Jamie Cook

Arctic Monkeys

Originally a next door neighbour of fellow band member, Alex Turner, Cook and the other band members picked up their respective instruments and formed a band in 2001. He is the son of an engineer.

He is the most outspoken member, going on record as saying he "fucking hates the [print] news" and defending the band's numerous successive records by saying, "I couldn’t see us being like Coldplay, it’d just be fucking boring. You tour your album for three years and play the same fucking gig night after night. It must really be depressing. Some people might enjoy doing that, but we couldn't." Following the release of their debut album, Cook said: 'Now, I'd like us to be able to grow like The Clash. When they started, it was a very basic, punky record. Then they started to take off and move in lots of directions. That's what we want."

Despite leaving home, Cook has maintained residence in the Sheffield area along with fellow band member, Helders. He has been described as "the bullishly confident blue-collar lad" of the group.

At the start of the band's career, Cook would join Matt Helders and Andy Nicholson in backing vocals for songs such as "Fake Tales of San Francisco", but has gradually shied away from singing duties, leaving them to the other three members of the group.

Cook is also considered to be the "indie music fanatic" of the group. Armed with the likes of musical tastes for bands such as The Smiths, The Strokes, Oasis, and Queens of the Stone Age, Cook supposedly turned the band into what it is today.

Guitars

During the first album, Cook's setup was fairly simple. His main guitar was a Fender Telecaster 62 reissue. His pedals were an MXR Distortion +, Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, Electro-Harmonix Pulsar and, at least for a while, he could be seen using a T-Rex Dr. Swamp twin distortion pedal. He also had a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner. His amplifier was a Hiwatt Custom 50-Watt 2×12 Combo.

From the second album onwards, he has had quite an elaborate pedalboard. The pedals used have almost changed altogether. He stuck to his MXR Distortion +, and has added an Electro-Harmonix Little Big Muff, Electro-Harmonix HOG, Electro-Harmonix Pulsar Tremolo, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, a Boss LS-2 Line Selector, a Guyatone sustain and an expression pedal for the HOG all this was changed to an Ernie Ball volume/pan pedal, which can be seen used when playing the Arctic Monkeys song "Nettles" live. His main guitar is now a Gibson ES-335TD from 1975. He has been seen using several different Bad Cat amplifiers, including a Bad Cat Hot Cat 30 R, in addition to his Hiwatt amplifiers, on the 4th album Suck it and See a Rosewell Bluesman 30 and an Audio Kitchen Big Chopper was used.

On the Australia and New Zealand tour of Humbug, Cook was seen using a Fender Starcaster. Another interesting point is that his Gibson 335TD has been changed from a Frequensator tailpiece to a Bigsby. His pedalboard has changed quite considerably since the Favourite Worst Nightmare tour. It now consists of an Electro-Harmonix Pulsar (without stereo), Electro-Harmonix Memory Man, Boss RE-20, Boss TU-2, Death By Audio Fuzz Gun, Z.Vex Super Duper, Fulltone OCD, Demeter Fuzzullator, Boss LS-2, Ernie Ball VP Junior and an Electro-Harmonix Hum Debugger. He was also seen to be using a Gibson SG standard on stage live at Glastonbury on June 2013.

Personal life

Cook attended Ecclesfield Secondary School, in Chapeltown, Sheffield. He began dating the glamour model Katie Downes in 2006. They became engaged in 2012 and were married on 31 May 2014. In September 2015, their first child was born, a son named Forrest.