Following the announcement that Alex Turner and Miles Kane have named their new band NME.COM is reprinting in full the pair’s first ever joint interview in full.
The Arctic Monkeys and Rascals frontmen will release new album ‘The Age Of The Understatement’ as The Last Shadow Puppets on April 21.
This week’s issue of NME has a brand new exclusive interview with the duo and the first listen anywhere in the world to the album. However to whet your appetite NME.COM is reprinting the first interview the pair ever did jointly interview together.
Conducted when Arctic Monkeys and The Rascals toured together in December and first printed in NME’s Studio 2008 issue in January, this full, unedited version of the pair’s chat has never appeared anywhere before. So enjoy Turner and Kane’s first chat, plus then get this week’s issue of NME to catch up on the latest news.
Alex Turner and Miles Kane
NME: When did you two first meet?
Miles Kane: We supported Arctic Monkeys a couple of years ago and the connection was mind-blowing, wasn’t it?
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Alex Turner: Yeah! It was always us four (Arctic Monkeys) and them three (The Rascals) going out together. A sachet of delight! (both laugh) It wasn’t for another couple of years until Miles and I…
M: Got on the path of the tunes.
A: Yeah, I remember speaking to you one Saturday afternoon on the phone. I was in town and it was raining and we were discussing ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do something’.
M: But before that we’d joked about doing it. We’d joke that on the cover we’d be in white polo necks, with a cigarette burning on the piano and that joke has gone into real life!
A: Then one afternoon we were chatting, I was in town, and we were talking about (Scott Walker’s) ‘Jackie’ and saying ‘Imagine doing that, wouldn’t it be good to do a song like that, now, at our age?’. Then when Miles came to play on the Arctic Monkeys‘ last album we started doing stuff together.
M: Yeah, that was the start, although we’d done some vague stuff before.
A: So the album is a third of tunes we did completely together. Then a third of his ones which we finished off together and then a third that were mine which we finished off.
NME: As your both the main songwriters in your own band how do you get on writing together?
M: He struts around the room and I sit down with the pad, we say we’re Guy (Chambers) and Robbie (Williams)!
A: But it’s different every time! We say ‘Who’s going to Robbie this time?’!
(both laugh)
M: We have to take it in turns! We can’t both be Robbie.
A: We said that to take the piss, but there were bits where one of us would be dead excited about something and the other would just ‘Yeah, alright’. You imagine that’s what they’d be like, Robbie would be doing kick-ups or something and getting really excited.
NME: What music has inspired this project?
M: Scott Walker was the base of it, but then there are loads of other tunes we love. If I hear a tune I’ll tell him ‘get on that’ and he’s the same. Bowie and ‘Heat Of The Morning’, stuff like that.
A: A lot of instrumental stuff, and other things as well, even Thin Lizzy’s ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ we played a lot. (both laugh)
NME: You recorded the album in France last August, what was that like?
M: It’s was in the north of France somewhere, about an hour from Nantes. It was just us, James Ford who produced and played drums and an engineer, we didn’t get out much or see anyone.
A: We rode a bicycle one Saturday afternoon right at the end of it and properly got freaked out. We rode a bike like a mile.
M: We had our tops off as well! (both laugh)
A: I wasn’t going to say that.
M: And shorts! Shorts, tops off, full of cake!
A: There were lots of little cakes around the studio. It was like a ‘Carry On’ film.
M: Lots of drinking of red wine too.
NME: Are you finished now?
A: We’ve did the brass separately when and we’ve just got the strings to do. I think for that we’ll wear the polo necks, or perhaps shirts with the sleeves rolled up with sunglasses. Polo necks were a year ago so it’s already changing.
M: I think it’s out April-ish, isn’t it?
NME: Finally, have you got a name for your side project?
M: We’re still trying to figure one out. We’ve got some ideas, but you’ll know soon enough! We haven’t decided yet.
NME: You get called Turner And Kane at the moment, that sounds like a cop film…
A: I wish it was!
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