Pritchard’s artlessness about why he makes music is rather contradicted when I speak to an old school friend of his, who would jam with Pritchard in the music room at break time. Pritchard was always the one talking about what a hit song needed, about the structure. Music seems to have stopped being merely solace for Pritchard at quite a tender age. That said, he — and his bandmates — gush with enthusiasm for what they do, despite the rigors of their promotional schedule.
And there is something in the idea that they make music for girls. They say they were mainly raised by women — Pritchard’s dad died when he was three, and Garred wrote the song Gap about the death of his own father. There’s something in the way the choruses always linger on words such as “sweetheart” or “angel,” and the way they worship women in the songs (loving a girl because She Moves in Her Own Way, or on the new song Shine On, wishing a girlfriend would stop looking at celebrity magazines and realize how naturally beautiful she is; taking good advice from a supportive woman on Love It All. It’s not exactly Oasis, though they have had the nod from Noel Gallagher.
“When Ooh La came out, that’s when it all changed for us, because we were massive and all of a sudden we had respect from Noel Gallagher and all these people — Paul Weller, who’s been really amazing. Noel said to our manager, ‘I really like that Ooh La tune.’ And he invited us to a party after the Brits. I was off my face, dancing with my girlfriend at the time, we were just going crazy. Oh no hang on, that was a different Noel Gallagher party.”
Still, they don’t always gel with all other bands. “I like the idea of musicians playing together and sharing songs but it isn’t like that now — or maybe it still is like that and we are just outside of it,” says Pritchard. “But I just find, sometimes people look at me like I’m fucking crazy when I say, do you want to go and have a jam? I asked Caleb from Kings of Leon — we were in this horrible club, shitty boom-boom-boom music, table full of vodka, and I just said to him, ‘Look, I know this really great blues bar round the corner, it’s open mic night. Do you want to go and sing a song? It’ll be really funny!’ And he just looked at me like I was from another planet. Surely you’d rather be there than surrounded by ugly girls who think they’re models, listening to shitty hip-hop? It’s boring. I just think it’s us — it’s whatever they think of the Kooks. But I can’t worry about it — life is too short to be sat round looking moody in a club. Come on, smile, come and play some blues.”
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