** Alex Turner: **No, I think it’s fucking great that Mick and Keith do that, you know? If you can still do that, at that age, it’s kind of awesome, isn’t it? But it’s difficult to project how you’re going to feel in 30 years. I’d still like to be involved in music, one way or another.

GQ: Do you enjoy touring as much as you did when you started?

** Alex Turner: **Probably more, actually. It feels like we’re in a good spot right now. Everyone’s sort of enjoying it. And I really enjoy playing in the States. In Europe it’s the big arenas every night. Here it’s more varied. In addition to big places, we can play smaller clubs in a town in the middle of nowhere.

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GQ: Does it feel good to be out of the hype cycle of your first two albums?

** Alex Turner: **Eh, I guess it has to, really. It’s not like any of us are pining for those days. That was fun and it was great, that we got to make a record [Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not] that connected with a lot of people in the way that it did. And while I think you go through a phase naturally of feeling embarrassed about [that kind of attention], I’m coming around to being proud of that first record and how people connected to it like they did. But I’m really happy with where we are now, with this last record. You can’t spend your time looking back.

GQ: Is there some advice you wish you could have given yourself when you first started?

** Alex Turner: **Any advice I would’ve given to my 19-year-old self I wouldn’t have listened to anyway. _[laughs] _

GQ: Who are your survivors, or the people you emulated as a kid?

** Alex Turner: **The Smiths was a big one for me. Hatful of Hollow and The Smiths were lent to me, and they made me want to create music that might make another person feel like they made me feel—to have an effect on someone. The person I used to pretend to be when I was playing my Stratocaster was probably Hendrix, who I guess you can’t really call a survivor. Well, in a way, I suppose—his music survives.

Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, ’Yeah, songwritin’ man,’ looking wistful.

GQ: Has your process for writing songs changed between your first and fourth album?

** Alex Turner: **It changes, but not a hell of a lot. I think the more music you hear… I get this thing every few months where I’ll hear a song and it resets me and I think, Oh, shit, that’s what a good song should be about, and that kind of makes you want to start again. In a way, doing the Shadow Puppets album was when I started to think of what I did as songwriting. Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, "Yeah, songwritin’ man," looking wistful. That wasn’t me—those kinds of people put me off. In the early days, I’d write a bunch of lyrics and almost look at them as a sort of joke, to make the rest of the boys laugh. And then we’d jigsaw all these parts together to make the tunes. With the Last Shadow Puppets album, Miles [Kane] and I took a much more traditional approach, thinking about melodies and chords, melodies and lyrics. That opened the door to more of a purist approach. Every time you write a song, you’re looking for some sort of perfection, and you never quite reach it. You’re always looking for that extra missing piece.