{"id":4024,"date":"2011-11-01T07:03:23","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T14:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4024"},"modified":"2011-11-01T07:03:23","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01T14:03:23","slug":"the-kooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/11\/the-kooks\/","title":{"rendered":"THE KOOKS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>THE KOOKS<\/h2>\n

After years of accolades at home, this band opens their \u2018Junk\u2019 yard to the U.S.<\/h2>\n

Luke Pritchard, frontman for U.K. rockers the Kooks, has a very\u00a0set-in-stone way of presenting his songs to his bandmates. Or does he? \u201cI am not like those songwriters you read about who are going to the guys with all the parts and saying, \u2018Here\u2019s what you guys do,\u2019\u201d says Pritchard. Then he stops, shakes his head and laughs, realizing that\u2019s exactly how several of the songs on the Kook\u2019s new\u00a0Junk of the Heart<\/em> came together. \u201cOh\u00a0my god, now I\u2019m going to contradict what I\u00a0just told you!\u201d he says. \u201cFor about half of\u00a0them, songs like \u2018Runaway\u2019 or \u2018Junk of the Heart,\u2019\u00a0I did go in and say, \u2018This part really, really <\/em>needs to be like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s clearly still-evolving approach isn\u2019t surprising given that Pritchard formed the band as something of a lark a few years back with a few Brighton Music College buddies bonding over the Police, the Strokes and the Everly Brothers.\u00a0When the band\u2019s 2006 debut Inside <\/em>In\/Inside Out<\/em> hit No. 2 on the U.K. album chart and the sophomore release Konk<\/em> grabbed the top slot, the band and its music were still in flux. But Junk of the Heart<\/em> reflects a maturation led by Pritchard\u2019s own personal growth. He cites the new song \u201cMr. Nice Guy\u201d as being targeted at both the sort of person he can\u2019t stand and the sort of person he used to be. \u201cHe\u2019s the guy in the bar who just wants to talk about himself, is yelling in your ear and doesn\u2019t want to listen to anyone else,\u201d he says. \u201cI could have been included in that way of life at one point.\u201d<\/p>\n

One major step, Pritchard admits, was realizing he had a drug problem. \u201cI don\u2019t take cocaine anymore, and I don\u2019t want anyone to think I\u2019m glamorizing it,\u201d he says. \u201cI got pushed into the hard-partying world of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll, and you can hear that in the music. The second album was more about the raucousness. This album isn\u2019t. I wanted it to be much more philosophical and straightforward.\u201d These days Pritchard\u2019s addictions are less dangerous: film, squash, tennis and a zealous devotion to getting his hands on an increasingly digital world\u2019s ever-dwindling supply of analog tape. \u201cYou can\u2019t get decent tape anymore\u2014it\u2019s all just crap,\u201d he muses. \u201cI know this one guy in Liverpool who has loads of really good tape. I really\u00a0need to call him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Nancy Dunham<\/p>\n

\n

“I don\u2019t take cocaine anymore, and I don\u2019t want anyone to think I\u2019m glamorizing it.”<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE KOOKS After years of accolades at home, this band opens their \u2018Junk\u2019 yard to the U.S. Luke Pritchard, frontman for U.K. rockers the Kooks, has a very\u00a0set-in-stone way of presenting his songs to his bandmates. Or does he? \u201cI am not like those songwriters you read about who are going to the guys with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2682,2704,2702,2703,10156,2701],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4026,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4024\/revisions\/4026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}