Forum LEVEL

At only 32 years old Alex Turner has just crossed an important and even destabilizing step for an artist: this precise moment when you realize that in your life you have been a musician longer than a non-musician. It must be said that Alex Turner was just 20 years old at the time of the Arctic Monkeys debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, in 2006. And his career as a musician, he lived it so far with the intensity, urgency of his age. 32 years, but already nine albums - including six with the Arctic Monkeys. And no sign of frustration, weariness. The Sheffield kid, who ran away to Los Angeles years ago, has found some unstoppable ways to push back the routine. For example by replacing his eternal guitar with a piano to compose the new album of the Arctic Monkeys, the first sign of life of the band since 2014. And especially, by offering secret gardens escapades, like the soundtrack of the film Submarine or the luxurious adventures of the Last Shadow Puppets. Two albums in response to the excessiveness but also the mandatory electricity of Arctic Monkeys: The Last Shadow Puppets were for Alex Turner a way to explore a songwriting less physical, less explosive, more introspective, more sophisticated. Since 2008, each album of the Last Shadow Puppets has come in reaction to the previous Arctic Monkeys album, deviating the axis, offering Turner a valve. But at the age of 30, he decided that schizophrenia had had its day, and that it was the same person, the same voice, the same pen who were at the controls of both bands. On Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, we hear an ideal mix between the luxuriance of some and the dynamics of others, between a crooner voice and more rough sounds. It sounds like a solo album, but it's immediately identifiable, despite the discreet guitars, as an Arctic Monkeys album. To renew oneself at this point with a sixth album is a small miracle.

The Arctic Monkeys have just completed their sixth album, their first in five years. Is it a relief or an anxiety?

Alex Turner - I would not talk about relief, no. Everything suddenly accelerates, and I begin to regret the days when I was alone at home, to write next to my dog, without any planning. However, I am very excited to have found the band ... All this is the fault of my thirtieth birthday, two years ago. My manager gave me a piano, and I, who until now only composed on the guitar, I discovered new methods of writing. I followed my fingers and began to play, to explore ... It was the starting point of the album.

How do you know that one song will be for the Arctic Monkeys, another will be reserved for the Last Shadow Puppets?

Initially, it was very simple, there was a large gap between the two bands. One album alternated with the other, as a reaction to the previous one ... At the Arctic Monkeys with guitars, and the Last Shadow Puppets exploring a more baroque songwriting. But little by little, with age, this gap has been filled. The big difference today is that I share writing daily with Miles Kane in the Last Shadow Puppets. While with the Arctic Monkeys I write alone, isolated in Los Angeles. Today, borders are erased, my writing now forms a whole. The other difference is the production, the atmosphere reserved for both projects.

In what way is the new album a group album, a collective work?

For a very long time, I worked on it alone. At the end of the last tour, at the end of 2014, we did not see each other for more than a year. We stayed in touch, but without having to end up in the same room. This time, not only did I compose alone - which often happened - but I started recording without them. I discovered this freedom four years ago by composing with Alexandra Savior, pre-recording the songs alone at home on an 8-tracks and then distorting them, enriching them in a group. That's what we did with the Arctic Monkeys, first meeting together at the studios of La Frette, near Paris, then opening the doors wide open to other musicians, friends. This is where what could have been a solo album became authentically an Arctic Monkeys record. I was not at all sure that was the right direction for the band. But the others were immediately enthusiastic in discovering the songs. Jamie Cook even told me, while guitars were first missing from my songs, that this was the right direction to follow. Together, they brought their energy, their dynamics, the guitars etc. I had forgotten, being so alone, how much I love this gang mentality. The Monkeys are my oldest friends, we have lived everything, all together since childhood. We were a bit rusty musically, but humanly there was not the slightest second of adaptation. The camaraderie was intact.

You say that the piano was important in the genesis of the album. Sounds like Bowie was also important...

The first person who listens to my new songs and albums is my mother. And she made the same remark. Bowie is deeply etched in my memory and I try to resist this influence. But there, with his death, he was omnipresent. Curiously, I would say that another death had a stronger impact on the first fruits of the album: Leonard Cohen. I listened to his work relentlessly as I started playing the piano. He marked my writing, even though I stay far behind him. On the occasion of future reissues, I had to re-read the lyrics of our first album. Well it's clear: I progressed (laughs) ... In my defense, I was only 17, but the path remains long for me. Leonard Cohen takes his time to embark, you cannot release a sentence or even a song from its context: it forms a whole, a work. He proved to me that I did not have to keep a story in the three minutes of a song. It was liberating for me.

