Alex Turner

Turner was born in Sheffield, England to Penny and David Turner. His father is
from Sheffield and his mother grew up in Amersham.[4] Both parents worked at
local secondary schools; his mother was a German teacher while his father
taught both physics and music.[5] Turner was an only child[6] and was raised in
High Green, a suburb of Sheffield. He was exposed to "all sorts" of music at
home,[7] including records by Frank Sinatra, The Carpenters, The Beatles, Led
Zepplin, David Bowie and The Eagles.[7][8][9] His father was a "jazz-head",[4]
had been a member of big bands, and played the saxaphone, clarinet and piano.
[7] Turner took piano lessons as a child.[9][10]

Turner attended Stocksbridge High School (19972002). His form teacher, Mark
Coleman, remembers Turner as a bright, popular student who excelled at sports,
particularly basketball.[11] His English teacher, Steve Baker, described him as
"quite reserved ... a little bit different, with a brightness and a cleverness that
would serve him well."[12] Baker noted he was "incredibly laid-back" about his
academic work, which worried his mother.[12] While Turner did not write poetry
in school, he remembers his English teacher as "encouraging" and was first
introduced to John Cooper Clarke's poetry in Baker's class.[4] Turner then spent
two years at Barnsley College (2002-2004),[13] where he studied English,
psychology (for the first year), music technology and media: "I didn't really do
anything substantial apart from English. Which I would have then come to
regret ... You're like, 'What, I can get away without doing Maths?! Sound! I'll mess
about with cameras!'"[7] After college, Turner's parents reluctantly agreed to let
him defer university for one year to pursue his musical ambitions. During this
time, he worked as a barman at the Sheffield venue The Boardwalk.[14] Before
Arctic Monkeys signed a record deal, Turner was "half-heartedly" filling out
university application forms and hoped to study in Manchester.[7][15]

Turner and Matt Helders became friends at the age of seven; they were
neighbours and attended primary school together.[16][17][18][19][20] They
performed Oasis's "Morning Glory" with friends in their final primary school
assembly, using tennis rackets instead of instruments.[21] They met Andy
Nicholson at secondary school[22] and, for most of their teenage years, the three
friends listened mainly to rap artists such as Dr Dre, Wu Tang Clan, Outkast,
Cypress Hill[23] and Roots Manuva.[8][24][25] They spent their weekends
"making crap hip-hop" beats using Turner's father's Cubase system.[7][26]
Following the breakthrough of The Strokes,[10][27][28] Turner's attentions turned
to guitar bands including The Hives and The White Stripes.[26] Jamie Cook, a
fellow High Green resident, introduced Turner to bands including Queens of the
Stone Age and The Coral and he first listened to The Libertines on Nick O'Malley's
walkman during a bus ride from High Green to Barnsley College.[29][30][31][32]

Turner attended his first gig in 2002, watching The Vines in Manchester.[33] In
2003, at the age of sixteen, he travelled to London with Helders and Nicholson to
watch The Strokes play at Alexandra Palace; they met Pete Doherty in the crowd.
[34]
Musical career

Both Turner and Cooke received guitar around Christmas 2001[35][36] and
formed a band with Helders and Nicholson in the summer of 2002. All four were
beginners on their instruments and learned together. Another singer was initially
auditioned: "There was no way that I wanted to be the singer ... Even when I
finally got round to writing my own lyrics I had this sense of dread that the others
would laugh me out of the room. Mickey-taking is a useful quality control and I
never thought I'd get past that, to be honest."[37] In the early days of the band,
Turner was reluctant to share his lyrics with the band: "Lyrics were an area that
we were ashamed to talk about and we just wrote bollocks to start with."[38]
They practised for a year before playing their first gig on Friday, June 13,
2003,supporting a band called the Sound at a local pub, the Grapes. Their eightsong set comprises three covers and five self-written songs.[28]

Turner also played guitar for the band Judan Suki in the summer 2003, after
meeting the lead singer John McClure on a bus.[39] He has credited his time with
the band for giving him onstage confidence: "I did seven gigs with them ... and
around that time I got more confident. John is a very confident character."[40] In
August 2003, Judan Suki were recording a demo at a Sheffield studio and Turner
asked Alan Smyth if he would produce his other band, who had written only four
original songs: They were giddy. They werent the tightest of bands by any
stretch of the imagination, but I thought they definitely had something special
going on. I told Alex off for singing in an American voice at that first session.[41]
[42][43][44] Turner remarked that the band could have been shit [with different
members]. Im quite easily influenced. I could have ended up anywhere with a
little push from whoever. So it was important that it was us four.[45] Smyth
introduced the Arctic Monkeys to Geoff Barradale, with whom he had oncee
played in a band called Seafruit. Barradale became their manager and paid for
them to record four more three-song demos over the next 15 months, while they
were still in college. Barradale would drive them around venues in the north of
England to establish their reputation, handing out copies of the demo CDs after
each show. Fans began posting the songs on their own websites.[46]

