The Kooks

Kicking Off

By Kyle MacKinnel

10.09.08

“I think, to be different, all you’ve got to be is yourself, because everyone is already an individual. We want to do our own thing,” Luke Pritchard, The Kooks’ bright-eyed frontman, tells me poolside at the band’s hotel on Sunset. It is a hazy, laid-back afternoon in Los Angeles, and Pritchard casually strolls in after watching his favorite football club, Chelsea, lose to Manchester United in penalty kicks. He’s a bit bummed out by the loss, but the tone in his voice seems to recall the thrill of the match more than resemble that of a defeated fan. The Kooks are in town to play a couple select gigs (including an appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show tonight) before they kick off a North American tour in support of their quaintly titled sophomore effort, Konk.

For a band that has been thrust into prominence as quickly as the Kooks have, with king-sized footprints lining the proverbial path ahead, Pritchard keeps rather cavalier in his demeanor. He knows full well that his band is an expected heir to, perhaps, the most prestigious throne in all of England, but this intimidating fact hasn’t wiggled into his psyche. After all, Pritchard clearly wasn’t afraid of associations between his band’s moniker and that of another notable English band, also of the K**ks format. But this is not about those other bands, which we all know and will remain unnamed. This isn’t about passing the torch. Instead, the Kooks’ only concern is igniting something brand new, incomparable and entirely their own.

Has anything crazy happened in L.A. while you’ve been here?

I don’t know man. Los Angeles is always a bit crazy. It’s been pretty cool, we had some time to just hang out and spend some time in the hills. Oh, this weird girl was following us all over, which was really scary.

Weird girl? What was she doing?

She looked kind of crazy… like, in the face. But for the past four days she was just everywhere we went, you know? Stalking us, like in Japan.

Lot of stalkers in Japan?

Yeah, in Japan, oh yeah. They wait in the hotel lobby for you and then give you little presents. It’s weird – kind of sweet – but weird.

Has it been strange getting big as quickly as you have? Are there any particular moments that stand out for you as benchmark?

For us it’s like, you don’t really think about it, you just get on with it. It’s all relative, so everything seems kind of normal to me. There were benchmarks, like when we started playing the festival circuit, when the album had been out for a bit. Just going out playing, having everyone singing to every song, it’s weird. Or having Jagger come to your concert, or Pete Townshend. Those things give you your little sort of justifications.

You played some shows with [a certain band of ‘mobile rocks’] right?

Yeah, we did two shows that were quite far away from each other on the same tour. They asked us to do a tour in Europe with them, but we didn’t really want to tag along too much. It was really flattering, and I’m a massive fan of theirs like anyone, but playing shows with them is kind of weird. We wanted to do our own thing, not ride on the coattails of someone else.

So, I hear you have a show on the island of Malta next month?

Yeah that’s right! Man that’s crazy, that literally only just got booked.

I read it on the Internet.

How cool is that? I’ve never been there. It’s pretty nuts man, it’s great being able to get to those kinds of places. I think it’s going to be like 80,000 people or something. Yeah, it’s pretty cool man. But it’ll be weird, because it’s Europe. Like, England’s England, and the way music is in Europe is quite funny. Their MTV is so wack.

MTV is pretty wack in America, too.

Yeah, I can imagine. I don’t really watch much TV, but whenever I flick on MTV, there always seems to be a TV show. I’m like, “Isn’t there meant to be music to it?” And then you watch for a bit, and it’s these stupid whiny L.A. girls talking about boys and stuff. Why would anyone – yeah, some people will watch it because there are a lot of weird people out there – but when did someone at MTV commission it? All these weird shows… it’s kind of scary. It’s really freaking me out.

Like the one with the guy with the big clock on his neck, Flavor Flav?

Yeah! I’ve seen that one! I was watching, thinking, “This is insane,” and it says like, ‘Sixth Season.” And he’s got all these women who are trying to be his wife. Man, that’s creepy. And then he’s saying, “I just want to find a woman I’m genuinely in love with.” You’re not going to fall in love, you’re just in it for the dough mate, just be honest. And he was a dude as well, know what I mean? He was pretty cool back in the day.

He was with it in Public Enemy, and then he lost it. There’s a line in Trainspotting that he reminds me of. Sick Boy says he’s got a theory that, at one point you have it, and then you lose it. That’s his theory.

Yeah, right, I’ve seen that! Is that the blonde guy? Yeah, that’s an amazing movie. So funny man, that violent guy, is it ‘Bigsbie?’

I read that you wrote 80 or 90 songs for this last album?

No, we recorded 80.

Wow.

Yeah, just demos. We booked a studio for two days in London with a friend of ours who’s an engineer, went nuts for a few days and recorded all these songs we’d been writing for the past two years. And then we chose which ones should be on the album. It’s funny, we are prolific, but we’ve been around for four years. We really should have done four albums. But it’s just time, man. Everything takes more time these days. In the ‘60s, you could go to one show and you’d reach pretty much everyone you needed to reach.

Did Jagger have any words of advice for you?

Not really, man. Just “keep truckin’.” Keep truckin’. Yeah.

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