Arctic Monkeys the English Indie Rockers Dive Into an R&B Groove on Their New Set

ISSUE #29 MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A S ebastian Kim Nick O'Malley, Jamie Cook, Matt Helders, Alex Turner ARCTIC MONKEYS The English indie rockers dive into an R&B groove on their new set FOUR ALBUMs—anD SEVEN YEARs— to navigate the flying saucer. We finish that song. We wanted to make a record that after releasing their debut, Whatever People each other’s sentences at this point. This surrounded that. So the R&B thing was there Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the Arctic record is a lot more of a studio record. The from the beginning. Monkeys’ latest record, AM, finds the band records we made up to now sound like a tapping into R&B melodies to shake up band playing, and I think this one is less How did Bill Ryder-Jones end up on their guitar-driven sound. “We started with, so. We were following elements of different the record? ‘What if you go with Aaliyah melodies and corners of the musical universe, putting Bill’s a good friend and a really terrific guitar riffs from Black Sabbath?’” says frontman together some chemicals that don’t usually player and a great songwriter. He put out Alex Turner. “Some of the grooves in that mix. There’s delicate balance in that. To do his own album, which we all love. “Fireside,” world matched up perfectly with those that I thought it would be best to have a the song he’s featured on, is probably the melodies. That was the initial idea, but producer we understand but who also most melancholic moment on the record, then we began to experiment.” Lending a understands us. and I wanted a guitar part that reflected the hand with the experiments were producer longing that song addresses. Longing is James Ford, Bill Ryder-Jones, Josh Homme, Were you aiming for an R&B feel? like a liquid, and it’s not something you sail and Elvis Costello’s drummer Pete Thomas. There was this one song that was the smoothly through. It seems to have a rolling impetus behind the whole thing called “R U boil to it. I wanted the rhythm of the song to What’s the genesis of the album? Mine?” that we previously put out. We were reflect that feeling. Last summer we went to Joshua Tree for a experimenting more with vocal production couple of weeks to gather our thoughts and and borrowing some tricks and scales from How about Pete Thomas? start cooking up something. And we worked contemporary R&B. I call them “two-way It was a product of circumstances. Matt right through to May this year. It’s been a pager melodies”—the kind of melodies that [Helders] busted up his hand, and he long road. The majority of the recording accompany lyrics about two-way pagers couldn’t play—but we wanted to keep was done in Los Angeles. You could say we from 10 or 15 years ago, like Aaliyah, experimenting to work out the knots in the browned the garlic and softened the onions, Ashanti, Mýa, things from that world. There’s songs. So we had Pete come down and had but the roasting was done in L.A. this thing they always do with some of that a great few weeks. He’s a great guy and a music where a backup vocal echoes in time, fantastic drummer. There are some tunes on Why do you always select James Ford? and then lingers around. The chorus on “R there that, without his enthusiasm, wouldn’t He’s been involved with every record—he’s U Mine?” borrows that move. All that vocal have come to fruition. sort of like the fifth member. He knows how production was the most exciting part of –Amanda Farah ‘We were following elements of different corners of the musical universe.’ 22 M mag 29.indd 22 8/26/13 1:08 AM.

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