Arctic Monkeys Sheffield: Band set for huge welcome home after returning to where it all started

With a European tour well underway and two sold out homecoming shows at Hillsborough Park on Friday and Saturday, it is set to be a busy summer for the Sheffield lads.

But drummer Matt Helders took some time out of his hectic schedule to sit down for a chat with The Star’s Christopher Hallam.

And in a rich and varied discussion he spoke about the band’s beginnings, how they’ve managed to keep their feet on the ground in the face of superstardom and what coming back home for a couple of shows means.

Plenty has been written about the lads from High Green and everything that followed, but Matt has now shared his story, in his own words.

“It’s great” to be coming home, Matt said, before adding: “I think that the only stressful part about doing a gig like that is the guestlist. Beyond all of that, it’s a celebration.”

He said the sell-out Hillsborough gigs will see the band coming “full circle” – back to their roots.

"A few of the people there will have been around since the beginning and they will have seen what happened next having stayed with us for that journey. It’s just nice that it’s come full circle and we get to do a big show there,” Matt said.

“We’ve never managed to do it, sure we’ve done Don Valley and the Arena a couple of times. But this feels like more of a significant thing. Obviously for the Wednesday games, we used to hang around Hillsborough Park all the time, and Andy (Nicholson), our original bass player, lived just over on Parkside Road so we’d always be there. When we were kids, we’d always be at his house there.

“It’ll be a different feeling to any of the other ones we’ve done. It’s a weird experience in a way as well because we’re there as like…a guest, but it won’t feel like that, even though we’re coming down to play a gig because that’s where we’re from.”