It’s probably a good thing that when I interview the Arctic Monkeys I get to speak to their frontman, Alex Turner, three times. The first time, we meet in a private members’ club in east London (where Turner lives with his girlfriend, TV presenter Alexa Chung) and he is quiet and reserved, with lots of silences punctuated by flashes of dry Sheffield humor. The second time, at the photo studios with the rest of the band (guitarist Jamie Cook, bass player Nick O’Malley and drummer Matt Helders), he seems more relaxed. And the third, talking on the phone from the BBC radio Big Weekend pop festival in Carlisle, northwestern England, he is friendly and charming, signing off with a cheery “Nice one, love!”
Clearly Turner is slow to burn with new people, as is the rest of the band. It goes some way to explaining how, in the early days of their meteoric rise, the Monkeys gained a reputation for being difficult, uncommunicative — “mardy bums” if you like. But when I ask Turner about this, he describes it as “a bit of a defense mechanism that kicked in. When the first album blew up, we shut a lot of people out, just to try to keep some sort of control.”
You were very young — was it a form of self-protection? “I suppose,” says Turner. “It’s quite unusual to have all these people asking questions. Still now, talking about myself is strange. If you do it for a long time, it puts you in a weird place.”
Photo: REUTERS
You could become a raging egomaniac? “Yeah, that’s it.”
The Monkeys were barely 20 at the time of their 2006 debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. It remains the best-selling debut in British history, beating Oasis, going quadruple platinum and garnering Brits, a Mercury and an Ivor Novello award, not to mention that name check from former British prime minister Gordon Brown (“They really wake you up in the mornings.”) Going on to headline Glastonbury in 2007, the Monkeys were the first of the MySpace bands to be promoted on the Internet by fans, via free demos and file-sharing — and were credited with scaring awake a sleeping music industry. There followed 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, 2009’s Humbug, and now the release of their fourth album, Suck It and See. Everything considered, not bad going for what Turner describes as “not center of attention kind of people.”
In photographs, Turner’s pale skin and huge brown eyes, peering up under mussed hair, can make him look almost Bambi-ish. In person, in leather jacket and skinny jeans, he’s “indie-handsome,” as can be confirmed by the many fan-blogs devoted to discussing his gorgeousness. (My favorite is the earnestly titled, “What do you love most about Alex?”)
At first when I speak to Turner, there are eerie pauses and a lot of “it’s hard to recall,” more than seems feasible for a 25-year-old. But when he warms up he is sharp, droll and, it turns out, genuinely bad at remembering certain details, such as writing the first lyric, giving the first autograph: “It all seems so far away now.” His initial aversion to eye contact reminds me that, in the early days, rehearsing in his parents’ garage — “Just wanting to make a row, make friends laugh” — Turner tried to find someone else to sing in the band.
Does he still find it hard to think of himself as a natural front man? “I’ve grown into it, though I don’t think it was destiny or anything.” When I ask him whether he was shy and quiet as a young boy or a tear-away, he replies, “Definitely the former.” As a personality type, would he have been happier not being the front man? “I’m not sure. I think I like the idea that I would have, but I’m quite a control freak.” He grins. “There’s a bit of that.”
The good news is that Suck It and See is brilliant. Songs include Black Treacle, the first single, Don’t Sit Down ’Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair, She’s Thunderstorms, The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala and Love is a Laser Quest, and there’s not a dud among them (except, perhaps, the monotonous Brick by Brick). It’s full of tight melodies, prowling guitars and reflective yet pithy lyrics, bringing to mind everything from Captain Beefheart, the White Stripes and the Beach Boys to Nick Cave, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Iggy Pop (the group have become huge Stooges fans), all powered by a dark rock/country pulse.
It’s a departure from the provincial roar of the first two albums, where songs such as I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, Fluorescent Adolescent and The View From The Afternoon featured Turner’s pitch-perfect lyrical reportage on youth culture in Sheffield (girls, mates, chips, cabs, local poseurs).
Suck It and See also differs from the more opaque, guitar-heavy third album, Humbug. Partly made in the Mojave Desert and produced by Josh Homme from the band Queens of the Stone Age, Humbug received what is politely known as a mixed reception. Some weren’t happy that the band had changed, and not just musically. (Turner and O’Malley grew their hair, Cook had a beard.) But Turner is adamant that it was necessary. Working with Miles Kane, the former frontman of the Rascals, on the side project The Last Shadow Puppets made him creatively restless. And while the Monkeys have recently “made friends” with their first album, for a time they couldn’t face their earlier stuff.
In particular, Turner felt that Favourite Worst Nightmare was too much of a rush-job.
“It’s fine, just not that considered. Though I’m really glad we did it — otherwise I might still be sitting around trying to write Hallelujah,” he says, with a slight roll of his eyes. “After that, we all thought we needed to move on.” Break with your past? “Yeah,” he says. “If only to prove that it weren’t all about those 12 songs about the chip shop.”
