Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner reflects on infamous BRIT Awards speech

nme.com:

Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner has looked back in a new interview on his infamous speech at the 2014 BRIT Awards.Turner memorably gave a speech about “that rock’n’roll” and the “cyclical nature of the universe” while collecting the band’s award for MasterCard Album of the Year at the ceremony, before dropping the microphone and walking off stage.The frontman previously addressed the speech in 2018, telling Mojo: “I maintain that I didn’t really have another way around it.

Another way of justifying getting up in that room. What else was I supposed to do? To go up there and pretend that I’d been dreaming about that moment since I was a kid would have been dishonest.”Speaking to The Guardian in a new interview, Turner is said to have “winced, sucking air through his teeth” at the mention of his BRITs speech.Asked whether the moment resembled a form of performance art that “perhaps anticipated his scepticism towards the rock construct”, Turner replied: “That’s interesting… so we’re saying it’s tied to [2013 album] ‘AM’, because of the haircut and … that performer …“When you think about that, and the clothes, I wasn’t doing that with [fourth album] ‘Suck It And See’ or [third] ‘Humbug’.

It wasn’t grease in the hair,” he said.“Normally, the record you make encourages a certain style of performance. But thinking about the performer in relation to ‘Tranquility [Base Hotel & Casino’], or even [upcoming album ‘The Car’], I have considered that you can invert that.

The performer can influence the music, rather than the other way around.”Tickets for Arctic Monkeys’ 2023 UK and Ireland stadium tour went on sale earlier this morning (September 30), with a third London date being added.