Introvert/ Extrovert With The Kooks

It is 10:30pm in the UK and 8:30am in Australia when Luke Pritchard of The Kooks dials into a zoom with me. 

I have interviewed plenty of famous people over the years but every so often someone comes along that I have to take stock of the fact the interview is really happening. It is usually someone who contributed to an obsession in my adolescence. A hot surfer. A director of a movie I loved. A singer of a song called ‘Seaside.’ Stuff like that.

In 2006, The Kooks Inside In/ Inside Out was released to the world including iconic tracks ‘Naive’, ‘She Moves In Her Own Way’ and ‘Eddie’s Gun.’ In 2006 I was sitting in the back of the school bus trying not to cry because a boy who was obviously the love of my life didn’t talk to me at little lunch. I think his name was Tom. In order to manage my emotions, I sat with my headphones in, scrolling through the mix of illegally downloaded songs on my ipod nano which included The Kooks. I would say they were in the mix not because I thought they were good but more likely because their name was funny to me, but as it turns out, they were good. I didn’t know it at the time but those angsty years when I felt everything in such extremes that I thought I was going to explode was a time of great music. The Kooks were high up in the rotation for me, among their later album Konk (notably the song ‘Sway’), anything by the Arctic Monkeys and Lilly Allen. I really did love the Brits. 

I watched The Kooks play at Splendour (may you rest in peace) a few years ago and it gave me the exact same feeling you get from seeing an old friend. A little bit of nostalgia and a lot of smiling. Up until lately, to be honest, it’d been a while since I played their music but with the announcement of The Kooks on the Yours & Owls lineup (tickets still selling, get em here), I gave them another whirl. An old friend greeted me through my headphones once more. 

Given Luke has been a part of The Kooks in the same time as I have since graduated school, forgot about Tom and found myself in this job asking questions, I figured he has done about fifty million interviews. I’m very conscious of asking people I admire the same question they have been asked before as though they might remember my actual name and associate me with unoriginality. And really what else can you ask of Luke that hasn’t already been covered by everyone else? I figured when I sat across from someone who’s music has been a part of my life for so long, there aren’t really any technical questions I care to ask, but would rather get to know the person, the real person, who gifted us the art in the first place. So my silly segment Introvert/Extrovert it is. 

Hey, how are you? 

Good, how are you? 

Very well, just having a chill evening. 

What time is there? 

I dunno, like 10:30 or something. In the PM.

Oh shit, I didn’t realise it was so late. Thanks for staying up and talking to me. I appreciate it. 

Well back at you, thanks for talking to me so early. 

I wanted to do something a little different with you. I started this segment called introvert/ extrovert a couple of years ago. Have you heard of the Myers Briggs Personality Test at all? 

You know, it does slightly ring a bell but you’ll have to remind me. Is it if you're a psychopath or something? 

A test to determine if you are a psychopath killer, yeap. That’s what the media want these days. No no, it is a personality test to determine if you’re introverted, extroverted, intuitive, feeling kind of thing. It’s a bit weird but it’s fun, so I thought it could be something different. 

I'm really intrigued. Now I'm going to overthink it massively.

No, it's fun, don’t worry. The first question is: if there's a deadline that you have to work towards, are you the type of person to smash it out or do you wait until the last minute?

Smash it out.

There you go, efficient. Are you critical of yourself when you make a mistake or do you know that’s just a part of life? 

I mean, I used to be much more critical than I am now. My wife helped me with that a lot so it's much less critical now. 

How did she help you with that?

Just keeping on top of me. I would be losing sleep about stuff. Now maybe she's just made me make less of the mistakes, I don't know.

Is a mistake to you like messing up a chord on stage or something? Does that really derail you?

Oh, no, no, not like that. I believe in the imperfections in music. 

Love that. Would you consider yourself an organised person?

Yeah, definitely.

This is a bit of a crazy one, but if you see someone else upset, does that make you upset?

Yeah, I have empathy, I think.

(Laughs) Are you affectionate?

Yeah. 

Would you consider your songs a sign of affection for whoever you're writing them about?

Some of them. Sometimes they're not about a particular person, but yeah, I think a song can be affectionate. I definitely try to make it that. I think there’s an intimacy in songwriting where you can make it really feel like anyone who's listening to it - it's about them. I think that's quite powerful. I try to do that, but whether I achieve that or not, is a whole other question. 

I think you do. Are you someone that sets goals? Did you set goals with The Kooks? 

Yes. I do believe quite a lot in, what’s it called where you set intentions? 

Manifesting?

Yeah, that’s legitimate. Like me, that's scientifically provable. I mean, I did this thing a few years ago where I wrote down all the stuff that I wanted to do and then years later opened it, and was like wow. Maybe it's a bit like praying. Praying isn't about going, ‘Oh I really hope I have a million dollars,’ right? It's like the essence, setting the intention or whatever. You know what I mean? 

Yeah, like the million dollars is secondary to what you actually want, which is security and abundance. 

Totally. I think it’s great because even if you get halfway there, you’ve changed the way you’ve thought about it. Anyway I'm over answering your question. 

No, I love this. I want to know what the intentions were with The Kooks when you were first started out? 