I meet up with all the Arctic Monkeys when they’re getting their photograph taken. Along with Turner, there’s Jamie Cook (friendly, beard-free), Nick O’Malley (laconic, an early replacement for original bass player Andy Nicholson) and Matt Helders (naturally ebullient, but not feeling well). We sit at a table full of beers to chat. Like Turner, his bandmates are polite, occasionally wary and dryly humorous. When I ask them about the financial rewards of being in a band, O’Malley says quietly, “It’s our only motivation.”
Cook, O’Malley and Helders still live in Sheffield, northern England, although they don’t seem at all tribal about it. Are they treated like local celebrities? “Nah,” says Helders, “it’s not that kind of place.” They find one of my lines of questioning, about rock ’n’ roll cliches, ridiculous. “I am more and more attracted to rock ’n’ roll cliches — closer and closer,” deadpans Helders. As for the touring cliche of living for the hour onstage, Helders reckons, “Not me. It gets in the way of my Sudoku.”
The previous night, they’d been on the BBC TV show Later with Jools Holland, performing Reckless Serenade, Don’t Sit Down ... and my favorite from the album, the anarchic Library Pictures (“Give me an eenie minie mo/And an ip, dip, dogshit, rock ’n’ roll”). I was there for their set and, with a strong lineup (the Brian Wilson Band, Alison Krauss, Warpaint and Gappy Ranks), the Monkeys held their own — although they don’t think so.
“It’s not normal to have to face each other and play like that,” O’Malley says. “And when you see somebody playing that well, you’re like, ‘Shit, I can’t do that.’”
Turner agrees: “Those bands are such good musicians. But it was a different thing that we were bringing — it’s not all about proficiency.” He pauses for a beat. “Though I suppose it is.”
Is the point that they have to walk the walk now — they can’t be the whippersnappers in polo shirts from High Green any more? Talking about the Arctic Monkeys’ past, it becomes clear that their rise wasn’t “overnight.” (There was the usual jumble of incidents, accidents, false starts, local pub shows and hard graft.) However, it was pretty close. “I hate to say organic, like vegan,” says Turner, “but it was like that.”
As for Humbug, all the band say they’re proud of it, and relished their time in the Mojave Desert studio (which sounds like rehab for blocked indie rockers). Turner says: “The main thing I learned is that whatever it is that makes us sound like us is built into the four of us. Josh said it, too: ‘Whatever happens, it will always sound like you guys.’”
Some of the criticisms of Humbug are rather strange. It would have been a tragedy if their early material hadn’t sounded like young boys from Sheffield having a scream, but by their third album, it would have been a tragedy if they’d still sounded like that. Turner claims he doesn’t read reviews anyway: “Either it’s really bad and you get a sour taste in your mouth, or it’s really good, and you get a bit too satisfied. You’re never left in a good place.”
It must be hard though, after that initial huge impact (awards, plaudits, best-selling albums by 20, Glastonbury by 21), to keep replicating that kind of momentum and excitement? The Monkeys just shrug — it’s not an issue, it’s still exciting.
According to Turner, there was never a master plan anyway. “One thing just led to another until that thing became ‘We’re going to play Glastonbury.’ That was a turning point. You do this thing that seems huge, you’re really nervous, you don’t think you perform well, it’s raining, the sound doesn’t seem loud enough. Then you come back down to earth.” After Glastonbury, the Monkeys played a club in Oslo. “I remember this feeling of, ‘That was it, you got to there, now where do you go?’ And the answer is... ‘You go to Oslo.’”
I ask them whether they can see how musicians go crazy and come to need that kind of high all the time.
“It’s not really like that for us,” says Turner. “We want to get better rather than get bigger.”
Talking alone to Turner, I suggest he is hounded by an early lyric from Fake Tales of San Francisco: “You’re not from New York City, you’re from Rotherham.” Like Pete Townshend’s “I hope I die before I get old,” it’s become a stick to beat him with in every interview, with the implication that he is now the person he was criticizing.
“No,” Turner corrects. “I’m now the person those people were pretending to be.” He grins. “That suddenly felt very crass coming out of my mouth. That lyric was just for a small circle of people, to make them laugh. It didn’t occur to me that it would end up striking a chord with a larger circle.”
How does he feel about fame? “I’ve become more comfortable with that. At the same time, it’s not like I’m Lady Gaga.”
Fire and the Thud, on Humbug, includes the line “I’d like to poke them in their prying eyes” and I ask him whether it’s a comment on media intrusion.
“No, I wouldn’t write songs about that.”
Fire and the Thud is also supposed to be about Turner’s decision to move to New York with Chung when she was working for MTV. Does he think their relationship magnifies the attention they get?
“I suppose it does, yeah.”
Following your girlfriend to New York for her work is quite “new man” for a Sheffield lad, I say.
“I was glad she asked me to go with her.”
But moving to the US for someone is pretty special — really rather lovely. “I didn’t think of it like that. I thought, the pleasure’s all mine.” After a brief pause, Turner adds: “The first time I went to New York it was really exciting and I thought, given half the chance, it would be nice to live there — the same with London. So if you get something to give you the impetus that’s great ...” His voice trails away, as if to say: “That’s your lot.”
