‘We’ve got a good thing going’: Matt Helders says as he reveals the Arctic Monkeys secret pre-show ritual

Arctic Monkeys legendary drummer, Matt Helders, has revealed the Sheffield rock band’s pre-show ritual. The band are currently on their UK and Ireland leg of ‘Arctic Monkeys ‘The Car’ European 2023 tour’, which kicked off in Bristol on Monday 29 May.

Drummer Matt Helders shared a sneak peek into what the band do to prepare for their performances with the BBC saying: “It’s like our little moment. Before we walk on, backstage, we all have a little dance. We’re pretty tight. We’ve got a good thing going.”

He listed the two artists they listen to in order to get them in the right mindset for their show: “Barry White definitely gets us in the mood, but Tom Jones even more so, in terms of pace and speed and getting us pumped to do a gig.”

He also hinted that they use this time to play around with their own setlist to keep things fresh. Matt said: “We change the setlist quite a bit for different circumstances. But once the audience is over a certain number of people, it does feel the same – in terms of what we play, not in terms of that experience.”

The band experimented with different sounds on ‘The Car’ album with frontman, Alex Turner, focusing heavily on the quality of the music they were creating. James Ford, the band’s producer, told  NME: “Alex is getting very into recording stuff himself. I seem to remember the writing process for ‘The Car’ was quite long because he went to and fro with a few different directions. He’d do four or five different versions of the same song with different tempos, and he’d play some of them to me, and I’d be like, ‘Oh, that one’s sounding great.”

The Sheffield-based band kicked off their UK stadium tour at Ashton Gate Stadium in Bristol delighting up to 30,000 fans, with a setlist of old and new songs from their two decades in the industry. The band are then set to perform at stadiums across the UK and Ireland including Coventry, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Norwich, Sheffield, Swansea, Southampton, London, Dublin and Glasgow.

On 23 June  they will be headlining at Glastonbury Festival on Friday night on the Pyramid Stage. Other headliners include Elton John, Guns N’ Roses and Cat Stevens with more to be announced nearer the date.