Entertainment

‘We even did it as reggae’: the Kooks on how they designed Naive | Pop and rock

‘We even did it as reggae’: the Kooks on how they designed Naive | Pop and rock

Luke Pritchard, vocals, guitar, songwriter

I wrote Naive when I was 15 or 16 – before we experienced the band – but I didn’t like it. I was pretty a paranoid, unconfident child and I had a relationship with anyone who was getting into a globe that I didn’t fully grasp. The track is about the worry of someone doing a thing undesirable to you. The lyrics are actual in some techniques, but I was far too youthful to have essentially skilled that predicament, so it was far more me projecting my teenage fears. I’ve found myself in that problem considering that – it’s become a thing of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At that age, I’d get up at 2 or 3am and create tunes, and if I could try to remember one thing in the morning I’d know it was really worth pursuing. Naive was like that, almost certainly prepared very promptly. Hugh Harris, our guitarist, applied to sofa surf at my flat. We have been at the Brit College at the similar time but I didn’t really get to know him until we equally went to Bimm [the British and Irish Modern Music Institute] in Brighton. He saw me taking part in guitar on the ways, then afterwards when he jammed alongside I thought: “This guy’s remarkable.” Paul Garred, our drummer, was there from the starting and we observed a bass-player in Max Rafferty. We were indie rock’n’roll but experienced extra pop and bounce than other bands.

Artwork for the Kooks: Naive
Artwork for the Kooks: Naive

Immediately after we bought signed it was a battle for the record organization to get us to history Naive. Paul fairly liked it but I believe Max thought it was tacky. Our A&R supervisor mentioned: “You have to report this.” I assumed he meant as a B-facet, but he claimed: “That’s the major single!” No one truly needed to do it, even though, and midway by means of absolutely everyone went to the pub. Then we just could not get it appropriate. But when I heard the completed combine, I believed: “Oh, folks may well like this.”

I’m continue to dumbfounded by the song’s results and how people connected with it. The video director poured his possess activities into the video, which gave it a various indicating – about cheating. We shot it in Nambucca on London’s Holloway Street – the Holloways’ hangout – which was very decadent. I assumed Naive was just a throwaway campfire music, but the band introduced it to daily life. Despite the fact that I can even now relate to the lyrics, I’m a changed person.

Hugh Harris, direct guitar, songwriter

There are versions of Naive in the vaults of Virgin Records that would make us die of embarrassment if we heard them now. We just could not get the guitars to syncopate with the dancier rhythm. We attempted it as ska. We even attempted it as reggae. At some point, I discovered a two-be aware guitar component and we simplified the drums, then just went in excess of and over it once more. It was exhausting. I really don’t feel the music actually suited our band at the time, but it was large.

Naive was the fourth solitary off the to start with album. There’s an occult-like magic to the construction in that it makes rigidity and then releases it with the refrain. We’d been listening to Ben Harper and early Jack Johnson – it is a form of seaside, surfy music. We recorded it all over the time that bands like Coldplay have been relocating into stadiums, and their muscular chord sequences on tracks like In My Spot pulled on the heartstrings. As a band, we ended up picking up on that and contemplating: “Why not have a large pop file?” The strategy was to then get folks to pay attention to the weirder things we had been coming up with.

It resonates with a large amount of younger people now and nonetheless brings fresh new waves of supporters to our exhibits. Mother and father engage in it to their children and siblings hand it down to their young siblings. When it arrived out, it acquired performed to death on Radio 1, but to see it however have electric power with no the assist of radio is enormously fulfilling. Luke wrote it when he was really younger but he was confident ample to sing about dysfunction. It’s coming from a younger thoughts and it’s exactly what a youthful person can connect with.

Share this post

Similar Posts