commuted in to Electric Lady Studios, which are in Greenwich Village. They had these amazing fucking speakers sunk into the wall, which knowing we’re Duran Duran fans they played ‘A View To A Kill’ through at insane volume. Funnily enough, we had a chorus that came out just like Duran Duran as well.”
It hasn’t been mentioned too much in dispatches, but Humbug very nearly included a cover of Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’.
“We played a noisy version of it when we did the A Big Day Out tour in Australia, which was met with some degree of bewilderment!” Turner grins mischievously. “We took a couple of days off from the studio last summer and went to the Latitude festival where Grinderman were playing. We nearly went home before they came on, but thank God we didn’t because they tore the place apart – ‘Kick those white mice and black dogs out/Kick those baboons and other motherfuckers out!’ How good a lyric’s that?”
Very! Although eventually deemed to be incompatible with the rest of Humbug, the Monkeys’ turbocharged take on ‘Red Right Hand’ graces the B-side of their ‘Crying Lightning’ single, which, as of August 14, can be purchased from selected Oxfam Ireland shops (see News). Another artist they’ve got to grips with recently – not in the biblical sense, we hasten to add – is Lady GaGa.
“I bet she’s a bit mad her,” Matt Helders says approvingly. “There’s a YouTube clip of us mucking around with ‘Poker Face’, which isn’t nearly as much fun as the version she does sitting at the piano – fucking hell! She just seems like a really good pop star.”
The band were in the States at the time so they mightn’t have heard about it, but when 22-year-old L/Cpl Stephen Kingscott was shot dead six months ago in Afghanistan the obituaries which followed mentioned the Arctic Monkeys as one of the things he lived for. Do they ever hear from people in those sorts of situations?
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” says Alex looking somewhat taken aback. “I guess when you’re out there music and books are a big escape. You try to imagine what it would be like to be our age and in Iraq or Afghanistan, but you can’t.”
If the opportunity arose, would they go and entertain the troops?
“Yeah, I think so,” Nick reckons.
“It’d be a good thing to do,” Matt agrees.
Do they consider themselves to be political animals?
“I think everyone is to a certain extent,” Helders continues, “but it’s not something we’ve ever wanted to put across in our music. Bottom line is we don’t know enough about stuff like that to be making grand pronouncements.”
As much as I love R.E.M. there are times when you go, “Thank you Michael, but I do know where Burma is!” Has Alex Turner ever been tempted to save the rain forest or end third world debt in song?
“To attempt that you need a foundation of knowledge, which I certainly don’t have,” he reflects. “And even if I did, I’m not sure I’d want to write about it. I’d be more comfortable doing a benefit for somebody, or donating a song to a record.”
What did he make of the Houses Of Parliament moat and duck pond scandal?
“I was probably the last person in England to hear about it ‘cause I’d been mixing the record in New York. Anyway, I was reading the papers on the way home and thought, ‘This jeopardises the whole fucking thing!’ There’s serious shit going on all over the world, and the first item on News At Ten is about some MP’s pond. I’ve got nothing against ducks, but get your priorities right!”
The last time I spoke to Alex after a transatlantic jaunt, he was counting the excess baggage cost of bringing home a stack of Barbara Lewis, Esther Philips and Johnny & The Hurricane records. Is there any sign of his vinyl junkiedom abating?
“No, I’m still putting my bags on the scales and thinking ‘Fuck, what’s this going to set me back!’” he rues. “I’ve been getting in to John Cale’s solo records recently, with Vintage Violence and Fear probably me favourites. There was a flea market in Joshua Tree where I bought loads of stuff just for the covers. I’m not one of these terrible anti-CD bores, but there’s less you can do with them in terms of artwork.”
“They also had a room out back with more expensive stuff like original Beatles pressings,” adds Helders who’s also been known to max his credit card out in record emporia. “I bought a Ronettes 7” in really good condition, which I was dead chuffed about. Actually, Nick’s got a photo of Phil Spector as his screensaver!”
Did being in sunny California turn the Monkeys on to stuff that hadn’t really seemed relevant in rainy Sheffield?
“One of the memories I’ll take from this album is driving round LA with Josh, and him sticking Creedence Clearwater Revival on,” Jamie enthuses. “That drumbeat! If someone played you Creedence on the M1, you’d say ‘fuck off’, but in an 8-liter truck with the window rolled down and your shades on it’s the music of the Gods.”
Thankfully, this mild case of John Fogarty didn’t develop into full-blown Americanitis, a disease that’s been known to cripple young British and, indeed, Irish bands spending time in the States.
“There was no flirting with any of that,” says Alex clearly appalled by the idea of Yorkshire lads singing about dark desert highways and cool wind in their hair. “The band has got more of an identity than I think even we’d realised. Though there was a time once in Sweden when I was sat next to a lake with me top off writing a tune and it went a bit weird on me. I was like, ‘Mmm, I’m not sure if the world’s ready yet for my Nordic opus!’ I tend to be more influenced by people than I am places. I wrote about these two twin girls I met in Ireland, but again it never surfaced.”
Would he like to elaborate on the subject?
“Not really!”
If you’re Irish twins who briefly inspired Alex Turner’s muse, feel free to get in contact with us at the usual address. While there’s never been any danger of them becoming the next Charlatans (shudder) or Ocean Colour Scene (double shudder), there is a lad rock element among the Arctic Monkeys’ following who drink and piss and do all the things that so outraged Joe Duffy and his listeners after their last gig here in Malahide Castle. Has there been a bit of a conscious decision with Humbug to pull away from that?
“With the first album we certainly got pushed towards that lad rock kind of thing, but then people realised there was a bit more to it,” Jamie Cook ventures. “You get intelligent, well-to-do people off their heads at Glastonbury, so everybody’s the same.”
“There’s really not a desire to pull away from anybody,” Alex adds. “I like to think that there’s a width and breadth to what we do that attracts all sorts of people.”
It strikes me as an outsider that the Monkeys learned at a young age how to do the most important thing in rock ‘n’ roll, which is say “no!”
“It were easier then than it is now!” Turner says a tad wistfully. “You’re wary when something’s all new to you of making mistakes, so you keep your guard up. I’m glad we did ‘cause apart from the odd song I might have done differently now, I’ve no regrets about those first two albums.”
By staying on in New York to oversee the mixing of the new one, did Alex also get to choose the sequencing of the tracks?
“There were a lot of phone calls about that! We always go in with the idea of there being a ‘Side A’ and a ‘Side B’, which I don’t think too many bands bother with anymore. Even the way it’s written out on the cover, there are five songs here and five songs there. People talk about us being ‘the first MySpace band’, but we’re actually quite old fashioned and traditional.”
Great songs, spot on attitude and hair you could run your fingers through for eternity. We really are very lucky to have The Arctic Monkeys!