Biography of Arctic Monkey
The Indie rock/ neo-punk bands Arctic Monkeys can be categorized in the same circles as other global multi-platinum acts such as Pink Floyd and Oasis. Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys rose to become one of the most popular and biggest bands of the new millennium from just a single self-released EP back in 2005.
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The band’s meteoric rise to international fame scored the band a series of achievements very early on in their careers, which helped to position them to the top position of the international singles chart.
When the group was just starting out, the fans helped to spread Arctic Monkeys’ demo songs through various online message boards. This led to a growing loyal fan base. Arctic’s monkey remarkable rise as the indie band to watch out for could never have happened without their extraordinary fan base and the viral buzz of the internet. From this extempore beginning, Arctic Monkey would go on to create one of the fastest selling debut albums that the UK has ever seen.
Although the UK has definitely introduced formidable acts to the global arena such as The Bee Gees, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and David Bowie, not many attained success quite as rapidly as Arctic Monkeys. Not bad at all for a group that was formed by for suburban friends after high school. Today, Arctic Monkeys is still one of the bestselling rock bands of this century and definitely one of the UK’s finest.
Early start and background
Arctic Monkeys, like most rock bands before it, had incredibly humble beginnings. In 2002, a group of friends decided to form a band. The band consisted of four original members: Jamie ‘Cookie’ Cook (guitar), Matt Helders (drums, vocals), Andy Nicholson and Alex Turner (vocals, guitar). Any Nicholson left in 2006 citing exhaustion from touring and was replaced by Nick O’Malley (bass), who became a permanent fixture.
Before the group wrote any songs, they had already decided that the band would be called Arctic Monkeys, which was given to the group by James cook, although none of the band members can recall why. The group members had all been school friends in Sheffield, England but they did not start playing locally until mid-2003.
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Achievements
The group’s beginning can largely be attributed to neighbors Alex Turner and Jamie Cook, who had both received guitars for Christmas in 2001. Soon, the pair roped in fellow friends Any and Matt and the quartet began rehearsing and recording CD-R demos. Within a short time, the quartet had built up a cult following through regular and widespread gigging, which created the perfect platform for them to start releasing demo material.
The group would hand out CD-R demos to fans at their gigs and before long, their growing fan base started spreading the songs on various message boards, which became their gateway to success. Three months after releasing their first recordings in the limited edition EP, Five Minutes with the Arctic Monkeys, Arctic Monkeys made their London debut in February 2005. That same year, the band got another opportunity to perform at the Reading and Leeds Festival and although they were placed low in the running order, Arctic Monkeys managed to consolidate an even larger base of fans from the enormous crowd in attendance.
Their performance at the festival sent the mainstream media sniffing, which helped to popularize Arctic Monkeys even further. In October, the group sold out the London Astoria barely 6 months after the group started performing and in November, the band’s debut single, “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,” became number one in the UK.
Arctic Monkeys’ debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That is What I’m Not shot straight to the top of the charts and became the fast-selling debut album in British history. In the first week alone, Arctic Monkeys’ debut album had sold more than the rest of the Top 20 albums combined; it sold over 360,000 copies in the first week. The second single from the album, “When the Sun Goes Down,” also became a number one hit in the UK.
In April 2006, Arctic Monkeys released an EP titled Who the Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? After bassist Nicholson left the group and was replaced by Sheffieldian Nick O’Malley, the newly refurbished Arctic Monkeys released “Leave Before the Lights Come On, in August. Arctic Monkeys’ second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, was released in April 2007 and unsurprisingly hit number one in the UK and number 7 in America.
The band continued touring around the world and the band premiered new material from the unreleased album in January 2008 while touring various venues in Wellington and Auckland. Later on in the year, Lead singer/songwriter Alex Turner pioneered a two-man project with the singer from the Rascals, Miles Kane and the two titled their band The Last Shadow Puppets.
In August 2009, Arctic Monkeys released their third album and was heralded by the single The Last Shadow Puppets. In the coming years, subsequent albums At the Apollo (a concert album), Humbug (released August 2209), Suck It and See (released spring 2011 after collaborating with James Ford), and Entitled (releases summer of 2013) followed. In 2012, Arctic Monkeys played at the London Summer Olympics opening ceremony, performing “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”.
After the fifth album AM was released, it debuted at number 1 in the UK album charts managing to sell over 157,000 copies in its first week. Because of this, Arctic Monkeys made history and became the first independent label band with five successive number 1 albums in the UK.
As a result, the band was nominated a third time for the Mercury Prize and following the supporting tour for the album, Arctic Monkeys took an extended hiatus which allowed each of the members to pursue solo projects. Early 2018, Arctic Monkey resurfaced with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, which featured a much softer sound than their fans had become used to.