Alex Turner

Early life

Alexander David Turner was born on 6 January 1986. He was raised in the High Green suburb of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, the only child of secondary school teachers Penny and David Turner. His mother taught German, while his father taught physics and music. During car journeys, his mother introduced him to music by Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Jackson Browne, The Eagles, The Carpenters, Al Green, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys. His father was a fan of jazz and swing music, particularly Frank Sinatra. He played the saxophone, trumpet, and piano, and had been a member of big bands. Turner himself took piano lessons until he was eight years old.

Turner met classmate and neighbour Matt Helders at the age of five, and they grew up together. They met Andy Nicholson in secondary school, and the three friends bonded over their shared enjoyment of rap artists such as Dr. Dre, Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast, and Roots Manuva. They spent their weekends "making crap hip-hop" beats using Turner's father's Cubase system. Turner and his friends became interested in rock bands following the breakthrough of The Strokes in 2001. For Christmas that year, when Turner was 15, his parents bought him a guitar.

Turner was educated at Stocksbridge High School (1997–2002). He did not read regularly and was too self-conscious to share his writing with others. Nonetheless, he enjoyed English lessons. His teacher, Simon Baker, later remembered him as a clever pupil who was "quite reserved" and "a little bit different". He noted that Turner had an "incredibly laid-back" approach to school work, which worried his mother. Turner then attended Barnsley College from 2002 to 2004, where he studied for A-levels in music technology and media studies, and AS-levels in English, photography, and psychology.

2002–2004: Formation of Arctic Monkeys

After watching friends perform in local bands, Turner, Helders, Nicholson and another friend, Jamie Cook, decided to form Arctic Monkeys in mid-2002.In the early days of the band, Helders has recalled that Turner "wasn’t necessarily going to be the singer" but was the obvious candidate for lyricist: "I knew he had a thing for words." Before playing a live show, the band rehearsed for a year in both Turner and Helders' garages and, later, at an unused warehouse in Wath. Turner gradually began to share lyrics with his bandmates. According to Helders' mother, who drove the teenagers to and from their rehearsal space three times a week: "If they knew you were there, they would just stop so we had to sneak in." Their first gig was on Friday, 13 June 2003, supporting The Sound at a local pub called The Grapes. The set, which was partly recorded, comprised both original songs and cover versions of songs by The Strokes, The Vines, The Beatles, The White Stripes, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Undertones, Fatboy Slim, and The Datsuns.

In the summer of 2003, Turner played seven gigs in York and Liverpool as a rhythm guitarist for the funk band Judan Suki, after meeting the lead singer Jon McClure on a bus. That August, while recording a demo with Judan Suki at Sheffield's 2fly Studios, Turner asked Alan Smyth if he would produce an Arctic Monkeys demo. Smyth obliged and "thought they definitely had something special going on. I told Alex off for singing in an American voice at that first session." An introduction by Smyth led to the band acquiring a management team, Geoff Barradale and Ian McAndrew. They paid for Arctic Monkeys to record numerous three-song demos in 2003 and 2004. Barradale drove the band around venues in Scotland, the Midlands, and the north of England to establish their reputation as a live band. They handed out copies of the demo CDs after each show and fans began sharing the unofficial Beneath the Boardwalk demo compilation online. After finishing college in mid-2004, Turner deferred plans to attend university in Manchester. He began working part-time as a bartender at the Sheffield music venue The Boardwalk. There, he met well-known figures including musician Richard Hawley and poet John Cooper Clarke. By the end of 2004, Arctic Monkeys' audiences were beginning to sing along with their songs and the demo of "I Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor" was played on BBC Radio 1 by Zane Lowe.

