interview with The Kooks

What do the Kooks believe about fame, the media and Santa? We found out. Warning: contains Santa spoilers.

TOTP: Given that Saturday was April Fool's Day, did anybody manage to fool you?
Paul: Oh, we totally forgot!
Max: Oh, so that's why...I thought that woman was taking the p*** out of us!
Luke: When? Oh, at the gig last night? Yeah, I tell you what, we had a terrible gig last night.
Max: Yeah, but we went for a bohemian vibe, didn't we?
Luke: Yeah, Max and I, we just started taking off our shoes and socks in the middle of the gig for some reason.
Paul: You were going to go naked.
Luke: We were going to go naked, but we chickened out. We didn't think it was appropriate. It was more appropriate than what we did, though...


TOTP: How much of what you read in the papers do you believe?
Max: F*** all.
Luke: Absolutely nothing. I mean, obviously there's truth in things, but the way they're put, you can't ever trust newspapers. Ever.

The Kooks - Seaside

'I am a hit machine ... I just roll 'em out!

Skinny jeans and catchy hooks have made the Kooks a 'priority act' in the post-boyband world. Sophie Heawood follows them to Japan to find out how they got so good at playing the pop game

The bar on the 40th floor of the Cerulean Tower hotel buzzes with the discreet hum of money. Wealthy Japanese lean into their tables, talking in hushed tones to ladies who twirl their hair around their fingers, distracted by the Tokyo neon glimmering through the huge panoramic windows. So far, so Lost in Translation. Except one of these tables houses the Kooks, a young British band who are currently discussing the ideal interval between hair washes in order to maintain optimal greasiness. A fortnight? Three weeks, tops? They move on to how David Cameron could love the Jam so much (they were aghast to read about it in this newspaper), and whether Katie Holmes was actually impregnated by L Ron Hubbard's supersperm to create Scientology's new messiah. "I've got friends in LA who know about it," says 23-year-old lead singer Luke Pritchard excitedly, if not entirely convincingly.

The Kooks - naive

The Kooks

The Kooks are an indie band which formed in Brighton, England, United Kingdom in 2004. The band currently consists of Luke Pritchard (vocals, guitar), Hugh Harris (guitar), Peter Denton (bass) and Nick Millard (drums). 

Nick is currently filling in for Paul Garred due to a recent arm injury. They have released two studio albums; their 2006 debut Inside in/Inside Out peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart, and their 2008 follow up Konk reached number one.

The Kooks formed at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, where they were all students. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Luke Pritchard, got bassist Max Rafferty involved in a college project, which formed the base of the band. After getting lead guitarist Hugh Harris and drummer Paul Garred involved, they took their name from the song Kooks on the 1971 David Bowie album Hunky Dory. When they tried to trademark the name, they found that in the late/mid 1990s a Swedish band by the same name released an album in Sweden called Too Much Is Not Enough.

The Kooks released a debut EP and played gigs around Brighton, where they were based at the time. They were signed to Virgin Records.