In 2004, Turner and his bandmates asked to meet John Cooper Clarke at The
Boardwalk, where Turner worked, following Clarke's performance there.[14]
Clarke convinced the band to keep their unusual bandname.[4] In 2005, they
self-released their first EP, Five Minutes With Arctic Monkeys[47] Arctic Monkeys

signed to the independent label Domino Records after a bidding war in 2005.
Their first album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, released in
early 2006, became the fastest-selling debut album in British music history.[48]
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which is often considered to be a
concept album centered around nightlife in the UK.[49] Their second album,
Favourite Worst Nightmare, was released in 2007.

In August 2007, plans were announced for Turner to record an album with Miles
Kane, James Ford,[50] and Owen Pallett.The album, The Age of the
Understatement, was released on 21 April 2008 and reached number one in its
first week. Towards the end of 2008 they completed a small tour, backed by the
London Philharmonic Orchestra, starting at Portsmouth Guildhall on 19 August.
[51]

In October 2008, Turner made his debut as a short story writer, performing a
spoken word track "A Choice of Three" on his bandmate's compilation Late Night
Tales: Matt Helders. Turner worked with Dizzee Rascal on the song "Temptation
Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend" from Arctic Monkeys' Brianstorm EP and
"Temptation" from Rascal's album Maths and English. Turner also appears in the
Reverend and the Makers song "The Machine" from their first album The State Of
Things.

Arctic Monkeys' third album was Humbug (2009). Turner then wrote and
performed all six tracks for the soundtrack for Submarine, the first feature film
by Richard Ayoade, a friend and director of various Arctic Monkeys music videos.
The soundtrack was released on 18 March 2011 in the UK and US.[52] He was
named by The Guardian as one of the Great Lyricists, with Turner responding:
"They spelt me name wrong as well. On the front, they missed the first r out of
Turner, so unfortunately I was Alex Tuner, which is significant, as it really was a
bit premature to induct me into that company."[53] Arctic Monkeys' fourth album
is Suck It and See (2011). In 2011, Turner also contributed by writing and cowriting six songs on Miles Kane's first album Colour of the Trap. He also co-wrote
the song "First of My Kind" with Kane and Eugene McGuinness[54] for Record
Store Day 2012 and played bass guitar[55] on "Get Right," a B-side to Kane's
single, "Don't Forget Who You Are."

In July 2012, Turner revealed that he had been writing songs for the band's fifth
album (later titled AM) while touring the US with The Black Keys.[56] AM has
been very successful. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100
to reviews from mainstream critics; the album received an average score of 81,
based on 34 reviews. Simon Harper of Clash magazine states, "Welding
inspiration from hip-hop greats with rock's titans, 'AM' is built upon portentous

beats that are dark and intimidating, yet wickedly thrilling." Time Out said of the
album, "One of Britains greatest bands just got greater in an unexpected but
hugely welcome way. Single men, Iurge you: put down FHM and pick up AM." In
their 10/10 review, NME wrote that AM is "absolutely and unarguably the
greatest record of their career." Tim Jonze of The Guardian noted that the album
"manages to connect those different directions the muscular riffs of Humbug
and the wistful pop of Suck It and See with the bristling energy and sense of
fun that propelled their initial recordings."

Turner has also collaborated with Queens of the Stone Age on their sixth studio
album ...Like Clockwork, which was released on 4 June 2013. In this album,
Turner's vocals are featured in track four, "If I Had a Tail", and he provided
inspiration to the writing of the album's sixth track "Kalopsia," by mentioning the
name to Josh Homme during one of their conversations.[57] Alex Turner was
featured in Mini Mansions song "Vertigo" released 10 March 2015 as an early
track from their second album due to be released later in March 2015.[58]
Public image

Turner has a reputation as a reluctant interviewee. Upon the release of Arctic

Monkeys' debut album, Turner and his bandmates because known for disinterest
in self-promotion and suspicion of the media, even abandoning a press event in
Paris.[59] While Turner became known for "cocky onstage bravado", he later
admitted he was a "blagger".[40] He was generally "quietly spoken" in
interviews.[60] In a May 2006 interview, Dorian Lynskey noted that Turner was
"harder to get a handle on [than his bandmates]. Fidgety and intense, hes the
least talkative member of the group, chewing over his answers for so long that
he ends up doubting his own words."[61]

