Biography
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Years Active
2007 – present (18 years)
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Founded In
Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
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Members
- Alex Turner (2007 – present)
- Miles Kane (2007 – present)
The Last Shadow Puppets is an English supergroup that consists of Alex Turner of Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys ,Miles Kane of The Rascals and formerly of The Little Flames, James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco and formerly of Simian, and Zach Dawes of the US band Mini Mansions.
The Last Shadow Puppets were formed by co-frontmen, Alex Turner and Miles Kane, in 2007, after they became friends when the Little Flames supported Arctic Monkeys on tour in 2005. They bonded over their shared love of Scott Walker and David Bowie, and decided to write songs inspired by their music. They have released two records, The Age of the Understatement (2008), and following a lengthy hiatus, Everything You've Come to Expect (2016). Both of their albums reached number one in the UK charts. They were nominated for a BRIT Award in the British Breakthrough category, and shortlisted for a Mercury Prize in the Best Album category, for The Age of the Understatement.
They released their debut album, The Age Of The Understatement, on the 21st April 2008 in the U.K., and 6th May in the U.S.
The album, produced by Ford, also features string arrangements from Owen Pallett. It went straight to number one in the U.K. Albums Chart. Their first single "The Age Of The Understatement" was released on 14 April, with a new song titled "Two Hearts in Two Weeks" and covers of Billy Fury's "Wondrous Place" and David Bowie's "In the Heat of the Morning" (a song previously mentioned by Turner as a favourite) as b-sides. The duo have said they took inspiration from Scott Walker and early Bowie.
The second single, "Standing Next To Me", was released on the 7 July. The third single from the album was "My Mistakes Were Made For You" was released on 20 October. A US-only 8-song expanded EP was released in digital format on 21 October and on CD on 4 November. It was the final release of the band's first period of activity. The album was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize.
With the band on hiatus, and working with their bands, Turner and Kane reunited briefly at the Shockwaves NME Awards on 25 February 2009, where they won Best Music Video for "My Mistakes Were Made For You" directed by Richard Ayoade. In a March 2010 interview with Absolute Radio, Alex Turner said that there were no plans for new material, however, Kane said in October 2010 they would get back together after he was done with his solo project. On 10 August the band played an acoustic set at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, for Brian O'Connor's benefit concert. This marked the first live performance of the band since 2008.
A year later, Turner confirmed his interests in recording a second album. In January 2012, Kane added that he would reunite with Turner to record again as the Last Shadow Puppets "when the time is right." In February 2012, Miles Kane supported Arctic Monkeys at their Paris Olympia show. At the conclusion of the support slot, Turner joined Kane and his band to perform "Standing Next to Me". This was repeated again a year later at Kane's Glastonbury set, near the end of his performance. In October that year Kane, now joining the Arctic Monkeys on their headline set in Mexico, performed their last song "505" together. On 24 May 2014 at the Arctic Monkeys concert at Finsbury Park, both reunited once more for an acoustic performance of "Standing Next to Me".
In 2015 both Turner and Kane were involved in the writing of Kane's third solo album. During those sessions, the song that would later be known as Aviation was the seed for the new Puppets record, as it sparked their desire to get the band together. During the summer of 2015 Turner, Kane, Ford and new member Zach Dawes started recording their second album at the recording studio Shangri-La in Malibu, California. On 19 October 2015 Owen Pallett, who contributed the string arrangements on The Age of the Understatement, confirmed work on the second album on Twitter. In an interview with the Chilean site Rock & Pop on 17 November, producer James Ford confirmed that work on the second album had been completed and that the record would be released sometime in spring 2016. On 3 December, the band's official Facebook and YouTube pages released a teaser trailer for the album, also confirming for the album to be released sometime in spring 2016. People such as Turner's ex-girlfriend, Taylor Bagley, and the band's new member Zach Dawes of Mini Mansions made small cameos in the video. A second teaser trailer for the album was released on 28 December. The video featured Kane impersonating wrestler Ric Flair along with videos from the studio and various cinematic shots.
On 10 January 2016, the band released Bad Habits their first single since 2008. On 21 January, the band announced that their second album would be entitled Everything You've Come to Expect, and would feature the return of all three previous band members, as well as the addition of bass player Zach Dawes. On 10 March, the band released Everything You've Come to Expect, the title track of their upcoming album, as the album's second single. It was followed on 16 March by a third single Avalon and a fourth single Miracle Aligner on 29 March. All of the four songs were accompanied by a music video.
The album Everything You've Come to Expect was released on 1 April, also debuting at number 1 on the UK Album Chart. While on tour, the band promoted the album with appearances on television programmes and headlining festivals in the UK, Europe and the US such as Coachella, Radio 1's Big Weekend, Primavera Sound, Rockwave, T in the Park, and Lollapalooza On 25 June, the band performed on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. During the set, they performed a cover of "Moonage Daydream" in memory of David Bowie. On 15 and 16 July, the band played two nights at Alexandra Palace in London; on the second date, they were joined by Johnny Marr for a cover of The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me". They ended their 2016 tour on 26 August by playing at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris.
On 2 December, the band released The Dream Synopsis, an EP containing re-recordings of two songs, "Aviation" and "The Dream Synopsis", as well as four cover versions of The Fall's "Totally Wired", Jacques Dutronc's "Les Cactus", Glaxo Babies's "This Is Your Life", and Leonard Cohen's "Is This What You Wanted". Each cover had an accompanying music video except for "Totally Wired" .
After the release of the EP they went on hiatus with no activity as of 2025.
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