Arctic Monkeys

Sheffield united.

Their careers have soared, but beneath all the hype, Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and solo artist Richard Hawley are just two northern lads who lie awake thinking up tunes. Dorian Lynskey listens to them swap stories

Friday August 3, 2007
The Guardian


Alex Turner and Richard Hawley. Photo: Linda Nylind

On a poor excuse for a summer's day, in a grey corner of west London, the fates seem to be conspiring against Richard Hawley. It's not enough that recent floods have damaged Lady's Bridge, the Sheffield landmark that gives the singer-songwriter's new album its title: they had to go and ban smoking in enclosed public places, too. "This bloke on the radio said he went to a pub and they were handing out deodorant to people," says Hawley, puffing away with gusto on the pavement outside the Cobden Club. "The smell of BO and stale beer is not a good combination."

Shortly afterwards, Alex Turner arrives, in town for a TV appearance with Arctic Monkeys. He has a confidence that wasn't there when the Guardian first interviewed him, two years and a lifetime ago, 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.

Hawley and Turner's friendship began on the night of the Mercury prize ceremony last September, when the Monkeys and Hawley were in competition. When Arctic Monkeys took the stage to collect their award, Turner quipped: "Somebody call 999 - Richard Hawley's been robbed." Not an entirely unexpected move from a frontman who would rather inhale powdered glass than blow his own trumpet, but one that gallantly granted their much-admired fellow Sheffielder a share of the spotlight.

Arctic Monkeys' abrupt elevation to a plane of popularity where even Gordon Brown feels obliged to make reference to them is British music's most emphatic success story since Oasis. But Hawley's career is also blooming. Now 40, he cut his teeth in his teens touring Europe with a 1950s covers band, and went on to spend a decade with the indie band Treebound Story, join Britpop nearly-weres the Longpigs, play session guitar for the likes of All Saints (that's him on their cover of Under the Bridge, trivia-lovers), audition for Morrissey's band (unsuccessfully) and become Pulp's touring guitarist. Each of his four solo albums up to the South Bank Show award-winning Cole's Corner was stronger and more warmly received than the last, his careworn baritone and velveteen arrangements harking back to Elvis, Roy Orbison and Scott Walker.

Separated by age (there's a 19-year gap) and temperament (Hawley is as garrulous as Turner is reticent), the pair aren't exactly peas in a pod, but something stronger than mutual admiration - perhaps it's a Sheffield thing - binds them together. Sitting like bookends at opposite ends of a sofa, they are funny, thoughtful straight-talkers, strongly averse to advertising their own talents but perfectly happy to cheer each other on.

So you'd really never met before the night of the Mercury Prize?

Alex Turner: I think I served you at the bar once at [Sheffield venue] the Boardwalk.

Richard Hawley: Oh, really? There's a bizarre connection: John McCann.

AT: Oh yeah! That were weird, that. My grandad phoned me up and said, "Are you likely to see Richard Hawley tonight at that Mercury thing?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he said, "Ask him if he remembers John McCann." It's my grandad's wife's son.

RH: John was my best mate. We got locked in the house once when we were four years old, and the fire brigade had to get us out.

AT: I remember you talking about that on the night.

RH: There's a funny picture of me and Alex talking together. I don't know if people thought we were having some deep conversation, but we were just talking about John McCann.

What did you think of Alex's "Richard Hawley's been robbed" comment on stage?

RH: It was hilarious.

AT: We were so sure that we'd not won.

I lost money betting on Richard to win.

AT: Yeah, same here.

RH: I was really chuffed. It was great us winning all them awards at that time. I got my fair share.

How long have you liked Richard's music, Alex?

AT: I tell you what, I must confess. When we were at the Boardwalk, Richard was on with [his rockabilly band] the Feral Cats and they left some records behind. Somebody pinched [Hawley's third album] Lowedges and I ended up with it because it were hot goods.

RH: I heard the [Arctic Monkeys'] demos early on. I thought they were shit hot. It was the first time in a long time that I'd heard indie guitar music where the lyrics were really strong. They really stood out. There's a history in Sheffield of great lyric-writers, with Jarvis, and Adi from Clock DVA.

Do you hear aspects of Sheffield in each other's music?

RH: Oh, I do in yours, definitely.

AT: Oh yeah. [Pause] Perhaps you don't want to go searching for what that is.

RH: I use Sheffield as a backdrop because that's where I live. I don't know what it's like to live in Memphis or Abu Dhabi. So it stops it being just fantasy. To sing the songs every night and know they're connected with home, that's massively important to me. I couldn't make the music I make in another city. I wouldn't have the stories and the culture. My family's lived there for generations. My grandfather were a music-hall performer there.

Alex, your cover version of Barbara Lewis's 1966 hit Baby, I'm Yours last year sounded as though it could have been one of Richard's songs.

AT: I just wanted to do something that would freak people out. That's the best thing to do. The only way is to keep wriggling, 'cos the moment you stop wriggling, that's when you're ...

