Saturday, March 13, 2010

Drinks With: Arctic Monkeys

Skip Matheny— currently a songwriter in the band Roman Candle and former bartender in a retirement community — caught up with Alex Turner and Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys before their show in Chicago, Illinois, last fall.

Did you write these songs for the newer record after you had moved to Brooklyn?
AT: No. But I have written a lot since I’ve moved there.

A lot of writers have a newly infused life behind their writing once they leave their home country… it’s like they can write with an almost clearer eye about anything. Robert Frost, for example … his writing really took shape when he moved his family to the U.K. Have you experienced anything like that?
AT: Yeah. I think moving there seems to have given me like a kick up the arse or something. I mean I’ll sit there quite often, more frequently than I used to, and write. I feel like there is a lot more room here or something. But actually the songs on this record all came before [I moved]. But the next record probably will all be these songs I suppose.

Did either of you, have sometime when you were a kid when you heard a song and thought, “This thing or idea of a pop song, I get that. I might try to do that one day?”
AT: Well, I remember I must have been like twelve years old or something, and hearing “I Am the Walrus” and thinking, “Well, this is just like nonsense. I could write something like this, surely.” And sort of attempting to write in that style and really struggling with it. I distinctly remember getting aggravated because it’s like, “Well, he’s singing about custard and a cob sitting on a cornflake and why can’t I think of that?”[Laughs] And I still can’t do that exactly.

It reminds me of when I saw a Jackson Pollock painting as a kid and I thought, “Oh man, this guy has fooled everybody. This is some really easy stuff.” And then you get a little older and realize that there is something else going on there.
AT: Exactly. And there are other things: I remember being on car journeys with my parents and, I feel like that situation is the first time that I would hear music, as a kid. I suppose my Dad was talking to me about Beach Boys tunes and the harmony aspect of [their songs] as well. They evoke feeling from you—almost involuntarily—and the idea of that is something that’s stayed with me, because before the lyrics or anything in those songs, the chords and the vocal harmonies sort of get you. I remember being stirred even at a young age. It’s almost like you can’t help it.

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