Well, the goals changed, especially after the band was up and running. At the start it would have been to have a song play on the radio. Yeah, that’s always a big one. But it’s interesting because I didn’t really want to be a singer. I just wanted to do songwriting and write for other people but it worked out in this weird way where The Kooks was how I ended up being able to do that. That's what I mean by the sort of spiritual element of all that because I didn’t want to be a singer at all but I really wanted to write songs and then I got into the band and everyone was like ‘Oh maybe you should sing the songs you're writing.’ I didn’t even think I had the voice for it. Then I kept doing it and got a little bit better every time.

I do think that as a band we were all quite ambitious, not crazy, but the band has gone way further than what we ever thought. It went from playing on the radio, to getting a record deal, you know?

Are you adaptable across many skills or do you tend to hone in on one? Relative to music, do you play lots of instruments well or? 

I'm quite lazy with that actually. I do, though. I think with the new technologies it's so

much easier. You can basically play anything and make it sound pretty good. So I do play around but I'm pretty bad. I mean I barely can play guitar (laughs). I think songwriting is what I really want to do so I spend most of my time trying to do that well. And that’s the beauty of having band members because you can share it. 

Do you think your creativity is sparked by emotional experiences? 

Oh god, so hard to answer that. It's weird. I mean yeah it must be because music is an emotion but I don't necessarily think something really emotional has to have happened for me to be like okay I'm gonna get it out in song. 

So you haven’t been inspired to write a song by a breakup? 

(Laughs) I know exactly what you mean but when writing, for me anyway, it’s like a stream of

consciousness vibe. Sometimes it is better to not want to be specific at the beginning, like you might want to write about a sort of situation that may or may not be real but the songs usually end up taking a life of their own. I find it’s a bit like a sculptor,  I reckon it's similar. You start out thinking I'm gonna make, I don't know, Mother Mary’ or whatever, and then halfway through, it's gonna be Ziggy Stardust.

(Laughs). I get what you’re saying. 

That was a weird analogy but.. 

No, that was great. Do you know when you're onto something new and original? Can you just straight away sense a good idea?

No, wow, no definitely not. No, I don't think I'm very good at that side of it. There are other people in my life who are much better at that. I think I'll sometimes think something I've done with someone or myself is maybe not the most original idea I've ever had. When that happens it is usually because you're trying to emulate something too closely because it sounds like something that is great. But then, we have this song called ‘Naive,’ you might know it. 

the song you might know???

Yeap I know that one. 

That’s our biggest song and I didn’t even think it should have been on the album. I thought it would be a b-side track. But there was obviously a freshness to that song that people resonated with but I certainly didn’t think about it like that. 

Wow see a song like that feels like you would just know you’ve made a classic. Do you plan or wing it?

I like to plan. I get a bit stressed if I don't plan. 

Are you someone that stays calm under pressure?

Yeah, yeah, I think yes externally but internally not so much. It depends what kind of pressure.

Hmm maybe say your record label is putting pressure on you to put a record out, would that interfere with your music process? I guess that's kind of calm right? 

No, not really, no. Stay calm. 

Oh, that's good, there you go. 

This is good. I like this, this is really fun. Go on, next one.

Are you sentimental?

I’m not sentimental about things. I’ve had people tell me that they think I’m heartless because I don’t think I would really care if my house went up in flames. Maybe my guitars or some of my dad’s stuff but yeah I’m not sentimental about things. I am very, very, very emo and sensitive about memories and people.

Interesting. Wait, what do you mean by sentimental about memories? Like you want to hold onto them? 

Yeah, I’m very emotional about nostalgia, memories, the past, that kind of thing. 

Are you someone that actively seeks out new experiences?

Yeah.

What's the weirdest new experience you've had lately? 

The weirdest thing I've done lately? I like to throw myself in the deep end. Since having a young family, everything is kind of like that. You don't have a choice, because once you have kids, it feels like everything is in the deep end. But I’ve jumped out of planes, travelled to places on a whim, that kind of thing too.  

Would you prefer to finish off one project completely or before starting another or have multiple on the go? I feel like this could be particularly relevant to songwriting? 

I probably like having multiple things. 

Do you find it helps to perhaps finish off other songs? 

You know, like Brian Eno said, ‘you never really finish a song, you abandon it.’ I really always thought that was such a good phrase. You can only do so much. I mean, the great thing with having lots of different songs with different styles and everything is that you don't get lost in it. And I'm not a perfectionist at all. It helps to work backwards with music, in a way, because

you're an entertainer. Well for me at least, the music is an interaction between yourself and the audience who is listening to your music and no one wants to hear something that sounds fucking laboured. You hear a Radiohead song and you know that they have spent thousands of hours on that but it doesn't sound like it right? It just sounds like they came up with that on the spot and they’re just like that. I’m not that good. I think if I did that it would sound so laboured so I just tend to leave things raw. Music is a feeling, it doesn't have to be intellectualized. It's about how you feel about it. And often the human thing is like the imperfections and the abandoning of it.

My last question. Do you prefer the country or the seaside?

(Laughs) The seaside. 

Me too. 

Wait, what am I? 

I have no idea (laughs). No, no. I would say you're an introvert, actually. Is that accurate to how you feel? 

I think so. My wife and I talk about this a lot, whether we are introverted or extroverted. She thinks I am introverted. 

I feel like there’s an obvious internal monologue present in your answers. But who am I to say I’m not a psychologist. I'm just a journalist.

This was fun, thank you so much.