Back home in England, the Arctic Monkeys are already rock stars and record-breakers—their album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, is the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history—but for most Americans, they're still just "that band with the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history." It remains to be seen whether the young Sheffield quartet will duplicate its success stateside or become another Robbie Williams, and plenty of evidence favors both scenarios. While Arctic Monkeys' recent North American tour was predictably buzzy and it sold out, response to the shows has been mixed. Part of the blame can be placed on the insurmountable hype surrounding the band, but there's also the fact that one of its biggest selling points—the tales of everyday northern England by 20-year-old singer-guitarist Alex Turner—don't carry as much weight here in the States. Nevertheless, the band knows its way around a catchy rock tune, it has energy to burn, and it appears to have a healthy sense of humor about the madness: Its forthcoming EP is called Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?
The A.V. Club: The past year has been pretty amazing for you guys. Of everything that's happened, what are you proudest of?
Alex Turner: I don't know, 'cause it's got to the point now where things stopped sort of making as much sense. But I think the last time I felt proud was last year when we played Leeds and Reading, and we played at like three in the afternoon on the little stage. And the year prior to that, we'd been at Reading and Leeds camping out, just like festivalgoers, so I remember that as quite a proud day. When we played Reading, the tent was packed, and it was a really exciting gig. It was a moment, and I am all about moments—you don't get moments all the time, and not every night can be one. I guess also, the chart stuff—all the records, like knocking Hear'say off the record for the fastest-selling and all, that's great, but it was sort of like the hysteria, so it shrinks it almost. You don't feel like you would almost expect it to.
AVC: Of everything that's happened, what's surprised you the most?
AT: I suppose the size of what it's become—that's a surprising thing. But nothing seems that surprising anymore, because everything's a constant surprise. Every day, something happens, and you're just like, "That's so weird." And that happens so many times, it's not weird anymore. It would be weird if something weird didn't happen.
AVC: Having surprises happen all the time can't feel normal. How do you keep your sanity?
AT: We just carry on doing what we were doing, playing and thinking about making more records and making more music, and just getting on with it and trying to be happy, I suppose. What is normal? Normal is different to every single person. As long as you don't get caught up in any bollocks, then you're all right, aren't you? You've got to accept that it's not going to be normal, like what normal is to a lot of people. It just can't be like that anymore. You have to carve out your own path, and accept that that's the way things are in certain circles, and in other circles, you can move freely and kind of get on with it. There's certain things you can't do any more, or at least not as easily as you could before. Like in Sheffield—we can still go out in Sheffield, but it's a different kind of experience than when we used to, you know?
AVC: Your lyrics deal with ordinary people and ordinary lives. Can you continue writing about that stuff now that you're famous?
AT: No, of course not. But to me, I never did write about ordinary people and ordinary lives, I just wrote about what my experience was and my observations, so I just continue to do that, I think. It's just that the observations are different now, and people obviously kind of won't be able to relate as much, or not as literally, specifically.
I think I have changed in the way I look at things. A friend of mine always says you keep your green goggles on—trying to keep your perception, or as much of your old perception as you can, and kind of develop it rather than change. I don't know, maybe I will fucking write another record and everyone will hate it, but I don't know. You just don't know. You write for yourself, don't you? I think that's what we've always done.
AVC: Are you prepared for a backlash?
AT: I don't think we really give a fuck. There's probably an underground backlash now. We won't be surprised, we'll just kind of get on with it. People can say what they want, can't they now? But it's like, we've done something that doesn't happen every week.
AVC: How do you keep yourself from worrying about when all the excitement is going to slow down?
AT: It already has slowed down, I think. There's two separate things: There's what goes on day to day in our lives, which just seems pretty straightforward a lot of the time, and then there's what kind of gets written and everything like that, and that makes it seem like there's all this madness. It's not like a worrying thing, really. We'll make another record, and we're going to try to do that pretty quickly. We want to kind of move on—these feel like old songs, because we've been playing them for more than a year. We don't ever want to feel we are going through the motions, so we're going to try and get back in there and move on.
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