Matt Helders has launched new project, Terrific, with debut single ‘WeHo yet?’ – find out how to stream it below.
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Back in April, the Arctic Monkeys drummer and backing vocalist shared footage showing him back in the studio writing new material, which he’s now shared with fans in a tech-heavy release.
Fans can access the new single here after signing up for their mailing list. As many have since discovered, the site’s 8-bit inspired visuals allow fans to access its sexed up lyrics – “Passionate crimes, I’m going in blind /You and me 69 on the Hollywood sign / The fuck you talking about? / I’m in Love, that’s it, I’m out” – by inputting the /h command.
Listeners also immediately speculated that Mini Mansions musician Tyler Parkford – also a touring member of Arctic Monkeys – had a hand in creating the glam rock-esque track. He is notably the only account besides Helders that the official Terrific account follows.
Details surrounding the project are scant, and their current bio reads only: “I got the feeling you’re next”.
Should an album emerge from the project, it will follow on from the DJ mix album he shared back in 2008. That record marked the 21st instalment in the Late Night Tales series, and saw him reimagine tracks by The Black Keys, The Stooges, Goblin, Mos Def and more.
Hints about a solo album have been floating since 2018, when Henders said in an interview that he was underway with work for a new LP and determined to make “a lot” of material to justify a full record.
“I feel like I’ve got to do a certain amount before it’s deserved in a way. I don’t want to do it too soon and then regret it, like ‘Oh, I shouldn’t have made that kind of record’,” he said. “I want to make a lot of music and then like, ‘Oh, that’s the thing I like about this’.”
He continued: “I think I’m getting to a point now in which the style has developed and what I want to do is more clear to me than it was before. ”
Later that year, he went on to share more hints about the record, describing the music he’s been working on as “like a John Carpenter kind of thing”.
Aside from that and his work with Arctic Monkeys, Helders has also been a member of Iggy Pop’s Post Pop Depression band, where he performed with Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Dean Fertita.
He has also embarked on various other projects away from AM over the years – including making remixes of tracks from The Hives, Duran Duran, Paul Weller and Roots Manuva, and collaborations with the likes of Lady Gaga, Toddla T, and The Last Shadow Puppets.
While that full-blown solo album hasn’t yet materialised, the following year did see Helders join up with Milburn frontman Joe Carnall for a retro-futuristic pop record called ‘Good Cop Bad Cop’. Shared in 2019, the record was given a three-star review from NME, and described as “quite the evolved beast from their scratchy garage rock beginnings.”
In 2021, Helders remixed She Drew The Gun‘s ‘Behave Myself’, and in 2023 he joined up with Albert Hammond Jr as part of the latter’s solo album ‘Melodies On Hiatus’.
Aside from music, the artist has also taken an interest in photography, and has even been responsible for the cover artwork for Arctic Monkey’s latest album, ‘The Car’. In an interview back in 2023, he recalled capturing the featured image with a long lens from the window of his former apartment in Los Angeles.
There hasn’t been a new album from the Sheffield band since the album dropped at the end of 2022 and was given a glowing five-star review by NME, which described it as “a swashbuckling, strings-fuelled epic”.
After its release, Alex Turner and co. locked in a headline slot at Glastonbury 2023 and headed out on a huge world tour – which they ended by bringing out James Ford and Miles Kane as special guests.
Since then, there have been very few updates from the band. However, earlier this month, some eagle-eyed fans noticed the band had updated their website homepage, and launched a new recording company, leading to speculation about new material.
