The Last Shadow Puppets: To Three or Not to Three? 

Written by Millie Cain
Edited by Eve Moat

All anybody in indie music ever seems to want is more Arctic Monkeys. More, more, more, leeching the essence right out of Alex Turner. More AM, more Humbug, more Suck It and See, even gagging for more Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. More shows, more tours, more music, more demos. New bands are chasing their sound, recreating their looks, singing their covers. O2 Academy’s Indie Thursday must play more AM in one night than sell overpriced vodka-lemonades. To top it all off, we eat it up every week. We want to swallow them whole. Finally though, Matt Helders recently announced, after their recent (slog of a) tour that “Arctic Monkeys need a break”.  

But how, you may ask, are these rockstars taking a break? How does Alex Turner walk off a stage in front of thousands to sit in his mum’s living room? To live and breathe in a way that appears to transcend normal life, and suddenly give it all up?

There aren’t any days off. When minds are whirring and your whole career is built on writing and singing material that you’ve thought up, how do you turn off? For the rest of the band, it’s back to America; Helders to his new wife, kids, and their home, but for Turner, is he leaping right back into the loving arms of Miles Kane?  

2007: indie sleaze is in full swing, Miles Kane’s band The Rascals are supporting Arctic Monkeys’ tour, and something is blossoming. A whispering of ideas, bonding over David Bowie and Scott Walker, a shared love for that 60s and 70s inspired orchestrated sound that Turner just can’t escape. The Last Shadow Puppets formed and released their first album The Age of the Understatement in April 2008. Double the songwriters, half the work right? The baroque-pop album released to critical acclaim, a debut number one, and earned a mercury prize nomination. The co-frontmen went on a world tour as TLSP, in a move described as “ambitious, intimate, and profound”. It held a real difference in songwriting, an old school romance flowing throughout, and leaning into an older, pre-psychedelic sound.  

An 8-year hiatus followed, Turner was busy releasing three more Arctic Monkeys albums (Humbug, Suck It and See, and AM) as well as delving into creating a movie soundtrack with Submarine. Kane also released two huge albums, and front-manned another supergroup, Jaded Hearts Club, with more of a rock turned northern soul sound, made up with Graham Coxon (Blur), Nic Cester (Jet), Matt Bellamy (Muse), and Sean Payne (The Zutons). Everybody wondered whether they’d ever be back. Nevertheless, Everything You’ve Come to Expect hit with a bang in December 2016, as another number 1 album, with a smooth, sophisticated Californian flair. 

With a second album came the question: where is the third? In an interview with NME in 2016, Turner revealed “We always wanted it to be a trilogy […] We wanted to write the second and third parts before we released the second”. A third album, written somewhere, perhaps stashed in the secret box of their minds, deep in the LA countryside. Kane, as recently as this year, admitted to Radio X “We always talk about it mate […]  before this lifetime is done, a trilogy will definitely be put in place”.  

With the buzz surrounding Kane joining Arctic Monkeys on stage in Dublin for ‘505’ (a song which he originally collaborated on), him recently playing huge fan favourite TLSP songs ‘Aviation’ and ‘Standing Next to Me’ on his most recent tour, it doesn’t seem like TLSP have been forgotten. Still with 1.8 million monthly listeners, it would be a huge moment for Miles Kane as he’s powering through his solo career, and for Turner, a welcome rest bite from the nearly 50 million eyes on Arctic Monkeys. While their music has undoubtably strayed, there’s huge hints of them moving in similar directions: Kane’s single ‘My Death’ from his new album One Man Band and ‘Tears are Falling’ from its predecessor could in theory be found easily on The Car. Kane is definitely exploring new sounds and experimenting more. Could we expect a more 80s synth influenced album, or a punkier push from Kane’s side for their grand finale? And the fanbase, well now its nearing the 8-year anniversary of Everything You’ve Come to Expect in 2024, they are only going to be screaming more, more, more.