Alex Turner knows you want Arctic Monkeys to do AM again. We’re sorry!

From the moment The world heard the wild majesty of Arctic Monkeys’ 2006 classic debut Whatever people say I am, I’m not, it was obvious the British quartet were heading for rock greatness. But great bands have always reserved the right to make detours that will astound some fans – while perhaps creating new ones – and Arctic Monkeys are no exception. Their commercial and creative pinnacle, the groove rock pounder AM, was one of the last albums by a rock band to really rock culture. Five years of silence followed. Then in 2018 came the beautiful but defiantly weird Space Lounge concept album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.

With her lush new successor The car, they’re still far more interested in sculpting hi-fi soundscapes than blasting your face off, with rich strings and Steely-Dan-level studio sheen applied to mostly slow-burning songs, albeit with something this time more rock muscle. “I don’t think it sounds like any other band, but I imagine it’s thrown around,” says frontman Alex Turner. “I think what makes it sound like the same band is that we don’t betray our instinct to challenge our idea of ​​what the band can be.”

Have you felt burned out on any level after crafting on a large rock? AM?
[Speaks using DJ voice] “You listen to Burned Out… on Big Rock” [laughs]. This is definitely a rock record AM, Is not it? But for us there was always something else in there that got it over the line. I don’t know if it’s the break after that or what, but it doesn’t seem that easy to go back there. I don’t remember ever being burned out on Big Rock. It seemed easy, you know, all the steps you took to try to get back in that direction… Those other paths we discovered always seemed to make more sense. I don’t know how to put it.

You once said that it somehow constitutes a direct further development AM wasn’t an option that you did the only thing you could do.
Absolutely. Yes. I think it was important to take a step back. I’ve been working on other things and they probably led to this Quiet what we ended up doing there. And, honestly, there may have been occasions when I tried to put the motorcycle boots back on and figure out what AM-type melody would be. But it almost seems like a parody or something when I start playing it through with these ideas at the moment. It remains to be seen. I’m not saying we’ll never do anything that sounds a bit like Sabbath again. I’m not ruling out the possibility – because I have a feeling there might even be moments of big rock on this record.

You kind of pull those sounds in and out, right?
On some of these songs you have the band on a fader and they come in. The third song on the record, “Sculptures of Anything Goes”, is all just a Moog and a drum machine and a chant. But there are a few bars in it where the rock band kicks in and then fades back into the background.

That’s one of the main differences between this album and the last one.
You get a distorted guitar. And I would attribute that to the session with the band and everyone together. With “Body Paint” I was surprised at how distorted and rocking the ending of it is [song] got on the guitar. When I started playing with the guys again, it was like, ‘Oh yeah. I want to dig a little bit and play rock guitar.”

If you only use the band as an element in the sound, what kind of disagreements, if any, are there?
From the other guys? As time passed, these types of ideas became more encouraging. I think once upon a time when we had the windbreakers on up here and the guitar was really tight we all played at the same time the whole time and that’s how it was. But I think we’ve all started to realize that using this space can be very effective. And if you’re the one not playing you are still the one not playing you know?

The “Do I Wanna Know” riff is everywhere — kids learning guitar play it all the time on TikTok. It is the new “Wonderwall” or “Seven Nation Army”. What do you make of it?
Wow. I don’t know man. This guitar, the orange Vox 12-string guitar that we bought at the very end of the Suck it and see meeting [in 2011] …the “Do I Wanna Know” riff came along. It was built in.

Matt Healy of 1975 said he thought the first decade of the 2000s was yours, but his band took the second decade.
[Laughs.] Oh yeah?

Are you ready to cede this territory?
I admit. And now we are in the third. Watch this area.

Your band has been around for 20 years, unbelievable. Want to be like the Stones and pretty much stay together forever?
I’m just trying to get by [our next show at] King’s Theater at the moment. I don’t think that’s a plan I’m going to come up with tonight. The show is getting stronger. It feels like it’s going to be something different and I think the inclusion of this new material in it will only hopefully help. It’s hard not to get upset about it. It’s one step at a time. Let’s see where that is automobile guides us.