Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Truner has defended his infamous speech at BRITs by asking: “What else was I supposed to do?”

Collecting his band’s award for Best Album at the 2014 event, Turner went on a rambling speech about how rock’n’roll will “never die” before dropping the microphone and stating “invoice me for the microphone if you need to.”

Now, after being asked about the speech in a new interview with Mojo, Turner defended his actions, he said: “I maintain that I didn’t really have another way around it.

“Another way of justifying getting up in that room. What else was I supposed to do? To go up there and pretend that I’d been dreaming about that moment since I was a kid would have been dishonest.”

Moving deeper, Turner was asked about the meaning of rock’n’roll having referenced it in his 2014 acceptance, to which he said: “I think they all have a connection with instinct, those kinds of terms… More often that not, if you don’t trust those feelings you end up worse off.

“Gut feeling is what rock’n’roll, punk even, is all about.”