Alex Turner is more confident

20 May 2018

Alex Turner feels more "confident" about giving his opinions through song now.

Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys frontman addresses subjects such as the US presidency and Leonard Cohen's death on the group's latest album, 'Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino', and he admitted it's the first time he's been comfortable enough to know how to express his own views in the right way.

He said: "[Previously] I'd never wanted anything political to get into the music and that was because I didn't know how to do it. It's not as though these are protest songs necessarily, but I'm more confident about putting myself across."

And the 32-year-old rocker thinks there is now more of a "pressure" on public figures to speak out, though he thinks its important that people only do so if they're informed on a subject.

Asked why he thinks more celebrities are speaking out about issues and their values, he told the Sunday Times magazine: "Maybe they're forced to be that way through the way it's gone.

"I seem to remember feeling like I hadn't given sufficient consideration to these issues to be able to discuss them, which I'm not sure is necessarily a bad attitude towards it. They often are complex.

"It can go too far the other way, where people feel forced to talk about it, but they haven't given it too much thought. There is a pressure on you now to think about stuff, which is not unhealthy."

The 'Crying Lightning' singer insists he'd never leave the rest of the band behind and go solo because he enjoys being around his bandmates, Matt Helders, Jamie Cook and Nick O'Malley too much and they keep him enthusiastic.

He said: "I enjoy their company. So, for instance, on this project I was really unsure about what I was doing and lost with it completely.

"Then, when Jamie came out to LA to join me and we worked on stuff together, through his encouragement suddenly I felt completely different. Him getting excited about it, like the way I remember him getting excited about some idea in his bedroom in his mum's house when we were 16 ... I still get that buzz out of his reaction."