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Alex Turner
Alex Turner performing with the Arctic Monkeys on 6 July 2006 in Stockholm.
Background information
Birth name	Alexander David Turner
Born	6 January 1986 (1986-01-06) (age 24) Sheffield, England
Genres	Alternative rock, Indie rock, Post-punk revival
Occupations	Musician
Instruments	Guitar, lead vocals, bass guitar, organ, tambourine
Years active	2002–present
Labels	Domino
Associated acts	Arctic Monkeys, The Last Shadow Puppets
Notable instruments
Fender Stratocaster Fender Bronco Fender Jazzmaster

Alexander David Turner^[1] (born 6 January 1986, Sheffield, England) is an English musician and member of Arctic Monkeys and The Last Shadow Puppets. He is the vocalist and lead guitarist in both bands. He is the main songwriter in the Arctic Monkeys and shares writing duties in side-project The Last Shadow Puppets with Miles Kane.

Forming Arctic Monkeys

Along with Andy Nicholson and Matthew Helders, Turner attended Stocksbridge High School,^[2] and together with his neighbour Jamie Cook, formed Arctic Monkeys in 2002. From his time working at the bar in local concert venues, Turner was "really annoyed [by] bands coming on and saying 'We've got CDs at the back for sale - three pounds each'... you'd think 'Fuck off, who do you think you are?'"^[3]. Therefore, the Arctic Monkeys gave away free demo CDs at their gigs. Turner is believed to have started learning guitar because of the band that was one of his main influences, Oasis. Turner has always been the band's main songwriter, and his observations of inner city England have drawn comparisons to The Streets' frontman Mike Skinner.^[3] However, Turner has admitted that during the early days of the band "nobody wanted to admit they wrote [the lyrics] so we kept trying other singers so they'd do it for us." Despite enjoying songwriting, Turner shied away from acknowledgment because he "didn't want to have piss took out of [him]!"^[3] However, he has suggested that he has always enjoyed songwriting and that since getting his guitar, has spent most of his spare moments penning new lyrics, as "that’s what [he]'d feel comfortable doing.^[4] Describing the manner in which he constructs his lyrics, Turner says

"I'll think about something and I'll be writing, penning something down and I'll keep building on that. The best stuff comes when I’ve got a melody and a rhythm so I know how many syllables each line is going to have and then build it up from there, and make it a whole thing, and try and pay attention to every aspect."^[5]

They recorded their smash hit album in 2006 (Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not) shortly after securing their first record deal.

The Last Shadow Puppets

In August 2007 plans were announced for Turner to record an album with Miles Kane and producer James Ford. Kane, of Arctic Monkeys support act The Rascals, announced the project on 2 August 2007. The project features Turner and Kane sharing vocal, guitar and bass duties with Ford playing drums.^[6] Owen Pallett also features on the album. The duo have called themselves The Last Shadow Puppets, the album is called The Age of the Understatement, and was released on the 21 April 2008 and reached the number one spot in its first week. They recently did a small tour backed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, starting at Portsmouth Guildhall on 19 August 2008.^[7]

Other projects

Turner worked with Dizzee Rascal on the song "Temptation" from Dizzee Rascal's album Maths and English. He also worked with Dizzee Rascal on a different version of the same song "Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend" which featured on the "Brianstorm" single. Turner also features in the Reverend and the Makers song "The Machine" and features on guitar in the song "The Machine" from their debut album The State Of Things, on which he also co-wrote some of the songs with McClure. NME reported that Turner was working with Alison Mosshart of The Kills. He appears on Tony Christie's album Made in Sheffield, playing "Only Ones Who Know". In October 2008, Turner made his debut as a short story writer, performing spoken word track "A Choice of Three" on his bandmates' compilation Late Night Tales: Matt Helders.

Equipment

Turner used to play a Fender Olympic White American standard Stratocaster, and later a black Mexican standard Fender Stratocaster guitar, both sporting maple fretboards, until the release of the band's single "Brianstorm" and the second album Favourite Worst Nightmare. When touring Favourite Worst Nightmare he used a black Fender Bronco with a black pickguard and rosewood fretboard, a guitar discontinued by Fender. Also, during live performances of "If You Were There, Beware", he uses a Gretsch Spectra Sonic baritone and a Martin F-65 on Da Frame2R. During the earlier days he used Orange AD30T and Vox AC30 CC2X amplifiers.^[8] Now he uses a Selmer Zodiac 30 watt for clean tones and a Fender Vibroverb for more distorted tones. During the Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not-era Turner's pedalboard consisted of two Pro Co Rat 2 distortion pedals, Boss TU-2 tuner and a Danelectro Reel Echo. Now, touring Favourite Worst Nightmare, he has replaced the ProCo pedals with an Ibanez Ts-808 Vintage Tubescreamer overdrive pedal. He has also extended the pedalboard with a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere MK2, a Morley Footswitch and a Boss LS-2 Line Selector to go between his Selmer and Fender. He also had an Electro Harmonix Memory Man on his pedalboard used by his friend Miles Kane on 505 and Plastic Tramp live performances. Turner was recently spotted at the Big Day Out festival in Australia with a sunburst finish Fender Jazzmaster, and it seems that instead of using the Fender Vibroverb and the Selmer Zodiac 30, Turner is only using the Selmer. Turner also changed his pedalboard a little bit, getting rid of his Danelectro Reel Echo and his Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere MK2 and replacing them with a Boss DM-1, and a Cornell First Fuzz. He also uses his Morley footswitch to switch between his amp channels and his Line Selector to guitars and organs. In summer 2009 he used an Ovation Viper on songs from the debut album while using his Fender Jazzmaster on newer songs; he still used his Gretsch on "If You Were There, Beware". Despite all, he didn't play guitar as much as before, instead only performing with the microphone in his hand, on new songs such as Potion Approaching and even songs where he had previously played an instrument. He left guitar duties on Leave Before The Lights Come On and organ/keyboard duties for 505, down to the new live member of the band, John Ashton. His pedalboard had changed too, it consisted of Boss Delay Machine DM-1, Morley Footswitch ABY, MXR Micro Amp, Ibanez Tubescreamer Ts-808, Coopersonic Valveslapper, Boss Chromatic Tuner, Electro Harmonix Holy Grail Plus and Electro Harmonix Hum Debugger. On the late 2009 tour he added a Fender Blender and a Morley Power Wah which he used to play the intro of Dance Little Liar.

Personal life

Turner has maintained a very private life, and shunned media publicity when declared the Coolest Man On The Planet by NME magazine in December 2005.^[9] Blender magazine has described him as "the least talkative member of the group, chewing over his answers for so long that he ends up doubting his own words".^[10]

Previous to recording Favourite Worst Nightmare, Alex dated former Totalizer vocalist Johanna Bennett, with whom he wrote 'Fluorescent Adolescent'.^[11]

Alex has been dating the television presenter Alexa Chung since July 2007. In October 2008 they moved into a house together in East London.^[12] In April 2009 it was reported that Alex would follow girlfriend Alexa to the United States^[13] where she would have her own tv show - It's On with Alexa Chung. The move was confirmed in July 2009 when in an interview for The Guardian, Simon Armitage mused that "Maybe it [was] only since moving to Brooklyn that [Turner] finally [felt] comfortable with who and what he is."^[14]

References