Oct 8, 2026 · 1 hr 28 min · 11 segments
In 2006, Arctic Monkeys served as the culmination of a half-decade worth of much-hyped U.K. buzz bands, and finally experienced the biggest breakthrough any group had in its home country since Oasis a…
Andrew UnterbergerHost
Thomas SmithGuestFor now, I do want to kind of catch the Arctic Monkeys up from the beginning of the story to where they are in 2006.
And there's not a lot to talk about here, as we say, it all kind of happens quickly.
At first, it's just Alex Turner on guitars, Matt Helders on drums, and Andy Nicholson on bass.
And they actually bond not even over the Strokes and White Stripes at first.
They bond over Roots Maneuva, I think was the big UK artist for them at the time.
Jamie Cook eventually joins as a second guitarist and Alex agrees kind of begrudgingly from what I've read that he agrees to be the lead singer.
He doesn't seem to necessarily even really want to be the center of attention, but they all kind of recognize that he's gifted and they just got away with words.
And they gig around Sheffield and they record some demos and they, pass those demos out and CDs of their shows.
And this ends up being a huge part of the Arctic Monkeys story, because as the fans start to spread those demos around online, they kind of become a viral sensation or a proto viral sensation of sorts.
And Sophie, as I talked about a little bit on the Lily Allen podcast with her, she wrote about this.
And as a result of that, they're able to bypass a lot of the early gatekeepers and tastemakers who they'd normally have to get the approval of before they became one of the UK buzz bands.
Do you have any memory of actually encountering them even before Dancefloor? Or was that the first time you had heard of Arctic Monkeys when you got sent that video on the playground?
But, you know, I speak to a friend, a friend of mine who's a couple of years older.
For now, I do want to kind of catch the Arctic Monkeys up from the beginning of the story to where they are in 2006.
And there's not a lot to talk about here, as we say, it all kind of happens quickly.
At first, it's just Alex Turner on guitars, Matt Helders on drums, and Andy Nicholson on bass.
And they actually bond not even over the Strokes and White Stripes at first.
They bond over Roots Maneuva, I think was the big UK artist for them at the time.
Jamie Cook eventually joins as a second guitarist and Alex agrees kind of begrudgingly from what I've read that he agrees to be the lead singer.
He doesn't seem to necessarily even really want to be the center of attention, but they all kind of recognize that he's gifted and they just got away with words.
And they gig around Sheffield and they record some demos and they, pass those demos out and CDs of their shows.
And this ends up being a huge part of the Arctic Monkeys story, because as the fans start to spread those demos around online, they kind of become a viral sensation or a proto viral sensation of sorts.
And Sophie, as I talked about a little bit on the Lily Allen podcast with her, she wrote about this.
And as a result of that, they're able to bypass a lot of the early gatekeepers and tastemakers who they'd normally have to get the approval of before they became one of the UK buzz bands.
Do you have any memory of actually encountering them even before Dancefloor? Or was that the first time you had heard of Arctic Monkeys when you got sent that video on the playground?
But, you know, I speak to a friend, a friend of mine who's a couple of years older.
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