Clearly Turner doesn’t appreciate people nosing into his private life, which is fair enough. However, there is no denying his lyrics have changed — in places, become more thoughtful, tender — and part of the reason may be that he fell in love. There are songs on Suck It and See where he sounds in awe of one woman, others where he sounds in awe of all women. Certainly, there seems a difference between the sentiments of Love is a Laserquest (“I’m sure that you’re still breaking hearts with the efficiency that only youth can harness”), or the title track (“Your kiss, it could put creases in the rain”), and a song from their first album, such as Still Take You Home (“I’m having a job talking to you”). In that track, the window on the male teenage brain is funny rather than offensive, but there’s no doubting the song is more about testosterone than emotion. Would Turner agree that when he was first writing about girls, there was a lot more sexual aggression? “I suppose so,” he says, “but there’s always been a hint of romance to the lyrics.”
In the past, Turner thinks he used to put either too much of himself into the songs or too little. “I needed to strike a balance between the two, and hopefully with this album it’s like that.” For a self-confessed “control freak,” is it hard to reveal feelings? “Yeah, but often there were things in the songs that’d mean something to me, but they’re disguised — I’d hide stuff. I think it’s because at first I used to write so directly and that bled into me wanting to reject that and, you know ... just be the walrus for a bit.”
Back talking with all of the Monkeys, I ask about Nick Clegg, leader of the British Liberal Democrats, Deputy UK Prime Minister and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam. “Last time he came [to Sheffield] it was a big deal,” Helders says. “Snipers on top of John Lewis [department store]. They were sealing drains off, putting in cling-film, so that people couldn’t put bombs down them.” “Yeah,” says Cook, “it was after he sided with the Conservative Party.”
Do they think Clegg let people down? The table falls silent. Eventually, O’Malley says: “I don’t know. I’ve heard people who are really into it, say, ‘Yeah’, so I’ll say, ‘Yeah’. Because I don’t really know much about it.”
Are they not particularly political? “Not particularly,” Helders says. “Not because I don’t want to be, I just haven’t got around to it yet. I don’t trust my own opinions.”
I ask whether they have any views on the increase in university tuition fees, which made Clegg unpopular with young people. Turner, who has been quiet until now, shifts in his seat. “We do,” he says, “but whether we want to voice them in the paper is a different conversation.”
Weren’t you dragged into politics early on, what with Gordon Brown name-checking you? They fall about laughing. “Look where that got us!” cries Cook. “Yeah,” O’Malley says. “I hear Thatcher got right into Humbug as well.”
Joking apart, there was definitely a sense of social commentary in their earlier stuff — the kind of lyrics that could go into a space capsule to represent a moment in place and time. “While it was describing those situations, I wasn’t necessarily offering an opinion on them,” Turner says.
What do they think the job of a rock band is?
“Entertainment,” Helders replies. “I can’t think what else it would be.”
Really? There are other levels, surely. Just before the Monkeys go to have their photographs taken, we are discussing the human impulse to make a mark and Turner says: “I remember Leonard Cohen talking once about wanting to move to New York to be a writer and, it’s like, he just wanted to be good. There’s nowt wrong with that, I think.”
Certainly you get a sense that Turner has grown into more than just the singing. Four albums in, he has finally decided to publish his lyrics. Oddly, considering his awards, and quite touchingly, he says it took him time to identify himself as a songwriter. “I just misunderstood what it was, I think. But then I started to recognize that it was a craft, you know, something you could get better at. Then it dawned on me — I do write songs. That’s me.”
The final time I speak to Turner, it’s over the phone, with a crowd roaring behind him, as the band waits to go on at Carlisle. The conversation turns again to the wider world and the question of whether bands should reflect the times. Whether, for example, they form the soundtrack to a war even if they’re not directly about it.
“I think we touched on it the other day,” he says. “You were saying, do you read the newspapers, are you interested? I know you’re not talking about protest songs and, of course, I’m aware of what’s going on to a degree, but ...” He considers. “I just don’t think I’m equipped to soundtrack the times. There might be someone out there who can do that, but I haven’t cracked it. To quote another songwriter who had a crack at that, it ain’t me, babe.”
How about their creative future? Noel Gallagher once said that he didn’t realize that one day the songs would run out. “I’ve heard him say that.”
Does he think that there is a finite number of songs in people? “I think I did — right after that first record, when I’d written maybe 20 songs in my life. I thought: What is this, can I keep this going? It was then that I realized songwriting is a craft and I could work and get better at it. And hopefully I have. It’s what I was saying to you before, about the balance — putting yourself into it, but not completely.”
Right now, with the new album coming out, he says he’s not nervous at all. “I get nervous about gigs sometimes, but not with records — I always get excited. With every record we’ve done, the moment we’ve finished it, we’ve been really proud. We just want people to hear it — to share it.”
The Arctic Monkeys’ new album, Suck It and See, will be released on June 6.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
RSS