Last week, Arctic Monkeys returned with “Opening Night,” a one-off charity single marking their first new song since 2022. Now, drummer Matt Helders has brushed off speculation about the track being their swan song.
In an interview with BBC Radio 1’s New Music Show, Helders told host Jack Saunders that while there are no immediate plans for new material, making music is something the band “will always do” together.
“It was an opportunity for us to do a new song and get back together for the first time in a couple of years and see if we could still do it,” Helders said about recording the track for the upcoming charity compilation HELP(2).
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Helders clarified that while Arctic Monkeys entered the recording “knowing it was a one-off” single, the band “feels natural” in the studio, which he described as their “happy place.” Though “time will tell” whether the group will feel inspired to make more music, Helders stated that they had “a lot of fun” making “Opening Night.”
“There’s no conversations about it,” he said about recording more new material, “but it’s definitely something we love to do and we’ll always do.”
In a previous interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe (via NME), Helders described Arctic Monkeys reconvening for HELP(2) as a “no-brainer.”
“This is a reason we’d do something,” he said, referring to supporting the global children’s charity War Child UK. “There’s always going to be talk about it like, ‘What does it mean for the band?’ We want it to just be for these people and for this.’”
He continued, “People are going between album cycles, off tour, they’re not worried about that at the moment. Let’s just come together and do this. Everyone made time in their schedule to do it. For us, everyone can agree that this is a good cause. No one’s on the fence about whether we should help the kids or not.”
However, Helders did add that it was nice to “see everyone and to fall back into the roles that we’ve always had with each other, musically and personally.”
“Sometimes we might not see each other for six months, but when we do it’s like we were never apart,” he said. “That’s just how we are with people, with each other. It translates musically as well. We just had a couple of days doing this and it felt like nothing had happened; [that there was] no space between.”
Arctic Monkeys’ most recent album, The Car, was released in 2022. Revisit our roundup of every Arctic Monkeys album ranked from worst to best.
