Alex Turner

Alex Turner

Arctic Monkeys went to the desert to perfect the songs for 'AM'.

The 'Do I Wanna Know' band worked on their latest album in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California and spent a long time perfecting their material with jams out in the undisturbed wilderness.

Frontman Alex Turner told Rolling Stone magazine: "We like to go out to the desert to 'brown the garlic'. If you want to be black-and-white about it, that means we went there to write.

"It's like a chemical reaction. If you get the wrong amount of one element, smoke comes out of the test tube. There was a lot of demoing and dead ends."

Speaking about how the process influenced the sound of one track, 'No. 1 Party Anthem', Alex added: "To me, that song is about a kind of midnight where you feel like you're in this parallel universe."

The singer added how the British group - which also includes Jamie Cook, Nick O'Malley and Matt Helders - were inspired to raise their game for their fifth album when they opened on tour for The Black Keys and had to win audiences over.

He said: "We went on at 8pm every night, when everyone was buying popcorn and s**t. We'd see a guy two-thirds of the way back start the show on his BlackBerry. By the end of our set, he was f***ing pogo-ing."