2002-Alex TurnerVocals, guitar
Jamie CookGuitar
Matt HeldersDrums
Andy NicholsonBass2002-2006
Nick O'MalleyBass
Arctic Monkeys are from Sheffield, UK, in Northern England. They built a following in 2004 through online file sharing and distribution of their demo tapes but refused to sign a record contract with any label because they cherished their independence. When they finally signed with Domino Records, it was because of the "do it yourself" attitude of founder, Lawrence Bell, who ran the label from his own house. Their first single with Domino was "
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor."
They were all teenagers when they formed the band in 2002. Alex Turner told The BBC about the origins: "We all got guitars for Christmas and started playing in my garage that summer, rehearsed there and in a warehouse for a bit for about a year."
Their first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, became the fastest selling debut in UK history, earning them an entry in the Guinness Book Of World Records. They beat out Definitely, Maybe by Oasis by selling 363,735 copies in the first week and 113,000 on the first day.
About a month later, the album was released in the US and opened at #24 on the albums chart, one of the best debuts ever by a band on an independent record label.
They released five albums from 2006-2013, then took five years off. When they returned in 2018 with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, they veered away from rock and into electronica and jazz, a stylistic shift that continued into their next album, The Car, in 2022.
Most of their third album, Humbug (2009), was produced by Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and recorded at his studio in the Mojave Desert. It was a big shift in scenery for the band, who made their previous albums in England.
With Homme, they took an experimental approach, coming into the studio with unfinished tracks and letting them develop. The result was a very heavy album.
All four members of the band were devoted fans of hip-hop when then were younger. For some members, like Alex Turner and Matt Heders, things changed when they heard certain bands. For Alex, it was The Strokes and The Libertines, and for Matt, it was seeing Queens of the Stone Age at a local music festival.
Many British rock singers lose their accents when they sing in an effort to appeal to American listeners, but Turner keeps his Sheffield drawl. Early on, he tried singing without it, but it didn't sound right.
When the band started off in Turner's parents' garage they didn't envisage the success they've since achieved. "Well, the fact we gave ourselves the name 'Arctic Monkeys' alludes to the extent of ambitions we had," Turner told
NME in 2022. "Clearly hardly any."
The band was criticized by the head of the National Health Service in Scotland because the cover of their first album depicted Chris McClure, a friend of the band, smoking a cigarette. The actual picture on the CD was of an ashtray, as well. The Scottish NHS saw this as "reinforcing the idea that smoking is OK."
All four band members grew up together in High Green, a northern suburb of Sheffield. They've known each other since they were all seven years old.
Arctic Monkeys named the first song they wrote "Matt Dave Rock Song," titled for a singer who subsequently left the band.
In 2006, Arctic Monkeys became the first band to win ShockWaves NME Awards for both Best New Band and Best British Band on the same night.
Arctic Monkeys played
their first live show in the upstairs function room at The Grapes pub on Trippet Lane in Sheffield, England, on June 13, 2003, when the band members were 16 years old. The show lasted around 25 minutes, reportedly witnessed by about 35 people - mostly friends and family. Their set comprised two originals: "Ravey Ravey Ravey Club" and their only performance of "Curtains Closed," with covers of The White Stripes, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Fatboy Slim, and The Undertones. The band took home just £17.
Original Arctic Monkeys bassist Andy Nicholson traces the band's beginnings back to a Sheffield schoolyard friendship long before anyone had serious musical ambitions. Nicholson met Alex Turner and Matt Helders after joining Stocksbridge High School in Year 8, and the trio bonded over skateboarding, rollerblading, and underage drinking rather than any grand rock 'n' roll plans.
"Al's dad was a music teacher, so there were instruments lying about, and one day Al said, 'I've learned some chords on a guitar.' There and then it was like, Let's start a band," Nicholson recalled to Mojo magazine. "At the time we were listening to a lot of hip-hop, but The Strokes had released their first album not long before then, and then it was The White Stripes and The Libertines so that energy was coming over here as well."
Christmas 2002 became the unofficial launch point for the band. "Al said, 'I'm going to get an electric guitar' and Helders said, 'I'm gonna get some drums,'" recalled Nicholson. "So I said, 'Alright, I'll get a bass guitar.'" Then Al said, 'There's a lad up the road called Jamie (Cook), he can play guitar.' Jamie came down and Al said, 'Right Arctic Monkeys.' I don't know where he got it from. We had a name before we had a song."