RH: DOA.

AT: Yeah.

And then you covered Diamonds Are Forever at Glastonbury.

AT: It was [producer] James Ford's joke that I took too far, I think. I sang it so much better when we were practising. I were so nervous.

RH: I'm getting nervous about the British tour. It's four days on, one day off, and there's no way we're going to get through that without being utterly battered every night. I hate moaning about it because it's a right laugh most of the time. Without music I would never, ever have travelled anywhere. Holidays to us were a weekend in Rhyl, do you know what I mean? I went on my first tour when I were 14, touring strip bars. That were mad as fuck.

AT: What tunes were you playing?

RH: Just rockabilly and rock'n'roll. I don't think they gave a shit. I remember playing one gig in Tilburg where they had a revolving stage and a revolting audience. We played behind this curtain while the girl did her thing, then the curtains would open, the stage would revolve and we'd come on and do a 20-minute slot, and all the dirty old men would just lift their newspapers and endure listening to us until the stage revolved.

AT: Sounds like a tune, that scenario.

RH: It is. But I haven't recorded it yet. [Pause] About writing, do you find it easy or hard? You've just done an album after a really successful one, and my album were pretty successful for me. And then having to go in and record another album - did you find that a pressure?

AT: No. I think because none of us wanted to exist as just that thing - that album and what went with it. We wanted to write tunes, because that's what we've always wanted to do. We'd get excited to do another one, because it's a laugh, innit? Messing about.

RH: Yeah. My favourite thing in the world, apart from my wife and kids, is writing songs. Ever since I was a kid. When did you first find out you could write songs? Did you try to do it or did you accidentally discover you could?

AT: Well, I only really properly started when I had the camaraderie of the band, because then it weren't me alone. I'd written things before but screwed them up because it's too uncomfortable. What about you?

RH: I remember it really well. I were nine, laying in bed at night quite late, arsing about with my guitar, as I always have and always will. So my dad came up and were right pissed off. "What are you doing still awake?" And I said, "I've got this tune and I don't know whose it is." I thought I heard it somewhere. So he said, "Well, play it me." And I played it him. And he goes, "It's thine. Now go to fucking bed." And he turned the light off, and I was laying there getting my head around the concept of making music myself. I make songs up in bizarre places. Pushing kids on swings. In the middle of Tesco's.

AT: It goes round in your head. I've been sleeping in hotels a lot recently and I keep waking up at four in the morning with a song and I can't get back to sleep.

RH: Oh yeah. The most interesting ideas definitely come at night.

You've both written songs about homesickness while on tour - 505 on Favourite Worst Nightmare and Dark Road on Lady's Bridge - but they don't explictly mention touring.

RH: There's a loneliness to it. But you don't want to write about it because it's boring.

AT: And then you'd have to sing it every night.

RH: Yeah, as you're touring!

AT: If ever we write anything that falls into that category, that's what stops us doing it. You think, "Do I want to sing that every night? No."

Richard, do you miss being in a band?

RH: I started off on my own but it's evolved. All the musicians in the band are my mates. I couldn't do it if it was any other way. I should, I suppose, have a band name. But we've never found a decent name.

AT: The Death Ramps is my favourite name for a band. Or just Death Ramp.

RH: We're a bit old for that. It's more like Wheelchair Ramp. Or Stannah and the Stairlifts.

AT: When we were kids, there were loads of hills and woods where you'd go and ride your bike. We called them death ramps. They probably weren't that deadly.

RH: That's what I like about your lot. Your band is very much like my first band, Treebound Story. You've known each other from acorns to trees. And that's a great feeling because you take it all with you. You don't leave it behind. It broke my heart when my first band split up. I was 25 and we'd been together since we were 15. But it had to happen. There was a point when I knew I had to move on.

Both of you, in your different ways, have found success entirely on your own terms. Is there a knack to it?

RH: It's not rocket science. Just don't do things where you feel a tool. That's the bottom line, isn't it? It's not being prissy. You just don't want to do something where you look like a knob-end.

AT: Cooky [Arctic Monkeys guitarist Jamie Cook] is a good barometer for things like that. He'll always go, "No, I'm not doing that." I probably would be more easily led if it weren't for him. Maybe not so much now, but earlier on.

RH: I need a Cooky. Or a biscuit.

Is there also an element of not wanting to get too big for your boots?

AT: Yeah, but it sort of goes without saying.

RH: Even though I did say it!

AT: If that were all you had, like, "Oh no, we're just normal lads, having a laugh," that's not enough. I mean we are just lads having a laugh but we don't need to be telling everyone.

RH: Analysing things too much is unnecessary most of the time. I'm with Yoda. Don't think. Do or do not. Simple as that. I think you've got to operate on instinct. You always know when you've made a tit of yourself. I just wouldn't want people in Sheffield pubs to think badly of me.

Richard Hawley's album Lady's Bridge is out on August 20 on Mute. Arctic Monkeys' album Favourite Worst Nightmare is out now on Domino.

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