Is writing texts a tough experience?

I had a hard time getting started. The song Star Treatment, which opens the album, evokes these difficulties. You know, in my life, and today I'm 32 years old, I spent as much time in the Arctic Monkeys as without them. My mother, telling me that, asked me when I was going to find a real job (laughs) ... It's been more than sixteen years that I write and I feel that it makes me feel good, despite everything. By the way, as a kid, I did not start with lyrics, but with a storyline, a gangster story. And also by punchlines, I wanted to rap.

Have your parents always supported you?

They were teachers and they were a little worried when I played guitar day and night, at the expense of my schooling. And I know today that they were right. But they have always been behind me, they taught me values, they helped to shape my political consciousness. And they continue to do it. I owe them a work ethic peculiar to the working class, I blame myself when I do not work enough on a song, for example. I have to work, do not take anything for granted. This is probably why I feel so fulfilled in my small studio, to work tirelessly. In sixteen years, I released six albums with the Arctic Monkeys, two with the Last Shadow Puppets and the soundtrack of the movie Submarine ... That's eight and a half albums, there was not much time for idleness.

What would the young Alex Turner, at 17, think of the new Arctic Monkeys album?

He would probably ask me to turn that crap off the turntable and to play The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead instead (laughs) ... He was a bit limited at that age. Already, picking the Smiths was a lot for him. That said, I think he would have loved the rhythm guitars and hip-hop influences of the new album. We would also both talk passionately about American producer and composer Adrian Younge, who has worked with Kendrick Lamar. He influenced the new album a lot.

Your singing has evolved a lot, more and more sweet and posed. Do you consider yourself a crooner?

At first, I did not even think about my singing, everything came out in a hurry ... I only started to think about singing after several years, for the first album of the Last Shadow Puppets. I discovered Scott Walker and Nina Simone; after that, I could not just scream. My writing then adapted to this new desire to sing. However, I am not a very vocal singer, even in the car, where I listen to jazz radio stations. I'd have to repeat it more often, that I'm less reluctant to sing a lot of takes in the studio. There, on the new album, I recorded most of the voices by myself, at home, and I have never been able to find this accuracy in the studio. Singing in the studio, it messes my head.

You say "at home". It's definitely Los Angeles, your "home"?

This is where my machines and my piano are. That's what keeps me there for now. I had not considered staying there for so long. But I guess I fell asleep next to the pool, a cocktail in my hand, and I woke up five years later (laughs) ... At first I came to California because I needed to change my life, reinventing myself, I felt that I disappeared ... I got used to the comfort, to the habits, it was necessary to change the setting. The advantage is that in a city like Los Angeles I can totally isolate myself, withdraw from the world. It was not possible when I lived in London or New York. That said, go out to walk, say hello to someone, it's not bad either (silence) ... In fact, I love Los Angeles in the cold, under the clouds, when the rain brings gloom, when the city offers a good excuse for a cup of tea. People do not know how to handle bad weather, the atmosphere becomes very special. I like to feel foreign, alone. That said, I probably live far too much inside my head, it would be good for me to have more relationships with real people.

Were you in California while the referendum that led to Brexit?

I was in England for concerts in Glastonbury and Bristol. It was very ... disappointing (laughs). I woke up with a bitter, strange taste in my mouth. Especially when we had to put on the glitter jacket, go on stage and ensure the show. Strangely, it makes me want to come back and live in England: we can not leave the country to those who want to isolate it. Many of my American friends said they would go live in Canada if Trump was elected. Yet it is now that the United States needs them most. Otherwise, we let the ditches widen.

In the lyrics of the album, you quote both the Strokes and Bukowski ...

It would be nice to be in between, right? I can not say that I know Bukowski as well as the Strokes. They really counted in my life, I see myself as a kid, borrowing a blouse from my mother to go dancing on the Strokes at the Leadmill in Sheffield... The song “She Looks Like Fun”, where I talk about Bukowski, is about people who boast, invent a phony personality on social networks. I do not even have a Twitter account or Instagram: I put all my comments in my songs.

That has not stopped you from reinventing yourself in recent years in real life, changing your looks and even personality ...

Well, I guess it's true, I did exactly what I denounce in this song (silence) ... When I moved to Los Angeles, I suddenly metamorphosed into a 50s biker, with black leather and gomina. I needed it because after the end of a love story, I wanted a new life, a new head, a new me ... It was cosmetic changes, not great challenges. It's not because I combed my hair and put on a leather jacket that I became Fonzie. Sadly.