2005–2007: Rise to fame

Turner performing in Norwich in October 2005

Arctic Monkeys came to national attention in 2005. They received their first mention in a national newspaper in April, with a Daily Star reporter describing them as "the most exciting band to emerge this year". They self-released an EP, featuring the single "Fake Tales of San Francisco", in May and commenced their first nationwide tour soon afterwards. Turner began dating London-based student Johanna Bennett around this time. In June, in the midst of a bidding war, Arctic Monkeys signed to the independent label Domino Recording Company. They recorded an album in rural Lincolnshire with producer Jim Abbiss. In October, the single "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart. In reviewing a sold-out show at the London Astoria, Alexia Loundras of The Independent noted that the nineteen-year-old Turner had a "commanding" stage presence, despite dressing like an "ordinary bloke" in "baggy jeans and T-shirt".

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Arctic Monkeys' debut album, was released in January 2006. Turner's lyrics, chronicling teenage nightlife in Sheffield, were widely praised. Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times remarked: "Mr. Turner's lyrics are worth waiting for and often worth memorizing, too ... He has an uncanny way of evoking Northern English youth culture while neither romanticizing it nor sneering at it." Musically, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian noted that the album was influenced by guitar bands "from the past five years ... Thrillingly, their music doesn't sound apologetic for not knowing the intricacies of rock history."

It was the fastest-selling debut album in British music history and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. In interview profiles, Turner was described as quiet and uncomfortable with attention. Less than two months after the album's release, he declared that Sheffield-inspired songwriting was "a closed book": "We're moving on and thinking about different things." The band turned down many promotional opportunities and quickly released new material - a five-track EP Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? in April, and a stand-alone single, "Leave Before the Lights Come On", in August. That summer, the band made the decision to permanently replace Nicholson, who had taken a touring break due to "fatigue", with Nick O'Malley, another childhood friend. As of 2015, Turner and Nicholson remain "close friends".

Turner performing at Coachella in May 2007

Arctic Monkeys' second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, was released in April 2007. It was produced by James Ford in London. Lyrically, the album touches on fame, love, and heartache. Turner and Bennett had ended their relationship in January; she was credited as a co-writer on "Fluorescent Adolescent". While uninterested in the songs concerning fame, Marc Hogan of Pitchfork said the album displayed Turner's "usual gift for vivid imagery" and explored "new emotional depth". Petridis of The Guardian noted that the band were "pushing gently but confidently at the boundaries of their sound", with hints of "woozy psychedelia" and "piledriving metal". The album was a commercial success. Arctic Monkeys headlined Glastonbury Festival in the summer of 2007, with Rosie Swash of The Guardian remarking upon Turner's "steady, wry stage presence": "Arctic Monkeys don't do ad-libbing, they don't do crowd interaction, and they don't do encores."

Turner began to collaborate with other artists in 2007. He worked with rapper Dizzee Rascal on the Arctic Monkeys B-side "Temptation", a version of which also featured on Rascal's album Maths and English. They performed the song live at Glastonbury Festival. Turner co-wrote three songs on Reverend and the Makers' debut album The State Of Things, after briefly sharing a Sheffield flat with the frontman Jon McClure. Another Sheffield singer, Richard Hawley, featured on the Arctic Monkeys' B-side "Bad Woman" and performed with the band at the Manchester Apollo, as part of a concert film directed by Richard Ayoade. Turner also announced plans to form a side-project band, The Last Shadow Puppets, with James Ford and Miles Kane, whom he had befriended in mid-2005.

2008–2011: Musical experimentation

Turner performing with The Last Shadow Puppets in 2008

The Last Shadow Puppets' debut album, The Age of the Understatement, was recorded in the Loire Valley, France and was released in April 2008, shortly after Turner had moved from Sheffield to east London. It was co-written by Turner and Kane, and featured string arrangements by Owen Pallett. Alexa Chung, dating Turner since mid-2007, featured in the music video for "My Mistakes Were Made For You". Hogan of Pitchfork noted that, lyrically, Turner was "moving from his anthropologically detailed Arctics brushstrokes to bold, cinematic gestures." Petridis of The Guardian detected "the audible enthusiasm of an artist broadening his scope". During a tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Last Shadow Puppets gave a surprise performance at Glastonbury Festival, with both Matt Helders and Jack White making guest appearances. Alison Mosshart performed with the band at the Olympia in Paris, and provided vocals for a B-side. Also in 2008, Turner formed a covers band with Dev Hynes for a one-off show in London and recorded a spoken word track "A Choice of Three" for Helders' compilation album Late Night Tales.

