The Kooks “had to Google Fontaines D.C.” after meeting them
The Kooks have admitted they had to Google Fontaines D.C. after meeting them backstage at a show last summer.
Luke Pritchard and co. released their new album ‘Never/Know’ on Friday (May 9), the seventh studio record of a career that dates back to the mid-2000s indie scene.
In a new interview with Contact Music, guitarist Hugh Harris spoke about how it has become common for them to be approached by younger bands who grew up listening to them, but one high profile meeting almost passed him by.
“Last summer I had to Google Fontaines D.C.,” Harris said. “I was outside our dressing room and they came to say hi and give their respect and love to the band. I was like, ‘Who they heck are they?’”
“Then I was like, ‘Oh my god they’re huge!’ It’s nice to have that support from both sides.”
Speaking about The Kooks’ popularity among their younger peers, Pritchard added: “Everyone loves us now. It didn’t use to be like that! We are lucky like that.”
“The thing that I hear a lot about The Kooks, which is maybe a unique-ish thing to us, I always hear the same thing, which is, ‘I used to listen to The Kooks in the car with my parents and my younger brother.’ It’s always an intergenerational thing. Their parents would get us because they would hear The Kinks and The Beatles and Bob Dylan and the kids liked us, too.”
Earlier this year, NME spoke to the band about their resurgent popularity with a younger generation. “I’m a musician, so I don’t know how to analyse it too much,” Pritchard said. “You talk about DNA – we still have that coming-of-age feel when we play music. We still have it. Hopefully, it’s just because we’re keeping fresh, we’re evolving, and we’re quite open to new things. We don’t think about it overly, we just try to play with a kind of spirit that works with people of all ages, really.”
The Kooks are heading on a UK arena tour later this year, kicking off at Manchester’s Co-op Live on October 3. Find the full list of dates here and find any remaining tickets here.
They will also return to the UK this summer for performances at TRNSMT and Reading & Leeds 2025.
As for Fontaines, they are preparing to play a huge Belfast show with Kneecap at the Boucher Road Playing Fields on August 29, which sold out within half an hour despite calls from the DUP to have it axed.
They were also one of the bands to sign Heavenly Recordings’ letter in support of Kneecap, titled ‘We stand for freedom of expression’.
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Max Pilley
NME
