The Kooks?
Music lovers' story: If you were to name your band after a Bowie song, which would you choose? The Space Oddities? The Starmen? The Diamond Dogs? The Laughing Gnomes? Four young space cadets have opted for side one, track five of Hunky Dory, and simply named themselves The Kooks. Such is the range of the quartet's retro influences that they could just as easily have named themselves after a Police song, a Neil Young song or even a Funkadelic jam. Thank singer Luke Pritchard's dad, a musician, for introducing his son to the vast tapestry of rock history. He died when Luke was just three, leaving a massive record collection behind. Pritchard and his bandmates - guitarist Hugh Harris, bassist Max Rafferty and drummer Paul Garred - have distilled those childhood influences into the heady mix of their smash hit debut album, Inside In/Inside Out.
School winner: South Londoner Pritchard attended the same boarding school as Minnie Driver and Daniel Day-Lewis, then studied at the Brit School of Performing Arts and Technology, where he dated a young Belfast babe of Russian descent named Katie Melua. He met his bandmates-to-be at the Brighton Institute for Modern Music and discovered a shared love of not-so-modern sounds. At first the band was little more than a tongue-in-cheek school project, but when they were snapped up by Virgin after a short set in Brighton, The Kooks began to get serious about becoming pop stars.
Sexy pistols: Tour supports with Futureheads, The Dead 60's, Editors and The Thrills gave The Kooks an early taste of audience adulation, and their debut single, Eddie's Gun (subject: erectile dysfunction), saw their stock rise among the rock scene's big guns. They didn't rest on their laurels, though: follow-up single Sofa Song put even more bums on seats at their gigs. They were compared to Caught By the Fuzz-era Supergrass, The Clash and The Kinks. Inside In/Inside Out was even recorded in Konk Studios, owned by Ray Davies. "I want the album to include all types of music, no genres excluded," said Luke prior to its release. "I liked the fact The Coral's first album dared to be different. That's what groups are there to do. We want to challenge what's expected of us."
Too many Kooks: Looks like The Kooks' wilful eclecticism has paid off: Inside In/Inside Out has hit the UK Top 10, and the band are poised to begin their biggest headlining tour yet. They'll play Whelan's in Dublin on May 2nd, but you can bet that show will be moved to a bigger venue by the time summer rolls along. "So many bands are scared of pop and they shouldn't be," says Luke. "When it's good, there's nothing better. And we mean to have fun with it."
