‘We were stubborn teenagers. We didn’t want to be famous’: the inside story of Arctic Monkeys’ frenzied early years

In this extract from a new book on Sheffield’s musical history, Monkeys drummer Matt Helders and the cream of the city’s indie scene look back on the febrile mid-00s – from brilliant tunes to ‘brainless violence’ In 2005, enough of a storm seemed to be brewing in northern British indie music that NME tried to coin a new genre to encompass it all: New Yorkshire. “Forget LA, New York or London,” the feature read. “New Yorkshire is the best new band scene in Britain.” The magazine lumped togethe...

By Daniel Dylan Wray