Soon You’ll Grow, So Take a Chance, With a Couple of Kooks

by Michelle Singer

The Kooks were one of the first bands to really get me into music. I’ll never forget my 16 year old self seeing them for the first time at their sold-out show at Terminal 5 in New York. My friends and I, being the loyal tween fan girls we were, queued outside hours and hours early and munched on our pre-packed snacks while giddily decorating posters and T-shirts to pass the time.

The band has been around for 10 years now and released their 4th album, Listen, this September. It’s been three years since the release of their previous album, Junk of the Heart, and Listen proves to be their most introspective and experimental album to date. From my room at home, over a poor cell phone connection, I spoke to frontman Luke Pritchard on what he was up to between albums that had such a big affect on Listen.

Pritchard just arrived in Seattle and was getting some press work done before gearing up for their show later that night. The Britpop band is currently embarking on a US tour and will be coming to Philadelphia’s Union Transfer on Tuesday, October 7th. They are often known for their live show and touring tirelessly, so after promoting Junk of the Heart, it was time to take a period of rest.

The Kooks took a three year break before working on Listen. Although the band loves playing shows Pritchard likens being on tour to living in a bubble and decided to retreat from the alternate reality of being on the road all the time to live “normally”. “You’re in a bubble when you’re on the road. I sometimes think of it like we’re in traveling mental institution. We just travel together in this bubble and yeah, you can go a bit nuts.”

However, after being gone for so long the stagnant environment of home was alienating. “I got back to London and I had that thing where you figure out like shit, I don’t really have a lot going on here because I’ve been away for 18 months. I just broke up with my girlfriend, that was shit, I felt like crap about that, so I felt like I was in a really uncreative space.” Pritchard was also dealing with the death of his grandpa, who was like a father to him, and to avoid the inner thoughts and feelings that were plaguing him, he began to cope with drinking.

Knowing he had to do something in order to escape the rut he was falling into, Pritchard “went to fucking India!” He traveled there for about two weeks on his own and then couch surfed from place to place and across the United States with friends he had made on the road throughout the years. While he was traveling he never stopped writing. He hung out with other musicians and producers and soaked up new knowledge and inspiration through watching the way other people worked creatively. “The whole time I was trying to go and learn. Like I really wanted to watch other people write so I went and worked with over 20 people across the United States to see how they work and pickup ideas.”

So Pritchard threw all of his energy into writing and learning. It was during this time that he got particularly into the production aspect of making music. “I got heavily into using a computer [to make music] and production. And so I wanted to produce our album.” The same man, Tony Hoffer, had produced all of The Kooks previous albums and this was the first time they would be working without him. “I was really into it, so instantly after I wrote the first song on the album, “Around Town”, I thought maybe I’d chat with someone in hip-hop to help me on the sonic and engineering level.”

The first track set the premise for the direction of the rest of the album and while heading into unfamiliar territory Pritchard sought out help. “I found this guy, someone sent me a SoundCloud link, I checked him out and I just loved it so I gave him a shout. That’s really when the record started. His name is Inflo and we went away and wrote like five songs in a week. It was crazy.”

Inflo is a 25 year old low-key hip-hop producer from London and the chemistry in their collaboration exploded into the album that is Listen. “I wrote most of the album with him. I wrote “Bad Habit”, “London”, “Sweet Emotion”, and “Down”. I definitely wouldn’t have written “Down” without him.”

“Down” was the first single and first peek into The Kooks’ new sound. Insanely catchy, “Down” is a tune that really (and I mean really) can get stuck in your head. Ptitchard even jokes that, “yeah, it probably annoyed a lot of people…” The release of “Down” polarized opinions on what to expect from the new album and fans erupted on social media with both praise and criticism for trying something different.

The influence of the collaboration with Inflo was obvious and he pushed Pritchard not only sonically, but pushed him to dig deeper as well. “See Me Now” is a beautiful piano ballad that addresses Pritchard’s father who died when he was three years old. The song is written like a letter to him and alludes to the thoughts and feelings Pritchard harbored in growing up without his dad.

Although Pritchard lost his father at such an early age he was still a major influence on his life. “My dad had a fashion label in the eighties but before that he was a musician. He never made it, but played with John Lee Hooker and The Rolling Stones. He used to play around those guys and was a harmonica player, really. That’s where my musical stuff comes from for sure.” In “See Me Now” Pritchard croons “I hope I’m living your dream, daddy” and “if you could see me now, would you be proud.” It was a topic Pritchard, who is now 29, avoided writing about, but was glad he finally did.

Growing up, Pritchard was obsessed with Bob Dylan, Eddie Cockrin, 60s music, and The Everly Brothers. Entering his teens, “I started getting into more modern bands like Blur, Supergrass…especially Blur. I was a massive Blur fan.” His influences definitely describe the Indie, Britpop, English rock sound of The Kooks’ earlier records that are based heavily around guitar. For Listen, instead of forming songs around the guitar Pritchard started with the rhythm and beat. “We had a lot of fun and it was really cool and different to putting the guitar down and starting songs from drums. We’ve never done that before.”

The album is full of new sounds from synths to the uplifting vocals of choirs and covers a range of topics like love, heartbreak, poisonous relationships, revolution and bad sexual habits. As Pritchard talked excitedly about coming up with beats on his own for the record, even through the static of the phone, it was clear to see that he is happy with the new record and happy to be back on the road sharing it with fans. For a band that critics have always loved to hate it’s good to see The Kooks be able to grow and make the dynamic album that they wanted to make.

Hanging up, I laid back on my bed and stared at the wall still holding the posters of the bands I idolized in high school. I thought back to the day I saw them live for the first time to when I saw them earlier this summer. Same time of year; same venue;  seven years later.

Looking down from the balcony to the crowd below I could see a front row full of the gleaming faces of teenage girls happily singing along and frantically hanging onto the barrier, just as I had. Clad in skinny jeans, the English foursome powered through each song as Pritchard pranced around stage egging the crowd into a frenzy. The Kooks may have grown up a bit and experimented with their sound, but their catchy melodies and ability to connect with people live did not change one bit.