Alex Turner explains how Josh Homme got Arctic Monkeys out of “a rut”
After the release of 2011’s Suck It and See, Arctic Monkeys were facing down the path that most bands take at some point. Diminished returns, reliance on old material, and nostalgia were just around the corner. Despite climbing all the way to the top of the UK Album Charts, Suck It and See was much more of a rehash than it was a new beginning for Arctic Monkeys.
For the band’s previous album, 2009’s Humbug, the band employed Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme to produce their California sessions. The sessions took place partially at the Rancho De Le Luna, the recording studio situated in the small town of Joshua Tree, California in the expanse of the High Desert of California. Homme had used the studio to record his Desert Sessions and the first QOTSA album, so it made for a natural location.
Homme came back to provide some background vocals on the Suck It and See track ‘All My Own Stunts’. Alex Turner returned the favour on Queens of the Stone Age’s …Like Clockwork track ‘If I Had a Tail’, sharing background vocals with former QOTSA members Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan. When Arctic Monkeys were preparing to record 2013’s AM, they decided to return to the Rancho De La Luna and once again got a helping hand from Homme.
“He came down and sort of got us out of a little rut,” Turner told NME in 2013. “It’s just fun, it’s friends, extended family now – [they] came round, had a fun night. His contribution to our record is really exciting, it’s probably my favourite. The 30 seconds that he’s in there is just, I dunno, it’s like something that I’ve never heard before. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but you know what I’m saying.”
Homme’s direct contributions were relatively modest: two backing vocal parts for the songs ‘One for the Road’ and ‘Knee Socks’. But his influence loomed large over AM, with the Arctic Monkeys employing the same desert-soaked bluesy riff-rock that Homme had perfected a decade prior. While his actual additions to the album were small, Homme’s sound was still all over AM.
For his part, Homme was just as excited to be included on the album. “I sang on the new Arctic Monkeys record. It’s a really cool, sexy after-midnight record,” Homme also told NME that year. “It’s called AM, so I guess that’s really obvious. And it’s really good. It’s really good. It’s not disco [as such], but it’s like a modern, dancefloor sexy record. It’s really good.”
Check out Homme’s contribution to ‘One for the Road’ down below.
