Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner has become the latest musician to offer his opinion on the unrest which affected various parts of London and spread to other cities in the UK earlier this summer, and has said people should look closer at the deeper root causes of the rioting.
“They certainly didn’t seem to have a focus in the way I am told the riots of the early 1980s did,” he told Uncut magazine. “I mean I wasn’t born then, but they say they were much more about politics and not just blokes out on the rob. I mean I wasn’t born then, but they say they were much more about politics and not just blokes out on the rob.”
“The thing is that, even if you buy what the papers are saying and assume everyone involved is just some mindless thug or whatever they’re calling them, I think we still need to ask why this country has produced so many mindless thugs.”
“I mean you can’t just treat this thing as if it was entirely unrelated to anything else. If all these kids are hooligans and thieves, then why are they all hooligans and thieves?”
Arctic Monkeys were one of the bands who suffered when stock was destroyed by fire at the Sony PIAS warehouse during the riots in Enfield, with large quantities of their ‘Hellcat Spangled Shalalala‘ single going up in flames.