Turner has described Arctic Monkeys' third album, Humbug, released in August 2009, as "a massive turning point" in the band's career. They travelled to Joshua Tree, California to work with producer Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, and explored a heavier sound. While Petridis of The Guardian found some lyrics "too oblique to connect", he was impressed by the band's "desire to progress". He described "Cornerstone" as a "dazzling display of what Turner can do: a fabulously witty, poignant evocation of lost love." Joe Tangari of Pitchfork felt the album was a "legitimate expansion of the band's songwriting arsenal" and described "Cornerstone" as the highlight. For Arctic Monkeys' fanbase, the album's change of direction initially proved divisive. During a break in the UK Humbug tour, Turner joined Richard Hawley on stage at a London charity concert, and played a seven-song acoustic set. Homme joined Arctic Monkeys for a live performance in Pioneertown, California.

Turner performing in Bologna, Italy in 2011

While living in Brooklyn, New York, where he moved with Chung in the spring of 2009, Turner wrote an acoustic soundtrack for the coming-of-age feature film Submarine (2010). His friend, director Richard Ayoade, initially approached him to sing cover versions but, instead, he recorded six original songs in London, accompanied by James Ford and Bill Ryder-Jones. The Submarine EP was released in March 2011. Paul Thompson of Pitchfork felt "Turner's keen wit and eye for detail" had created a "tender portrayal" of adolescent uncertainty. Turner also co-wrote six songs for Miles Kane's debut solo album Colour of the Trap (2011) and co-wrote Kane's standalone single "First of My Kind" (2012).

Turner wrote Arctic Monkeys' fourth album, Suck It and See, in New York and met up with his bandmates and James Ford for recording sessions in Los Angeles. Turner and Chung had moved back to London by the time of the album's release in June 2011, and split soon after. Marc Hogan of Pitchfork enjoyed the album's "chiming indie pop balladry" and "muscular glam-rock". Petridis of The Guardian remarked that Turner's new lyrical style of "dense, Dylanesque wordplay is tough to get right. More often than not, he pulls it off. There are beautifully turned phrases and piercing observation." Richard Hawley co-wrote and provided vocals for the B-side, "You and I", and performed the song with the band at the Olympia in Paris. Turner joined Elvis Costello on stage in New York to sing "Lipstick Vogue".

2012–2017: International success

By 2012, Arctic Monkeys were based in Los Angeles, with Turner and Helders sharing a house. Arctic Monkeys toured the US as the support act for The Black Keys in early 2012. While they had previously opened for Oasis and Queens of the Stone Age at one-off shows, it was the band's first time to tour as a supporting act. They released "R U Mine?" as a standalone single in preparation for the tour, with Turner's new girlfriend, Arielle Vandenberg, appearing in the music video. Faced with winning over indifferent audiences, Turner, now sporting a "rockabilly-inspired quiff", began to change his stage persona. Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone noted of his "newfound showmanship": "He puts his guitar down to strut and dance, drops to his knees for solos when he does play, flirts shamelessly with the female fans." Later that year, Arctic Monkeys performed "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" and a cover of "Come Together" by The Beatles at the 2012 London Summer Olympics opening ceremony. In early 2013, Turner provided backing vocals for the Queens of the Stone Age song "If I Had a Tail" and played bass guitar on "Get Right", a Miles Kane B-side. Arctic Monkeys headlined Glastonbury Festival for a second time in June.

