POINT AND SHOOT “The thing that’s got it all fucked up now is camera phones” moaned Mike Skinner back on The Streets’ 2006 track, When You Wasn’t Famous, and technology has only become faster, smaller and more shiny since then. This has made Sheffield life as an Arctic Monkey a bit harder than it once was – local legends and all that – but Helders isn’t complaining too much: “I’d probably be the same,” he shrugs. “[We can disappear] less and less as we go on, like we’ve been back [to Sheffield] a few times recently and it does get a bit hectic,” admits the drummer. “We still want to go out at night and see all our friends – a lot of [them] have bars there and stuff – but they’re in town and they’re busy so you can’t really go without a camera phone being in your face. “We were there at the end of [an era]; well, at the start of the new era of how people are. And now, even the quality of the phone that you can take [video] with [is much better]. Before you’ve got home that night it’s already on the internet – it’s mad. People know where I am and will tell me I was in a place before I can, like, ‘Cool, you were in that bar last night’, and I’m like, ‘Yeah... why do you know?’.”
let’s keep doing falsetto R&B backing vocals and then the rest of the track can be a bit dirtier. It didn’t have to be all the same pace or heaviness of R U Mine?, but there was certain aspects that we wanted to keep from it. I don’t think we could have got away with it without that [balance], or it would have just been an R&B record.” With Helders only 27 years of age, and his bandmates on roughly the same page in that regard, a little bit of burnout – some cracks around the edges – could be expected by now. But five albums in and no Arctic Monkeys release sounds stale, though Helders has no idea why. “It’s not even like we listen to different inspirations every time,” he ponders. “This time we were listening to music we kinda always listen to, like ‘70s rock and hip hop came through a bit more this time. But we do definitely go into the studio with an aim to make a different [record] to the last one, but it’s gotta still make sense, like hoping the last one led to this, or R U Mine? led to this. It is a conscious decision for us but it seems like an obvious thing to do, just to move on a bit and do something different – it’s quite natural.” It’s hard to comment objectively when you’re part of the pack, but it’s clear for us outsiders what the secret to Arctic Monkeys success is. Music is a solid glue to
bring people together, but friendships are a far more stable platform to build greatness from. And for these working class heroes from the former steel heartland of England, nothing’s held more dearly. “It’s been important for us and how we’ve gone about things,” confirms Helders. “Our relationship as people was very much established before the band started, so even day-to-day things, we’ve got a lot more in common and to talk about than just the band. Our lives and our
friendships don’t revolve around the band, which helps because we can easily switch off. When it comes to working and making music then we’re ready to go, and if we don’t wanna we can just sit on the bus and talk about nonsense, and I think that’s quite important. Obviously it can work the other way as well, like people get together just because they’re musicians and still make amazing music, but for us we’re kinda on the same page a lot of the time, steering the ship in the same direction as it were.”
WHEN & WHERE: 7 May, Brisbane Entertainment Centre (all ages) THE MUSIC • 23RD APRIL 2014 • 13