Ooh la, they're back

After three long years – of feuds, rehab, Hollywood girlfriends and lots of tabloid coverage – The Kooks return with a new album. The break did them good, Luke Pritchard tells LAUREN MURPHY

YOU CAN’T REALLY blame Luke Pritchard for being slightly cagey. There must have been moments over the last three years that The Kooks frontman genuinely thought that his band would never make another album.

The departure of founding member Max Rafferty amidst rumours of drug problems and in-fighting was just the tip of the iceberg. Since then, The Kooks have drafted in various new members, contended with tabloid speculation about their personal relationships, and been in the press more for their feuds with other bands than their musical output. Oh, and then there's the fact that the follow-up to 2008's Konkhas been unexpectedly protracted, especially since their initial sessions with producer Jim Abbiss were aborted because they "just weren't working."

“Yeah, I guess inevitably there were moments – with losing members and things like that – where you feel that the band might end,” says the friendly Pritchard, enjoying the last dregs of summer sunshine at his London apartment. “But truthfully, I think I believed that we’d pull it together. Me and Hugh [Harris, guitarist and co-founder] definitely wanted to carry on and keep it alive. But with what we’ve been through, you’re always gonna have those moments of ‘Are we ever going to make this bloody record?!’”

Three years is a long time in indie-rock, especially when you’re a band like The Kooks, who thus far have traded off a sense of youthful abandon and peppy love songs. Pritchard is adamant that the long break has done the quartet good, though.

“We definitely took some time for ourselves before making this album.

“It’s quite important to recalibrate when you’ve been away so much; while you’re out and about, you don’t really think about it, and before you know it, you’ve become quite disconnected from things. I guess if I could have chosen, I’d rather not have had such big success on the first album; you kind of want to broaden your shoulders before you get to that point. For sure, it was great and everything, but it definitely has ramifications.”

One of those ramifications of the instant success that 2005's Inside In/Inside Outbrought was the aforementioned sudden press interest. It wasn't long before Pritchard, in particular, became Heat magazine fodder, especially given his high-profile relationships with Katie Melua, Hollywood actress Mischa Barton and Georgia Jagger.

Does he feel that the band have been unfairly beleagured or not taken seriously? “Once you become big, you’re an easy target, basically. To be honest, I only really feel it with certain British press. Well, English press, really. In fact, definitely just English press,” he says after a considered pause.

“It just feels like we have been a bit of a punchbag at times. But I don’t really mind, as such, because you know, you’ve just gotta think about your music. If you’re making great music, all that becomes irrelevant.

“But the thing that upset me about it – well, not upset me, fuck that – but the thing that gets to me a little bit is if you Google The Kooks, you don’t want the first thing that comes up to be about that. I think there’s a lot more to us than that.”

For album number three, the band were determined to prove themselves as not just another indie band. Junk of the Hearthas been in the works since 2009, but it took an intervention from producer Tony Hoffer – who also worked on their first two – to get things moving in the right direction.

“The writing process started when I met with Tony in London. I phoned him and said ‘Look man, I’m a bit lost. I’m not sure what’s going on, I’m not really enjoying making this music’. When you’re in a band and you’ve been touring for a bit, things can become very routine, so the idea was to break up the routine and do something completely different.

“So he came to London, and was like ‘Man, you just need to look at things in a different way’, and he brought his laptop and samplers, and synthesisers, things like that. I just basically sat there with him, and we came up with a basic direction for the production, which was to take The Kooks and put it through a machine; use some different instrumentation and write in a different way, rather than just singing with a guitar, and record in a different way, rather than just being a four-piece band. We really experimented a lot.

The first thing he said to me was: ‘You don’t have an album. You’ve maybe got half an album, with the songs you’ve written’, and my first reaction was fuck you!” He laughs. “Of course, an hour later I was like, ‘Yeah, you’re right. I need to write a lot more’.”

Given the band's eternally audible influences – The Kinks, The Beatles, The Police – the resultant record is hardly an experimental odyssey, but several tracks certainly dabble in the unexpected. Time Above the Earthcompletely forgoes guitars and drums in favour of strings, while Petulia's gentle harmony-strewn folk-pop hints at a newfound maturity.

Then again, the album's upbeat fare – the irresistible title track and strutting love tune Fuck the World Off– sounds like classic Kooks, Pritchard's penchant for a catchy chorus taking precedence over everything else.

“I love that you say it still sounds like a Kooks record, because we are carving our sound and trying to get to a place where we sound very distinctive,” he explains.

“When I listen to it back, it kind of sounds like we’ve recaptured the vibe of the first album, in some ways. I was listening back to the first two albums and it felt to me that we’d lost the more fun side of what we do, and I think that’s what we were trying to recapture, too. Trying to get a bit more freedom. So maybe there’s a re-finding of the band. I dunno, hopefully this is the first step of the band going to a whole new place. We definitely don’t feel like some kind of teen indie band. We feel much more progressed. We’re definitely trying to push the boundaries.”

Nevertheless, there is a large faction of serious ‘musos’ who sneer at The Kooks’ happy-go-lucky indie-pop and refuse to see them as anything other than as teen idols. Not quite the Jonas Brothers, but not far off.

“Is that how we’ve been seen so far?” he laughs. “I don’t know how to answer that question. If we were seen as a teen indie band, then that’s how we are. We’re not trying to change peoples’ perception of us, we’re just trying to be honest. I know exactly what you mean, though, and yes, we were trying to take a step forward and make a more adult record – but that didn’t mean that we were going to purposely go and put strings on songs to achieve it. I’d like to think that hopefully a lot of people who hate our band will like it.”

Does that determination to win over the naysayers mean that Pritchard sees The Kooks still playing together in 20 years’ time? “Well, I feel like we’ve been through what most bands go through in 20 years in five, so I feel like we’ve done everything,” he laughs.

“We’ve had members leave, fuckin’ rehab, fuckin’, like, everything thrown at us. I don’t have a clue what’s gonna happen, but I know that I’d like The Kooks to carry on for a long time. In terms of this album, I think it’s really important.

“We’ve now got a really good, solid direction, and we never really had that in the first place. Hopefully, we’ll put the next one out quicker, but I don’t know. I think that’s the beauty of music, it can take you anywhere you want. Who knows what we’ll be thinking in a year? But the great thing about being in this band is that we do feel very free.

“It feels very open right now; we can do any kind of music, we can take any influence and use it with what we’re doing. And that’s a really cool thing.”

* Junk of the Heart is released on Virgin today.