Arctic Monkeys Get into Led Zeppelin on Tour

Posted on Nov 20th 2009 6:34AM by Richard Moore
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Alex Turner has revealed to Spinner the Arctic Monkeys have been preparing for their huge UK shows with a Led Zeppelin "onslaught". He told us: "It feels like the last couple of months in dressing rooms we've not listened to much other than Led Zeppelin. That gets played every day. It's a constant."

Describing the legendary rock titans' music as "the perfect pep talk" before playing their UK arena shows, Turner also said that he was planning to give them a rest, thanks to his friend, and keyboard player with the Horrors, Spider Webb.

He said: "I received a compilation from our friend Spider the other day. He's always good to turn you onto tunes that you'd never find yourself, so I'm gonna transfer that onto the stereo to deviate from the Zeppelin onslaught that we've been subjected to." Turner also cited some slightly gentler listening that he's been enjoying lately too. "I was playing to the Silver Jews before in the dressing room," he said. "Funny, funny words."

He then singled out one track in particular that is currently something of an obsession for him. "There's this one [Brian] Eno tune too," he said. "I often have one tune that I'll play again and again for a couple of weeks until I've figured it out. A friend of mine described it as the period before a song becomes a map. There's this tune on his album 'Before and After Science' called 'By This River' and I'm having a thing with that one at the moment."