In an exclusive interview, The Kooks shares their thoughts with us, AsiaLive365, at Garden Beats Festival on their weekend itinerary in Singapore, artists they would love to work with and their new music from their latest album Let’s Go Sunshine.
English indie rock band, The Kooks, spreads sunshine across Singapore at Garden Beats Festival as one of the lineups, bringing uplifting and catchy tunes to the crowd of indie fans. The band is made up of Luke Pritchard on vocals/rhythm guitar, Hugh Harris on lead guitar/synthesizer and Alexis Nunez on drums.
With their huge success and addictive top hits such as “She Moves in Her Own Way” and “Naïve”, the band has released their latest album Let’s Go Sunshine in 2018. Sticking to their Indie Rock roots, whilst experimenting with new music, the songs also deeply reflect their personal stories, experiences and inspirations. Read below.
©Andrew Whitton
Hello Kooks! Welcome back to Asia, and to Singapore! Was it a good flight? I see
that it’s been three years since your last visit to the country. Do you guys plan to explore the city a little while you’re here?
Hey, thanks for the welcome! We are always made to feel so at home in Singapore,
it’s in your DNA! We usually do as much as we can to explore the cities we visit, I’m excited to see the minimalism exhibition at your national gallery. Could always use a bit of minimalism in my life.
For your latest album Let’s Go Sunshine, I sense the perfect combination of mellowness, rock, angst, happiness and poetic lyricism in it. Besides, I feel like there’s actually that music festival feels to it. In the same time, the album also gives us a little escape in the listeners’ heads as well. What would you say the musical direction of the album is when you guys were writing/producing the songs in it? Or what was your inspiration/influences of some of the songs in this album? Where did their stories come from?
What a wonderful description. Yes, we haven’t been too cryptic with this record, we wanted to stick to our stripes and wear them with pride, something we haven’t done since the first two records (10 years ago), so it kinda is a return to format. Some of the stories are fictional and some are based in real emotion, I think we explored the blurring of these two ideas in depth on LGS. Influences came from not one particular genre or band, but more the wormhole that threads most genres through anthem and catchy pop songs.
I love “Kids” for its bold yet subtle lyrics, and “Swing Low” for its escapism-like
vibes in the colours and tones. If you could pick a favourite song from ‘Let’s Go
Sunshine’, what would it be and why?
Fractured & Dazed. It has something melancholic about it. It just hits where I like to
be hit by melody. It was a personal fave from the start, which is why I’m basically
soloing throughout! Glad we kept what I put down, (most of it anyway).
The Kooks have been around for a decade and a half. What would you say has or has not changed over the last 15 years in terms of sound, band dynamics, musical direction, music influences, the fans, etc?
It feels like we live on a much less rule-based creative playing field. With the advent of streaming, it’s harder to confine yourself to one genre. We never lent ourselves to this isolated mindset when we formed which is perhaps why we’ve survived. Our first record is maniacally gadabout; it’s schizophrenic, perhaps accidentally looking forward to the playlists dystopia we live in now.
Many artists are collaborating/working with each other on their music. Is there
anyone in particular that the band has not yet, but would love to work within the
future?
Yes. So many people. Johnny Lloyd, Little Simz, Palace, Greg Foat, James Harvey-Kelly, Mark Nicholson, Sapphire Rose Harris. My sister is in Uganda currently working with the Saint Anne Foundation who have a great kids troupe of dancers/performers/musicians I’d love to work with someday.
I imagine that you must have a lot of fan-requested songs or fan favourites played on tour. If you could pick one song that you love to play live, and never tire of playing it no matter how many times you’ve played it, what would it be and why?
Naive – you gotta love it. It brings pure joy.
If you could pick three songs (from any Kooks album) to introduce your music to a person who has never heard your music before, what would they be?
- One Last Time
- She Moves in Her Own Way
- Time Awaits
Before we end this interview, do you guys have anything to say to your fans in
Asia?
Thank you so much for the love and support! Hope we can continue to be in each
other’s lives for a long time xxx.
Special thanks to Secret Signals.
For more of AL365 interview click here.
