Alex Turner Arctic Monkeys in mid-2002. In the early days of the band, Helders has recalled that Turner "wasn’t necessarily going to be the singer" but was the obvious candidate for lyricist: "I knew he had a thing for words." Before playing a live show, the band rehearsed for a year in both Turner and Helders' garages and, later, at an unused warehouse in Wath. Turner gradually began to share lyrics with his bandmates. According to Helders' mother, who drove the teenagers to and from their rehearsal space three times a week: "If they knew you were there, they would just stop
Alex Turner released in May 2018. After receiving a Steinway Vertegrand piano as a 30th birthday present from his manager, Turner wrote the space-themed album from the perspective of "a lounge-y character". Having written "the most straight-up love letters" of his career on "Everything You've Come to Expect", he felt ready to explore wider themes. He recorded demos at home, and shared them with Cook in early 2017. Cook was initially taken-aback by the change in direction: "It took a few listens to even begin to, like… But I don’t think any of us wanted to make an "AM, Part Two", so