Arctic Monkeys on ‘The Car’: “It took us a lot longer to get to the end point of this one”
Arctic Monkeys have spoken about their upcoming seventh studio album ‘The Car’, elaborating on the process and the inspiration behind one of its tracks – watch below.
Ahead of the band’s Studio Brussel performance on October 10, Alex Turner and Matt Helders were interviewed by 3FM’s Vera Siemons. Speaking to them about the new album, she asked: “Do you remember the moment when you felt like it clicked, it was complete. The entire record is finished, done, it’s perfect?”
“It took us a lot longer to get to the end point of this one than any of the others,” Turner replied. “I suppose because we had a bit more time.” Helders added: “It was probably more spread out as well.”
Turner continued: “Maybe the longer you let it go on, the more you want to let yourself make adjustments. Perhaps all of that might have got a bit silly at the end in that respect…Remarkably, I don’t know if I’ve ever listened to this one in a car.”
Discussing the album’s second to last track ‘Mr Schwartz’, Siemons questioned whether it refers to the American poet Delmore Schwartz.
“No, it’s just a coincidence,” Turner said. “Another Schwartz, a Mrs Schwartz came on my barometer the other day. There’s a George Saunders short story called Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz and I don’t know, maybe subconsciously it had come from there.”
He continued: “But I don’t think it’s either. I saw the name on the back of an Alfa Romeo, underneath the tail light in a…I’d love to know the name of the typeface but I don’t. But I’d describe it as like 90s, surfy and it said Del Schwartz on the back of it. So we had a song called that for a while that didn’t make the record. And that led to Mr Schwartz.”
The interviewer then quizzed the band on the existence of a secret Spotify playlist called ‘Del Schwartz’ that fans spotted before the titles of the song were released and assumed belonged to Turner. When asked to confirm or deny, both Turner and Helders seemed to deny it belonged to them.
“Unless it was his Alfa Romeo, that never occurred to me,” Turner added. “But some time travel would have to be involved there.”
Yesterday (October 10), the band added European headline dates to their 2023 world tour. ‘The Car’ will come out next week (October 21) and they have already confirmed details of a UK stadium tour and North American dates with Fontaines D.C. for next year.
Across late April and early May of 2023, the band will play a number of gigs on the continent, reaching Germany, Norway, Sweden, France and beyond. Tickets go on sale at 10am CEST on Friday, October 14 and you can buy yours here.
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Arusa Qureshi
NME