By 2007, The Guardian remarked that Turner was more confident but "he still
swallows the end of his sentences when the tape is running, as if suddenly
convulsed by embarrassment at the sound of his own voice."[62] In the same
year, a Mojo journalist at first found it "hard to reconcile the gentle, boyish, selfcontained singer ("always the quiet one", according to his band-mates) with the
person who writes so vivaciously about modern teenage life; but slowly his guard
will drop a little."[4]

Q Magazine's Tom Doyle, in a 2009 interview, stated: "Q has encountered various
Alex Turners over the past few years - the virtually mute teen of Arctic Monkeys'
early days; the hesitant, self-concious frontman of Favourite Worst Nightmare,
the giggling, slightly cocky Last Shadow Puppet, drunk on his camaradarie with
partner Miles Kate. Now 23, this year's model is artful and semi-detached,

knowing and slightly spacey, as if constantly distracted by unspoken thoughts...

Still, he is unusually courteous and polite, laughing wryly and often."[63]
Pitchfork has described Turner as "thoughtful and a little self-conscious."[8]

By 2014, Turner had developed an flamboyant stage persona. Q Magazine noted

that, where Turner once resembled a "schoolboy being made to read out
announcements in front of morning assembly, he now confidently strides around
the stage, combs his greaser hair at specific intervals and addresses the crowd
clearly and concisely.":[64] "It's a very unnatural environment to be in, up on a
stage. So you put up defences to hide. Like being tightly wound and quite
aggressive and uncooperative, as I used to do."[65]

Personal life

Turner dated English university student Johanna Bennett from early 2005 to early
2007.[66][67][68] He was in a four-year relationship with English model and
television presenter Alexa Chung from mid-2007 to mid-2011;[69][70] they lived
together in London and later New York City.[71] (He was also seen with Chung on
a number of occasions in mid-2014.)[72][73][74]

Turner currently lives in Los Angeles.[75] He was in a two-year relationship with

American actress Arielle Vandenberg from late 2011 to early 2014. He began
dating American model Taylor Bagley in mid-2015.[76][77][78]
Discography
Solo
Extended plays
Title Album details
UK
[79] FRA
[80] IRL
[81]
Submarine

Peak chart positions

Released: 18 March 2011

Label: Domino
35

97

56

Other
Arctic Monkeys
Main article: Arctic Monkeys discography
2006
2007
2009
2011
2013

Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not

Favourite Worst Nightmare
Humbug
Suck It and See
AM

The Last Shadow Puppets

Main article: The Last Shadow Puppets discography
2008 The Age Of The Understatement
UK Singles
Vertigo - 2015
Collaborations
2007 Reverend and The Makers The State of Things (writer and vocalist on
"The Machine", co-writer of "He Said He Loved Me" and "Armchair Detective")
2007 Dizzee Rascal Maths + English ("Temptation")
2009 Matt Helders Late Night Tales: Matt Helders ("A Choice of Three")
2011 Miles Kane Colour of the Trap (co-writer of "Rearrange", "Counting
Down the Days", "Happenstance", "Telepathy", "Better Left Invisible" and "Colour
of the Trap")
2012 Miles Kane First of My Kind EP (co-writer of "First of My Kind")
2013 Miles Kane Don't Forget Who You Are (co-writer and bassist on B-side
"Get Right")
2013 Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork (guest vocalist on "If I Had
a Tail")
2015 Mini Mansions The Great Pretenders (co-writer and guest vocalist on
"Vertigo", co-writer on "Valet")
Equipment
Electric guitars
Gibson Les Paul (2009present)
Fender Jazzmaster (2008present)
Gretsch Duo Jet (2012present) - Used on "R U Mine?"
Vox Starstream XII (2013present) - Used on "Do I Wanna Know?"
Gretsch Country Gentleman 12-String (2013) - Used on "Do I Wanna Know?"
on Jimmy Kimmel Live! due to technical difficulties.

Fender Stratocaster (2005-2008)

Ovation Viper (2009-2010)
Fender Bronco (2007-2011, 2014)
Gretsch Spectra Sonic Baritone (2007-2012) - Used on "If You Were There,
Beware"
Warmoth Custom Jazzmaster (2009-2012)
Martin GT-75 (2007-2008, 2013)
Acoustic guitars
Gibson J-45 (2008present)
Epiphone J-45 (2013)
Gibson J-200 (2005, 2014)[82]
Keyboards
Vox Super Continental Organ (2007-2009) - Used on "Pretty Visitors", "Red
Right Hand", and "505"