Why did Andy Nicholson leave Arctic Monkeys?
“I would have died for that band, but unfortunately, the band wouldn’t have died for me,” were Andy Nicholson’s bruising parting words to the Arctic Monkeys.
It was really a sorry state of affairs for the poor bassist, latched on with his mates for what he thought was going to be a one-way ticket to the big time, and ended up being dropped by the band while they continued off on their rocketing trajectory. But in some ways, he always seemed like the sore thumb, as the only original member of the band not living in the insular High Green suburb.
That might not seem like a dealbreaker to most, and it certainly would most likely be protested by the members of the Arctic Monkeys, but it does go some way in explaining the fact that Nicholson seemingly felt a little different from the rest. Those early years were heady – touring round the local gig circuit and ravenously making a name for themselves as the next big thing.
But with the way things panned out, Nicholson’s tenure barely made it out of the north of England. He stood by the band as they were signed to Domino in 2005 and then released their seminal debut Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, promising to be the start of something massive, which it was for Alex Turner, Matt Helders, and Jamie Cook.
But merely five months later, when the band were due to make their first tour of America, Nicholson was dropped from the line-up, citing fatigue and family issues, and replaced by Nick O’Malley, who then quickly became the permanent stand-in. After that, Nicholson seemed to fade into silence for years: until 2019, when enough was enough, and he decided to tell all.
What did Andy Nicholson say about being replaced?
After returning from the tour and breaking the news to Nicholson that they were moving forward with Cooke, the former bassist recalled to Uncut: “My world came crumbling down right in front of me. I’d gone from having the next year scheduled to not even knowing what I’m doing tomorrow, and my three best friends had done this to me.”
If that wasn’t a bitter blow enough, the punches kept on rolling. Nicholson vividly remembered sitting in tears the following summer as he tragically sat at home and watched the band headline Glastonbury, knowing he should have been on the stage with them. By his own candid admission, that drove him into some unimaginably dark places.
Of course, in time, the storm clouds have now passed, and Nicholson has been able to reconcile his relationship with his former bandmates to an amicable level. But despite it all, it never truly explains the real reason why Nicholson was fired from the Arctic Monkeys – simply because they were going in a new direction, or the freshness that Cooke brought with him was too good to miss?
The bassist has, to his eternal credit, learned to take this on the chin and has made a string of successes in his own right, with or without the Arctic Monkeys in tow. But now, as that debut album reaches its 20th anniversary and all those nostalgic memories are bound to bring on reminiscing, it’s impossible to know what might happen next.
