By Jacob Sahms
Brit rockers The Kooks are a diverse group, with Luke Pritchard leading the charge. With bandmates Hugh Harris on guitar, Max Rafferty on bass and Paul Garred on drums, Pritchard provides the rest of the Kooks’ punk rock sound. Hailing from Brighton, this seventeen year old has a disregard for all things pompous, and a driving desire to take the rock world by force. “We all write songs and all love loads of different music so we argue a lot about how and what to play,” he says. “That’s what rehearsing is about for us…We’re a groove rock’n’roll band who want to make people dance.”
“Seaside” and “See the World” showcase that groovy rock’n’roll with Pritchard’s sing-songy voice leading the way. Most of the lyrics of Inside In/Inside Out define relationships or the breaking of relationships. “Sofa Song” sinks to simply having sex, but “Eddie’s Gun” puts a whole new spin on the same old thing. Rocking about erectile dysfunction is pretty self-revelatory, especially for a bunch of teenage rockers, but it should certainly garner some attention.
“The songs are about relationships and stigmas within relationships,” Pritchard says. “‘Eddie’s Gun’ is about not being able to get a boner, that’s a stigma, right? Whereas something like ‘See the World’ or ‘Time Waits For No Man,’ those are more about frustrations with the way things are. We think things are pretty [messed] up, the way that things are, and that’s what those songs are trying to express. They’re all pretty angry, maybe that’s why the punk vibe comes across. It’s anger that comes from frustration.”
The rest of the bunch chronicles much of the same, but it’s worth reflecting on the rest in light of the songwriter/singer’s comments. “Ooh La” and “You Don’t Love Me” show more of the underlying anger that Pritchard and other members of the band feel toward how they’ve been treated by members of the opposite sex. It’s more than a little vindictive, but it’s honest and out there. “She Moves In Her Own Way” shares the same spirit, but does it this time in a ska way, showing that while the message might be the same, the Kooks rock it a different way each time.
“I Want You” expresses regret over a relationship that he let get away, a girl he loved once who he no longer has any chance of being with for a lifetime. In this moment, the band’s chauvinistic attitude wears down briefly, as if the armor had a chink in it, and ‘the one’ did make it through once. “If Only” sounds like it might continue the trend as Pritchard reflects on a girl he once loved and wished he could be with. And then you realize it’s about a girl he idolized on the silver screen and it’s back to the races, objectifying women and sex.
The Kooks sound groovy from the radio, but the words behind the music don’t hold much hope for positive relationships, or relationships at all. So, listen if you’d like, and dance along too, but please, please, don’t build your relationships with these songs as your blueprint!
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