Arctic Monkeys had to resist covering Nirvana tracks when recording at a studio once used by the group.

The British group recorded their latest album ‘Suck It And See’ at Sound City – the Californian studio where Nirvana made their iconic ‘Nevermind’ album – and frontman Alex Turner admits it was hard for them not to keep themselves covering tracks by the legendary grunge band.

He said: “‘Nevermind’ was the big draw when we were choosing the studio, but also it had been recommended by Josh Homme, because he’s recorded loads in there too

“There’s this engineer who is still there [from the ‘Nevermind’ days], a serious guy, who we respected. We had to really try and not break out into messing around with any Nirvana covers. ‘Polly’ or ‘Drain You’.”

The singer and guitarist resisted his urges, as a similar situation – which saw him launch into a version of one of Jimi Hendrix’s hits when recording at his Electric Lady Studios in New York – was met with a frosty reception.

He added to NME magazine: “I remember when we recorded in Electric Lady, I started playing ‘Purple Haze’, and everybody was, ‘Ah, come on, f***ing leave it out.’ So this time, I thought maybe not.”

Alex added that if his group ever decide to perform a Nirvana cover, it wouldn’t be from 1991’s ‘Nevermind’, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

He said: “If we were ever going to do a Nirvana tune, it wouldn’t be a ‘Nevermind’ song, it’d be ‘Very Ape’ from ‘In Utero’. That would be the best Nirvana song for us to cover.”