Turner performing in Zurich in 2013

AM was released in September 2013. Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork said that the album, dealing with "desperate 3 a.m. thoughts", managed to modernise "T. Rex bop, Bee Gees backup vocals, Rolling Stones R&B, and Black Sabbath monster riffage". Phil Mongredien of The Guardian described it as "their most coherent, most satisfying album since their debut": "Turner proves he has not lost his knack for an insightful lyric." Arctic Monkeys promoted the album heavily in the US, in contrast to previous album campaigns where, according to Helders, they had refused to do radio promotion: "We couldn’t even have told you why at the time. Just stubborn teenage thinking." Arctic Monkeys spent 18 months touring AM; they were joined onstage by Josh Homme in both Los Angeles and Austin. Turner briefly reunited with Chung in the summer of 2014, having ended his two-year relationship with Vandenberg earlier that year.

Columbia Records approached Turner about working with Alexandra Savior in 2014, and he co-wrote her debut album, Belladonna of Sadness, in between Arctic Monkeys' touring commitments. Turner and James Ford co-produced the album in 2015. An additional song "Risk" was recorded with T Bone Burnett for an episode of the crime drama True Detective. While Turner and Savior performed together in Los Angeles in 2016, the album was not released until April 2017. In reviewing it, Hilary Hughes of Pitchfork remarked: "Turner’s musical ticks are so distinct that they’re instantly recognizable when someone else tries to dress them up as their own." Savior later said the press attention surrounding Turner's involvement was overwhelming: "I'm so grateful for him, but I'm also like, 'Alright, alright!'"

The Last Shadow Puppets released their second album, Everything You've Come to Expect, in April 2016. Turner, Kane and Ford were joined by Zach Dawes of Mini Mansions, with whom Turner had collaborated on the song "Vertigo" in 2015. According to Turner, the album featured "the most straight-up love letters" of his career, written for American model Taylor Bagley. (They dated from early 2015 to mid-2018.) Laura Snapes of Pitchfork detected an air of "misanthropy" in the album. However, she acknowledged that Turner was "no less a gifted lyricist than ever" and described some songs as "totally gorgeous ... the structures fluid and surprising". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian enjoyed Turner's "characteristically sparkling use of language" and "melodic skill". However, he felt the pair's "in-joking" during interviews and Kane's "leery" encounter with a female Spin journalist cast "an uncomfortable pall" over the album. From March until August 2016, they toured in Europe and North America. In December 2016, they released The Dream Synopsis, an EP which included covers of "Les Cactus" by Jacques Dutronc and "Is This What You Wanted" by Leonard Cohen.

2018 onward: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Turner performing at the Royal Albert Hall in 2018

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys' sixth album, was released in May 2018. After receiving a Steinway Vertegrand piano as a 30th birthday present from his manager, Turner wrote the space-themed album from the perspective of "a lounge-y character". Having written "the most straight-up love letters" of his career on Everything You've Come to Expect, he felt ready to explore wider themes. He recorded demos at home, and shared them with Cook in early 2017. Cook was initially taken-aback by the change in direction: "It took a few listens to even begin to, like…But I don’t think any of us wanted to make an AM, Part Two, so I were very, very excited by what he’d come up with." By mid-2017, the whole band was recording the project, produced by Turner and James Ford, in both Los Angeles and France. They were joined by a number of other musicians.

Upon release, Jonah Weiner of Rolling Stone characterised Tranquility Base as "a captivatingly bizarre album about the role of entertainment – the desire to escape into it, and the desire to create it – during periods of societal upheaval and crisis." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian found it "quietly impressive" that the band chose to release the "thrilling, smug, clever and oddly cold album" rather than more crowd-pleasing fare. Jazz Monroe of Pitchfork declared it "a delirious and artful satire directed at the foundations of modern society." The album became the eighth chart-topping album of Turner's career in the UK. The band announced plans to tour the album from May to October 2018. Turner began dating Louise Verneuil in mid-2018.

