stoneystuff: 20 years of Whatever People Say I Am…
I'm posting this from my studio, which happens to be in the building on the cover of "When the sun goes down"…
What a time to be standing on the periphery of something so colossal.
Arctic Monkeys first came on my radar in late 2003 in a DIY Sheffield music rag called Sandman Magazine, in a little "ones to watch" article under a review of one of my own local gigs. I took note.
I'd got to know Alex a bit through gigs at the Boardwalk where he and @reverend_makers worked, and sometimes we'd hang out and listen to each other's demos. One of the things I really admired about him was his desire to properly listen, understand and absorb lyrics in any genre.
Sometime in mid-2005 I remember standing at the back of their gig at the Fez Club in Sheffield when two suited A&R guys walked through the door. It was the first time I'd ever seen a label scout venture outside the big smoke.
"Just another Libertines wannabe band," they muttered… and left.
In the months leading up to the release of what would turn out to be one of the UK's biggest breakthrough albums, the band invited me to open for them on several occasions. It's a testament to them that they offered those spots to music they liked and people they were associated with, when they could easily have sold them to record labels desperate to ride their momentum. I still appreciate that, it certainly gave me a big leg up.
Those first gigs outside Sheffield were mental. They already had a following at home, but were anticipating months of hard slog and service-station pasties to win over other cities. That was the deal back then.
Instead we walked into packed rooms in places like Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff — crowds singing every word before a single was even out. After one show some of my band and I even got roped in to help the lone security guard with crowd control as people were bouncing onto the stage.
To this day I've never seen a response like it. I feel lucky to have been there to see first-hand what it looks like when something bigger than the sum of its parts does its thing. (Posted on 23/01/2026)
