Biography
Date of Birth
6 December 1986, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, UK
Birth Name
Alexander David Turner
Nickname
Al
Height
5' 7½" (1.71 m)
Trivia
Singer & guitarist of the group Arctic Monkeys.
Father is a music teacher and mother is a German teacher.
Boyfriend of Alexa Chung [2011].
Plays keyboards, drums, guitar, percussion, bass.
Was in a relationship with Arielle Vandenberg.
Trademarks:
Big dark brown eyes
Ever changing hairstyles
Quotes
[commenting on the winners at the 2006 Q magazine awards] A lot of people make jokes about having awards for no reason just for the sake of having awards, and pretending they were good when they weren't. I'm not old enough to know a lot of them, but even I know Take That were bollocks.
Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, "Yeah, songwritin' man," looking wistful. That wasn't me - those kinds of people put me off. In the early days, I'd write a bunch of lyrics and almost look at them as a sort of joke, to make the rest of the boys laugh. And then we'd jigsaw all these parts together to make the tunes. With The Last Shadow Puppets album, Miles Kane and I took a much more traditional approach, thinking about melodies and chords, melodies and lyrics. That opened the door to more of a purist approach. Every time you write a song, you're looking for some sort of perfection, and you never quite reach it. You're always looking for that extra missing piece.
When we first arrived in America we'd play a small venue in Florida and some hick would be shouting, "Come on, man! What is this?" But I love those sorts of shows where you have to try and convince people. You have to become ten times more animated and really rattle everyone's cage.
I'm like the Ben Affleck of crowd surfing.
You don't meet that many people that you can talk about Roots Manuva with, but that was my favorite in school, this record of his called Run Come Save Me. When I first started writing lyrics, it came from that.
Hatful of Hollow and The Smiths were lent to me, and they made me want to create music that might make another person feel like they made me feel - to have an effect on someone.
I like Four Freshmen, anything with good harmonies, some The Beach Boys. I like the girl groups as well, like The Dixie Cups and all that.
I'm in a difficult position in the sense that, preposterous as this might sound, I don't like being the centre of attention. I get up on stage every night and play songs, but I almost feel the songs are the centre of attention. I don't like opening my birthday presents in front of people, either.
[at the 2006 NME Awards, regarding Russell Brand] He'll probably make another joke about us being from up north again, 'cause that was funny, wannit?
They think it [album title "Suck It and See", which means something must be tried first] is rude, disrespectful and they're putting a sticker over it in America in certain stores, big ones.
I actually stole it [album title "AM"] from the Velvet Underground, I'll just confess that now and get it out of the way. The 'VU' record, obviously. Did we cop out? Yeah! Summat about it feels like this record is exactly where we should be right now. So it felt right to just initial it.
[revealing that Arctic Monkeys had nearly titled the album "AM" "The New Black"] I got this old Rickenbacker thing that we recorded a lot through. There's no knobs, just two holes. And this little black amp that became known as The New Black. Crossed me mind to call the album that.
["AM" is] like a Dr. Dre beat, but we've given it an Ike Turner bowl-cut and sent it galloping across the desert on a Stratocaster.
[2007, on the UK smoking ban] You get weird smells now, I reckon. [...] I think it will become less strict in a few years. 'Cos like in New York, they've had it a bit longer and they turn a blind eye to it some places there now.
I think the new album is a balance between our first three. There's nothing about taxi ranks or anything like that, but there's a bit of the standpoint I had on those early songs and the sense of humour, but also there's a bit of the 'Humbug' stuff which is kind of off in the corners.
[My mother] would always play the Eagles, too, so I'm word-perfect on shitloads of Eagles tunes.
I remember when I first started writing songs, and writing lyrics, I really wanted to be able to write an "I Am the Walrus" type song, and I found it very difficult. You listen to that and it sounds like it's all nonsense, but it's difficult to write that sort of thing and make it compelling. Lennon definitely had a knack for that.
