LUKE PRITCHARD OF THE KOOKS

Hi Luke and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology.

Firstly congratulations on the new record Let’s Go Sunshine. Every album tells a tale and what is this new LP saying to the world?

It’s an uplifting record. There are moments of personal reflection and a lot of fun to. I tried to get really creative with the lyrics. There are tales of falling in love with a mental patient who gets carted away or on Fractured and Dazed which is a more personal one. It is quite a dynamic record and we wanted to make a proper record that went against the grain which is hopefully the tale that it tells.

In terms of the writing and lyrical content, was there an overarching narrative tying the album together or an assortment of topics and inspirations that zig zag throughout the record?

I wanted it to have a moral edge and a good moral tale to each song. I wanted it to be eclectic and hopefully it has all the quirks of say a Kinks record. Some of it is fictional and some of it is personal so really it is just a collection of songs and not a concept record but it follows its own moral curve.

So the album is part autobiographical and part fictional, where did the two lines blur and where were they quite separate?

If you think about Four Leaf Clover, it is a fictional thing but like everything I write it is going to be part autobiographical so I guess with that song it blurs a bit but there are great moments say like with our song Honey Bee where I did a duet with my dad. That was a very special moment and is nice to share that with people, it is uplifting and was a very personal moment but also surreal because my dad passed away when I was a kid. To do that demo and bring him back to life was really cool.

That is such an interesting concept, how did the idea present itself?

Well it was really organic man and I didn’t plan on recording it, we were just jamming it in the studio and decided to spend half a day on it to work on the version of the song. I had this moment during the session when I thought fuck yeah it can work. I had a very talented sound engineer to help do that. It was really random to be honest. Sometimes you just have to let these things happen because you often have a plan to work on a song but end up working on something else.

You speak of the organic ways in which the record came together but what were some of the challenges you faced in creating this LP and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you experienced through the writing / recording process for Let’s Go Sunshine?

It was a real joy to make and flowed really well but I guess the tough bits were in the work that we had been with our previous producer because we had done two or three weeks of recording in the studio with him and it wasn’t really going so well. The material was quite good but we didn’t really have the songs so it was hard to say let’s shelve it, move on and start again. That was a big moment but once we had the new producers, it came along really nicely and liked the direction the sound was headed. Different songs take shape differently like No Pressure, it is a very simple tune but I love it and it was recorded on the second take. The other A side, All The Time was one we really worked on and probably spent more time on that than any other, but it was still really fun.

For this record you have mentioned that you really scrutinised and agonised over every word of every lyric but I guess it would be fair to say that you have done that for all of your records and considering that of your vast body of work, is there a particular song / lyric that you are most proud of because of its poetic beauty and personal meaning?

That’s a nice question and you have put me on the spot but I think unlike other albums where I just went with the flow, on this record particularly I really wanted to get deeper on my lyrics. Say Fractured and Dazed is more melancholy and nostalgic so I am quite proud of that one. On the whole record all the lyrics really resonate with me.

As an artist evolving emotionally and musically from album to album, do you find it hard or even redundant performing some of your earlier material when the person you are today maybe completely different from the person you were when you first put pen to paper?

I guess it is true as you put it but the songs do have a life of their own. Even though some of those songs I look back at as a teenager when I wrote them, they have their own life and meant a lot to a lot of people. When we play them, that feeling is really quite cool. When you sing these songs on stage you just get taken in the moment.

Having meet and performed with so any different musicians and artists over the years, during that time, has there been any defining moments or words of wisdom that were spoken to you which really resonated with you and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?

Yeah the one that sticks out in my mind is Ray Davies from The Kinks who is a particular hero of mine. We did a few rehearsals together and he took me to one side and said “one bit of advice I can give you, always do the promos, always to the interviews man” but as for advice it isn’t something that I ask of people like oh how did you write that lyric for a song.

I guess it is fair to say that music has been the one underlying constant in your life and the prism through which the world is viewed, analysed and reimagined. Such a heavy reliance on music and more precisely playing music can be an alienating yet liberating form of expression. As you move through your years does performing music become more or less the vehicle that drives you?

Interesting question. I think as I have got older, it has become a job and I have had to back it up. Music is something for yourself and it should be fun and exciting. I found to remain inspired you have got to be a bit of a Peter Pan and maintain that childish wonder about it. For a band like us where we have had jabs from the press or are an anomaly of a band in the U.K, we have had a bit of a turbulent time so you have to keep strong. You also have to keep the love for it and I think that is quite evident on our new record, you can hear how fresh it is and how much energy went in to it.

The Kooks are uniquely positioned as a band in so much as being straddled between the contemporaries you admire and artists that you inspire. Can you explain your own personal feelings towards how it feels having worked your way up through the music scene, looking up to artists you admire, to then create your own work and legion of fans which in turn has cemented your own position in the UK music scene, to now being an inspiring group for others and continuing the legacy of amazing indie outfits?

It is a bit like that, we kind of always felt a bit like outsiders and never fully got embraced by the people that are older or our peers, who some of are now non-existent which is sad but kind of the nature of the industry. We were never fully loved by NME or anything like that but it almost put us in a kind of shielded place and we have seen a lot of acts that have been inspired by our music which is cool. I think that maybe because of our pop sensibility because we love pop music and we have never been afraid of that. We are rock n roll in a sense but we always looked to make big tunes and sometimes you open yourself up to attack for that because if you are doing something in the pop world people get a bit funny about it. I think that is where we have found our niche but it has been tough. Now there is a lot of pop stuff that has been inspired by The Kooks as well as on the alternative side that love The Kooks so being between the two has been our greatest thing and our hardest thing as well.

Lastly Luke, what does music give you that nothing else does?

Well it is like a life force for me and kind of a therapy for me. When I am writing or playing on stage I am totally at peace.