ARCTIC MONKEYS

Along with Andy Nicholson and Matt Helders, Turner attended Stocksbridge High School,and together with his neighbour Jamie Cook, formed Arctic Monkeys in 2002. From his time working at the bar in local concert venues, Turner was "really annoyed by bands coming on and saying 'We've got CDs at the back for sale - three pounds each'... you'd think 'Fuck off, who do you think you are?". On this basis, Arctic Monkeys gave away free demo CDs at their gigs. Turner is believed to have started learning guitar because of the band that was one of his main influences, Oasis. Turner has always been the band's main songwriter, and his observations of inner city England have drawn comparisons to The Streets' frontman Mike Skinner.However, Turner has admitted that during the early days of the band "nobody wanted to admit they wrote the lyrics so we kept trying other singers so they'd do it for us." Despite enjoying songwriting, Turner shied away from acknowledgment because he "didn't want to have piss took out of him!"However, he has suggested that he has always enjoyed songwriting and that since getting his guitar, has spent most of his spare moments penning new lyrics, as "that’s what he'd feel comfortable doing".Describing the manner in which he constructs his lyrics, Turner says "I'll think about something and I'll be writing, penning something down and I'll keep building on that. The best stuff comes when I’ve got a melody and a rhythm so I know how many syllables each line is going to have and then build it up from there, and make it a whole thing, and try and pay attention to every aspect"