Alex Turner has explained how he was tasked with the new challenge if overcoming writer’s block to write Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino.

The band’s long-anticipated sixth studio album was released Friday May 11th, Far Out describing the record and Turner’s lyrics as some of the “most literal, fascinating and obscure to date” the their album review.

Reflecting on his work in an interview with Beats 1’s Zane Lowe, the conversation moved to the thought process and the potential creative difficulties occurred when he sat down to write the new album.

“There was a time [when] I’d probably sit on my bed in my mum’s house, strumming an acoustic guitar,” he recalled the starting process. “Like that first record [Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not], I can’t remember how long it took but it seems like it could have just come out in a week. I didn’t have to find ways to make myself finish an idea [back then].

“And now it seems like I do, and the job is to find a way of tricking myself into having an idea, I suppose, and following it through” he continued, before agreeing with Lowe that he had experienced writer’s block.

“I think that’s quite possibly what happened this time round. We were all standing there with instruments in a room and familiar objects: you know, the same guitars we’ve used and the rig that was basically on the road. I was excited to be there with the lads. We definitely had a great time, but it didn’t seem like that was the way to do [the new album], and I needed to find a way to trick myself into it.”

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