The kooks luke pritchard biography of william

By ADRIAN THRILLS FOR MAILONLINE
Updated:

Luke Pritchard, the easy-going frontman of The Kooks, is not the kind of character to be fazed by the prospect of coming up with a sequel to one of the best-selling rock debuts of recent years.

His breezy Brighton quartet did not arrive with the same fanfare as the Arctic Monkeys - whose first album came out on the same day in 2006 - but their eventual sales figures were almost identical, with The Kooks’ Inside In/Inside Out matching the more vaunted Monkeys all the way.

Now Luke -a former student at the posh but liberal boarding school Bedales - is preparing to face the world again. His band’s new single, Always Where I Need To Be, is riding high in the charts while that notoriously difficult second album, Konk, is out
on Monday.

Brighton breezy: Kooks singer Luke Pritchard shrugs off pressure

‘There is more pressure on us this time around,’ admits Luke, 23. ‘But that’s a good thing. People have high expectations, so I might need a bit more bravado than I had two years ago.

‘When we released our first album, there was no media hype around us. That was really cool because it allowed us to grow at our own pace. We became a success quite naturally.’

With its sharp hooks and memorable choruses, Konk (named after the North London studio in which it was made) builds solidly on the foundations of Inside In/Inside Out, an album that appealed to both indie-kids and those who lean more towards the pop mainstream.

The group’s penchant for a simple, yearning pop melody remains, but their overall approach is now more robust, something Luke puts down to a bigger recording budget and more studio time.

‘When we did our first album, we were staying in a terrible B&B near the studio,’ he says. ‘We would get back to our rooms at three in the morning, and we wouldn’t be able to unwind.

‘This time, we were able to rent a house and hang out with our friends. It was more chilled out. We also had mu

Picked up by and signed to a major record label just three months after forming, The Kooks struck ground and hit pay dirt in January of 2006 with the release of their first record, Inside In/Inside Out (Virgin Records). Luke Pritchard was only 18, heading the band of young rockers from Brighton, England; fresh-faced with a curly mop of hair, looking much like a young Bob Dylan with the songwriting capabilities to match. They turned out single after single on this record, catchy hook after catchy hook. Relatable tune after relatable tune—garnering major radio play, not only in the UK but also right here in the States, on indie and college stations, as well as more mainstream rock and pop stations. Everyone loved The Kooks. Songs like “Eddie’s Gun” and “Sofa Song” were played everywhere; it was like a whirlwind romance—people wanted more, and they always seemed to have, well, more.

When Pritchard and the guys wrote and recorded “Naïve,” arguably the biggest track off of Inside In/Inside Out and definitely a fan favorite, he really didn’t think it would take off the way it did. “You never quite know,” he says, laughing. “But it happens all the time; writing a song you think is just average, and it ends up being the biggest at gigs and the one the crowd goes nuts for—or writing something you think is great that isn’t received as well as you’d hoped. I thought ‘Naïve’ was average when we recorded it, but I’ve come to love it. It’s one of our biggest songs, and we still love playing it.”

The success of “Naïve” and the other singles from their first record set them up for success in later ventures, as proven with their second record, 2008’s Konk,and their most recent release, Junk Of The Heart,which dropped in September of 2011. Fun and energetic, while still staying true to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll, their music has become a bit of a staple, a mainstay. Great rock songs about youthful