How Matt Helders made the album cover for Arctic Monkeys’ ‘The Car’
Two things that seemed curious upon the announcement of Arctic Monkeys‘ forthcoming seventh studio album, The Car, were its title and its cover art, which both looked to pertain to one another. The seemingly innocuous title confounded fans of the band as to where the direction of the album was heading, as did its equally mysterious cover photo.
Alex Turner noted that the theme of “the car” had tended to crop up throughout the album. He said, “I noticed that I mentioned it three or four times in the songs. I had a choice to either change three of them or just call the thing The Car. Then, of course, we found Matthew’s image for the cover; it just seemed like, ‘well, now it’s certainly got to be The Car‘”.
In recent years, Matt Helders has become something of a 35mm film camera aficionado. He took the photo that has been used for the album’s cover from his apartment in Downtown Los Angeles. The car in question is a Toyota Corolla, of which, Helders joked that there had been a “small internet investigation” into determining the make and model of the vehicle.
Helders said of taking the image, “It really came about because I’d bought a 90mm lens for my camera, and I’d just recently moved to this place; that was the view from my bedroom window. So I saw that car park every day. It always seemed like there was something interesting happening, even if there was nothing there.”
For whatever reason, there was usually just one car in the car park, which intrigued Helders. He added, “This was me just testing out this lens. It’s an old one, but it does a different thing when you shoot from far away. It makes all the perspective of everything squashed. So I walked around that day and went in my bedroom and took that picture, [having] taken a few of that same thing. But that was the one that stood out.”
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.