Oldschool fans of Arctic Monkeys who still hold out hope the band will crack out some more Yorkshire kitchen-sink singalongs like ‘Mardy Bum’ and ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ will be crestfallen to hear those days are definitely long gone, according to a new interview with Germany’s ‘Intro’ magazine.

However, frontman Alex Turner is emphatic that it was never his intention to make forthcoming LP Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, out next Friday, a solo record, as some reports seemed to think.

“I was never interested in making a solo album,” he told Intro.

“I am a part of this band and one would disrespect the other. Nevertheless, I wanted to make this music, it was in me.”

He also confirmed in the interview that his new songwriting process, leaning heavily on a fancy grand piano bought for him by a friend for his 30th birthday, has thrown up some interesting new angles:

“When you compose on the piano, you automatically get different results than on the guitar. And it was important to me to say goodbye to the realism of most of the Arctic Monkeys stuff.”

So no more lively, hilarious yarns about hopeless wannabe bands, Sheffield kerb-crawlers or knackered converse and trackie bottoms tucked in socks then. Mores the pity.

"It was important to me to say goodbye to the realism of most of the Arctic Monkeys stuff"

“Overall, it developed in a direction that soon made me realise she had absolutely nothing to do with what people would expect from a Monkeys record.”

Still, he made sure he got approval from his bandmates, getting guitarist Jamie Cook involved “…relatively early. When I finished the first demos, I invited Jamie to listen to everything and work on the songs together. He recorded a few guitars, had complementary ideas and was pretty enthusiastic overall.”

So that’s nice then.

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino will be released on May 11.