Alex Turner insists he was "never interested" in making a solo album.
The 32-year-old Arctic Monkeys frontman was thought to be considering taking the tracks he penned for the band’s upcoming sixth studio album ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ for himself before pushing ahead with the rest of the band, but he has now claimed he never intended to go solo, and he feels that would be "disrespecting" his band mates.
He said: "I was never interested in making a solo album. I am a part of this band and one would disrespect the other. Nevertheless, I wanted to make this music, it was in me. When you compose on the piano, you automatically get different results than on the guitar. And it was important to me to say goodbye to the realism of most of the Arctic Monkeys stuff.
"Overall, it developed in a direction that soon made me realise she had absolutely nothing to do with what people would expect from a Monkeys record."
Alex also admits he invited the band – comprised of Nick O’Malley, Jamie Cook, and Matt Helders – to listen to the demo versions of the tracks "relatively early", and credits their "enthusiasm" with "taking away [his] uncertainty".
Speaking to German website Intro, Alex said: "Relatively early. When I finished the first demos, I invited Jamie to listen to everything and work on the songs together. He recorded a few guitars, had complementary ideas and was pretty enthusiastic overall.
"His enthusiasm has taken away my uncertainty. After a while, we brought Nick into the studio and played him our demo of ‘The Star Treatment’. He was also thrilled, and so I gradually got the green light from everyone."
Previously, guitarist Jamie Cook had claimed that Alex wasn’t sure whether or not to go solo with the demos he had written.
He said: "I think at first, because it was quite basic – piano, vocal and no guitar – Al was in two minds about, ‘is this Arctic Monkeys or am I going somewhere else with this’
"And maybe at first I was a bit like that as well.
"It’s definitely not a guitar-heavy record, not typically what we’d do. It took a lot more thinking about."
Alex Turner never planned on going solo
