Alex Turner’s black Fender Stratocaster guitar has raised £128,544 ($169,031) in a charity raffle to help save grassroots venues.
Arctic Monkeys joined forces with The Music Venue Trust to launch a Crowdfunder page in a bid to help save their home city of Sheffield’s Leadmill and many other grassroots venues across the UK, who have been hit especially hard financially amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In their original tweet, the ‘R U Mine?’ rockers announced: "Arctic Monkeys have launched a Crowdfunder campaign to raise money for @Leadmill and other grassroots venues in the UK in conjunction with @musicvenuetrust. Enter to win Alex’s Fender Guitar. Entry is £5, for more information and to enter, visit: https://crowdfunder.co.uk/arctic-monkeys-leadmill (sic)"
And they’ve since updated the page to share the total they’ve had donated in the raffle over the past two weeks.
They wrote: "On 25th August 2020 we successfully raised £128,544 with 14410 supporters in 14 days."
Those who entered the raffle were given access to a special screening of Alex and co’s iconic 2006 Reading Festival performance, which saw the 34-year-old musician play the Fender, from 8pm BST tonight (26.08.20).
The Crowdfunder stated that: "All funds raised will go to The Music Venue Trust to support The Leadmill in Sheffield and other independent grassroots music venues across the UK. Thank you for your support."
Alex’s considerable contribution to the cause comes after Frank Turner urged his fellow artists to raise money for local venues at risk of closure due to the virus.
The ‘Try This At Home’ singer launched his Independent Venue Love project in March with a Facebook Live gig playing his 2007 debut album ‘Sleep Is For The Week’ in full as a fundraiser for London’s Nambucca – which holds a special place in his heart from his formative years as a songwriter – and he called on musicians to spread the word.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "I’m really keen on the idea of other artists joining in with this and doing it with their fanbase and their local venue and it doesn’t have to just be me shouldering this entire thing.
"It’d be really cool if it spread out. There’s a lot of people got in touch today – I’m really hoping to get some bigger names involved in it as well! We’ll see how it goes?"