Wednesday 14 April 2010

Arctic Monkeys: Desert set for Arctic blast



The Arctic Monkeys played Coachella in 2007 after “Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not” became the fastest-selling debut album in British history


Now, on the weekend of the 11th annual festival, the Arctic Monkeys are playing Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown.
The Sheffield, England quartet recorded much of their recent “Humbug” CD at the Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree with desert resident Josh Homme as producer, so the band thought it made sense to return to headline a gig with studio owner Dave Catching's Earthlings?
Lead singer-songwriter Alex Turner talked about it through a thick Sheffield accent in a recent telephone interview:
THE DESERT SUN: Did you have a chance to play Coachella or did you prefer to play at Pappy's?

TURNER: We wanted to play in Pappy's from the first time we walked through the door. I love Coachella festival. We had a great show there like two years ago, (but) it was a bit soon to do it again. Nothing against Coachella. I mean, Pappy's is only a couple hundred people. It's not going to be too damaging to that festival.
I know Josh took you there, but how did you get connected with Josh?
We met at festivals. He burst into a dressing room one day yelling, “Monkeys!” We took it from there.
So it was his entrance that caught your attention?
Yeah. I mean, we were longtime fans. Jamie (Cook) and I, when we were first learning to play guitar, we listened to (Homme's band) Queens (of the Stone Age) a lot. We played a show in Houston with them a couple years ago and I think we mentioned, “Yeah, we should do some tunes with Josh.” Then we forgot about it and went on our merry way. Then it came back up in conversation. We got in touch with the people upstairs and Josh and I spoke on the phone a lot. He said, “Why don't you come out for a couple weeks and we'll try it out.” So we all took a guitar each and drove to the desert and had a little adventure.
Was the environment much of an influence on the music you made?

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