Alexander David Turner was born on 6 January 1986 and is an English singer and musician.
55 Facts About Alex Turner
2.
Alex Turner is well known as the frontman and principal songwriter of the rock band Arctic Monkeys, with whom he has released seven albums.
3.
Alex Turner has recorded with his side project involving Miles Kane, as the Last Shadow Puppets and as a solo artist.
4.
When Turner was 17, he and three friends formed Arctic Monkeys in their native Sheffield.
5.
Alex Turner's lyricism, ranging from kitchen sink realism to surrealist wordplay, has been widely praised throughout the music industry and the public.
6.
Alex Turner has won seven Brit Awards, an Ivor Novello Award, and a Mercury Prize.
7.
Alexander David Turner was born in Sheffield on 6 January 1986, the only child of secondary school teachers Penny and David Turner.
8.
Alex Turner has said that his parents came from "very different backgrounds"; his mother, from Amersham, Buckinghamshire, taught German and was "fascinated by language".
9.
Alex Turner's parents were both music fans and his earliest musical memories involve the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
10.
Alex Turner's father was a fan of jazz and swing music, particularly Frank Sinatra, and had played the saxophone, trumpet, and piano in big bands.
11.
Alex Turner himself was taught some scales on the family keyboard by his father and took professional piano lessons until he was eight years old.
12.
Alex Turner's father let him borrow a school guitar to learn a "couple of chords" when Turner was 15 and, for Christmas that year, his parents bought him an electric guitar.
13.
Alex Turner was educated at Stocksbridge High School from 1997 to 2002.
14.
Alex Turner noted that Turner had an "incredibly laid-back" approach to his studies, which worried his mother and led to criticism from other teachers.
15.
Alex Turner studied for A-levels in music technology and media studies, as well as AS-levels in English, photography, and psychology.
16.
At the age of 15, Alex Turner's weekends revolved around girls and drinking cider with his friends.
17.
Joe Carnall, a schoolfriend, has said Alex Turner was "always the quiet one" in their social circle.
18.
Helders bought a drum kit, while Alex Turner suggested that Nicholson learn bass guitar, and invited Jamie Cook, a neighbour who attended a different school, to play guitar.
19.
Alex Turner began working part-time as a bartender at the Sheffield music venue The Boardwalk.
20.
Alex Turner's lyrics, chronicling teenage nightlife in Sheffield, were widely praised.
21.
Alex Turner has an uncanny way of evoking Northern English youth culture while neither romanticizing it nor sneering at it.
22.
Alex Turner was hailed by British press outlets as "the voice of a generation".
23.
Also that year, Alex Turner began to collaborate with other artists.
24.
Alex Turner worked with rapper Dizzee Rascal on the Arctic Monkeys B-side "Temptation", a version of which featured on Rascal's album Maths and English.
25.
Alex Turner co-wrote three songs on Reverend and The Makers' debut album The State Of Things, after briefly sharing a Sheffield flat with the frontman Jon McClure.
26.
Alex Turner announced plans to form a side-project band, the Last Shadow Puppets, with Ford and Miles Kane, whom he had befriended during a tour in mid-2005.
27.
The Last Shadow Puppets' debut album, The Age of the Understatement, was released in April 2008, shortly after Alex Turner had moved from Sheffield to east London.
28.
Also in 2008, Alex Turner formed a covers band with Dev Hynes for a one-off show in London and recorded a spoken word track "A Choice of Three" for Helders' compilation album Late Night Tales.
29.
Alex Turner has described Arctic Monkeys' third album, Humbug, released in August 2009, as "a massive turning point" in the band's career.
30.
Director Richard Ayoade initially approached Alex Turner to sing cover versions but, instead, he recorded six original songs in London, accompanied by James Ford and Bill Ryder-Jones.
31.
Two of the songs had already been written; Alex Turner wrote the rest after watching dailies from the film set.
32.
Alex Turner co-wrote six songs for Miles Kane's debut solo album Colour of the Trap and co-wrote Kane's standalone single "First of My Kind".
33.
Alex Turner wrote Arctic Monkeys' fourth album, Suck It and See, in New York and met up with his bandmates and James Ford for recording sessions in Los Angeles.
34.
Alex Turner joined Elvis Costello on stage in New York to sing "Lipstick Vogue".
35.
In early 2013, Alex Turner provided backing vocals for the Queens of the Stone Age song "If I Had a Tail" and played bass guitar on "Get Right", a Miles Kane B-side.
36.
Columbia Records approached Turner about working with Alexandra Savior in 2014, and he co-wrote her debut album, Belladonna of Sadness, in between Arctic Monkeys' touring commitments.
37.
Alex Turner recorded demos at home, alone and later with Helders, and shared them with Cook in early 2017.
38.
That same year, Alex Turner wrote the music for the audiobook version of Richard Ayoade's The Book That No One Wanted to Read, the instrumental interludes were produced by him and James Ford.
39.
Alex Turner was "into hip-hop in a big way" as a teenager.
40.
Alex Turner listened to Rawkus Records and Lyricist Lounge compilations, and artists such as Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg, Outkast, Eminem and the Streets.
41.
Alex Turner has repeatedly cited Method Man as one of his favourite lyricists, and has referenced the Wu-Tang Clan in his own lyrics.
42.
Alex Turner has since referenced the band in his lyrics.
43.
The Vines were the first band Alex Turner ever saw live and Craig Nicholls provided inspiration for his early stage persona.
44.
Alex Turner has since performed with Jack White of The White Stripes, Costello and Johnny Marr of The Smiths.
45.
John Cooper Clarke, whose poetry Alex Turner first encountered at school, was a "massive" source of early inspiration.
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Alex Turner was working as a barman at The Boardwalk in Sheffield in late 2004 when Clarke appeared on stage as the opening act for the Fall.
47.
Later in his career, Alex Turner requested to interview Clarke for Mojo Magazine, published two Clarke poems as part of a single's artwork and used another as the lyrical basis for a song.
48.
Alex Turner has spoken of his respect for country music songwriters like Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, and Hank Williams.
49.
Alex Turner has said his songs are preoccupied with romance, loneliness, and longing.
50.
Alex Turner has said writing melodies is the more difficult part of the songwriting process for him.
51.
In late 2011, Alex Turner began to change his stage persona and style, most notably changing his hairstyle to a "rockabilly-inspired quiff".
52.
Alex Turner is an avid reader and has cited authors Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, David Foster Wallace, and George Saunders as some of his favourites.
53.
Alex Turner is a cinephile, and has shown interest in photography, a hobby he shares with bandmate, Matt Helders.
54.
Alex Turner is a fan of the works of Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder among others.
55.
Alex Turner is a supporter of Sheffield Wednesday FC and does Muay Thai in his free time.