Local musician Andy Nicholson has released a deeply personal new photo book capturing life inside one of Britain’s most talked-about bands, with an accompanying Sheffield exhibition expected to attract fans from across Worksop and beyond.

As the Sheffield group exploded from pub gigs to number one singles in a matter of months, bassist Andy Nicholson was rarely without a camera in hand.

Now, nearly two decades later, he is launching a book of those images — a collection he says has become a cathartic act of closure as well as a time capsule of the band’s formative years.

“There was a time when looking at those photos was too painful,” Nicholson admits. “Now it feels therapeutic. This book has rounded off the sharp edges. It’s closure, but it’s also a celebration.”

Andy Nicholson (right) and Annie Mac and his new book ‘I Bet This Looks Good on Your Coffee Table’ which is available for pre-order now.

placeholder image — Andy Nicholson (right) and Annie Mac and his new book ‘I Bet This Looks Good on Your Coffee Table’ which is available for pre-order now.

The 175-page A4 hardback - I Bet This Looks Good on Your Coffee Table - captures candid moments from 2005–2007: cramped dressing rooms, recording sessions, tour buses, Saturday Night Live debut and the quiet stretches between the chaos. Unlike the polished publicity shots of the time, these photographs offer a view no outsider could access — an unfiltered glimpse from within the band’s inner circle.

Long before smartphones and Instagram turned every gig into an endless scroll, Nicholson was pointing his lens at life around him. His fascination with photography stemmed from childhood, when his uncle, a photographer at Sheffield daily The Star, first took him into a darkroom to watch images emerge under the red light. That instinct never left him.

The book project began when Nicholson unearthed a hard drive of hundreds of forgotten images. Over the past few years he has worked to edit them into a cohesive story, producing both a standard edition and a deluxe 20th anniversary edition of the book with additional photographs and a vinyl conversation recorded with Chris McClure — the friend who appeared on the cover of the band’s debut album.

Raised in Sheffield after an early childhood in California, Nicholson played bass on Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the fastest-selling debut album in UK chart history. Though his time with the band was short, his photographs capture the highs and lows of a cultural moment as it unfolded.

Early Arctic Monkeys from the book featuring Andy Nicholson (left).

For Nicholson, the book could only have happened now. The abrupt end to his time with Arctic Monkeys left him struggling to process the fallout, and he has spoken openly about the toll it took on his mental health. “It took years before I could look at those images without pain,” he says. “Only now, with distance and perspective, can I enjoy them and share them.”

In the years since, Nicholson has carved out a varied creative path: DJing, producing, designing, and forming projects including Mongrel and Goldteeth. The book, he says, feels like both an ending and a beginning.

“This isn’t about revisiting how I left,” he explains. “It’s about showing what those years actually felt like — the boredom, the laughter, the travelling, the firsts. It’s a time capsule into the lives of some very close friends as we got caught up in an often quite unreal trajectory, before anyone thought about documenting every second for social media.”

The launch will be accompanied by an exhibition at Sheffield’s Yorkshire Artspace, featuring prints, memorabilia and immersive audio elements. Nicholson is also taking the book on the road with a series of record-shop signings across the UK.

The exhibition takes place at Yorkshire Artspace on Saturday and Sunday, November 22nd and 23rd, 2025.

The book can be pre-ordered now from: https://iamandynicholson.com/