Influences

Turner was "into hip-hop in a big way" as a teenager. When he first started writing lyrics, Roots Manuva's Run Come Save Me was his main influence. He also listened to Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, OutKast, Eminem and The Streets. He has repeatedly cited Method Man as one of his favourite lyricists, and has referenced the Wu-Tang Clan in his own lyrics.

For Turner, The Strokes were "that one band that comes along when you are 14 or 15 years old that manages to hit you in just the right way and changes your whole perception of things." He changed his style of dress and began to take an interest in guitar music. He has since referenced the band in his lyrics. The Vines were the first band Turner ever saw live and Craig Nicholls provided inspiration for his early stage persona. Other early guitar influences included The Libertines, The Coral and The White Stripes. In his late teens, Turner began "delving" into older music and discovered lyricists including Elvis Costello, Ray Davies of The Kinks, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp, Paul Weller of The Jam, and Morrissey of The Smiths. Turner has since performed with Jack White of The White Stripes, Costello and Johnny Marr of The Smiths.

John Cooper Clarke, whose poetry Turner first encountered at school, was a "massive" source of early inspiration. Turner was working as a barman at The Boardwalk in Sheffield in late 2004 when Clarke appeared on stage as the opening act for The Fall. The performance made a big impression on the eighteen-year-old: "He's talking 100 miles an hour, and he's really funny ... It just blew my mind." He was inspired by Clarke's use of a regional accent and the early Arctic Monkeys song "From the Ritz to the Rubble" was his homage to Clarke's style ("my best shot at it, at least"). Later in his career, Turner published a Clarke poem as part of a single's artwork and used another ("I Wanna Be Yours") as the lyrical basis for a song. In 2018, Arctic Monkeys invited Clarke to perform his reading of "I Wanna Be Yours" at one of their Sheffield arena shows.

As his career has progressed, Turner has mentioned musical influences ranging from film scores to country music. Two songs that Turner has discussed repeatedly in interviews are Leon Russell's "A Song for You" and Dion's "Only You Know". He has covered Leonard Cohen's "Memories" and "Is This What You Wanted" with The Last Shadow Puppets. The Beatles are an influence, as is David Bowie. Nick Lowe, Nick Cave, John Cale and Lou Reed are among Turner's favourite lyricists.

Solo

• 2011 – Submarine

Arctic Monkeys

• 2006 – Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
• 2007 – Favourite Worst Nightmare
• 2009 – Humbug
• 2011 – Suck It and See
• 2013 – AM
• 2018 – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

The Last Shadow Puppets

• 2008 – The Age Of The Understatement
• 2016 − Everything You've Come To Expect

Collaborations

• 2007 – Reverend and The Makers – The State of Things (writer and vocalist on "The Machine", co-writer of "He Said He Loved Me" and "Armchair Detective")
• 2007 – Dizzee Rascal – Maths + English ("Temptation")
• 2008 – Matt Helders – Late Night Tales: Matt Helders ("A Choice of Three")
• 2011 – Miles Kane – Colour of the Trap (co-writer of "Rearrange", "Counting Down the Days", "Happenstance", "Telepathy", "Better Left Invisible" and "Colour of the Trap")
• 2012 – Miles Kane – First of My Kind EP (co-writer of "First of My Kind")
• 2013 – Miles Kane – Don't Forget Who You Are (co-writer and bassist on B-side "Get Right")
• 2013 – Queens of the Stone Age – ...Like Clockwork (guest vocalist on "If I Had a Tail")
• 2015 – Mini Mansions – The Great Pretenders (co-writer and guest vocalist on "Vertigo", co-writer on "Valet")
• 2015 – Alexandra Savior – True Detective season 2 original soundtrack (co-composed song "Risk" on guitar, keyboard, drums)
• 2017 – Alexandra Savior – Belladonna of Sadness (co-writer, co-producer, bass, guitar, keyboards, and synthesizers)