The Kooks and Exhausting-Fi on the final nice wave of British guitar bands

“I am fairly positive we frolicked in Brixton. Hopefully I did not embarrass myself.”

Luke Pritchard, the eternally youthful lead singer of The Kooks, is reintroducing himself to fellow indie survivor and Exhausting-Fi frontman, Richard Archer.

Each admit the 2000s, once they every offered hundreds of thousands of information, are a little bit of a blur.

“However I feel I might keep in mind for those who’d finished one thing odd,” reassures Archer, all chiselled attractiveness and pleasant bonhomie.

“It is bizarre, as a result of we had been all a part of the identical scene however, if you’re on tour, everybody’s like planets, orbiting round however lacking one another.”

The Kooks and The ‘Fi had been on the epicentre of the final nice indie increase – a scene that kicked off in 2002 when The Libertines jolted British guitar music out of its post-Britpop droop.

Over the following half-decade, they joined acts like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight as they surfed a wave to the highest of the charts.

Angular riffs, clever-clever lyrics and massive, hooky choruses had been the order of the day.

By 2006, seven of the UK’s 10 best-selling new albums had been by guitar bands, together with the Arctic Monkey’s incendiary debut, No matter Individuals Say I Am, That is What I am Not, and The Kooks’ Inside In/Inside Out.

However the occasion could not final eternally.

In 2008, The Phrase journal coined the phrase “indie landfill” to explain a seemingly countless parade of identikit bloke-bands cluttering the airwaves.

The place had been all of them coming from? Why could not you inform them aside? Why the place all of them referred to as “The One thing”?

Virtually in a single day, radio stations ditched indie for a brand new era of forward-thinking pop (Woman Gaga, Florence + The Machine) and club-centric hip-hop (Black Eyed Peas, Dizzee Rascal).

“It did all of the sudden appear that 4 boys in a band turned very un-hip,” says Archer.

“The alternatives dried up in England,” agrees Pritchard. “We had been taking part in smaller venues and the vibe simply wasn’t thrilling any extra.”

“It bought to some extent the place we had been simply exhausted,” Archer continues. “It felt like we had been screaming into the void. So we stopped and tried different issues.”

Within the 2010s, Exhausting-Fi’s guitarist Ross Phillips retrained as a tiler, whereas Archer shaped the short-lived blues band OffWorld.

However when he streamed an acoustic set of Exhausting-Fi songs throughout Covid, the response was large enough to tempt the band again on stage. A one-off gig at London’s Discussion board offered out in minutes.

“The response was simply so heat. I used to be fairly greatly surprised by it,” says Archer.

The present led to a full reunion. This summer time, the band will launch a twentieth anniversary version of their class-conscious, Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Stars of CCTV, whereas getting ready a long-delayed fourth album.

The Kooks, in the meantime, by no means went away, recording a clutch of extra experimental albums that blended drum loops, pastoral pop and even Ethiopian jazz influences.

However immediately, the band are larger than ever after hits like Naïve and Ooh La discovered a brand new viewers on TikTok.

Later this 12 months, they’ll headline the O2 Area for the primary time, with18 to 24-year-olds making up 45% of the viewers.

How do they clarify this sudden revival?

“We’re at that time the place youngsters begin going again to take heed to the music their dad and mom grew up with,” Pritchard observes.

“Within the 90s, we did it too, going again and discovering Nick Drake, so there is a round nature to it. The scene, and even the style, has come round once more.”

However there’s one thing else, too. Songs like The Kooks’ She Strikes In Her Personal Method and Exhausting-Fi’s Exhausting To Beat have one thing that went lacking within the 2010s – choruses you possibly can sing till you are hoarse.

“Yeah, that anthemic factor was faraway from guitar music,” agrees Pritchard. “Individuals began consuming music on earbuds, so that they linked with the introspective stuff.

“However after we had been gathering slightly fanbase in Brighton, we would play all these small golf equipment and also you’d filter the setlist by whether or not individuals might sing alongside to the hook.”

Archer remembers the grind of these early excursions. Of their first 12 months, he reckons, Exhausting-Fi had been on the street for “virtually one year”.

However with one grassroots venue closing each fortnight within the UK, it is getting more durable to e book excursions and road-test songs.

“What worries me is, for those who’re a brand new artist now, do you’ve gotten the chance to go on the market and make errors and repair them?” says Archer.

A shrinking reside scene is not the one upheaval within the trade.

The Kooks’ debut album offered 1.5 million copies in 2006 – making it the fifth largest file of the 12 months. Examine that with 2024, when the best-selling album within the UK (Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Division) solely offered 600,000 copies.

Streams have cannibalised gross sales, turning each artist right into a cult act. It does not assist that alternatives for selling music have dried up.

The one music TV present left standing is Later… With Jools Holland, whereas weekly music magazines just like the NME are not any extra – not that everybody laments its demise.

“We had been by no means the most effective buddies with the NME,” laughs Archer.

“Who was?” asks Pritchard. “There have been two or three anointed bands and the remainder of us had been solid out.”

Are there any opinions seared into their reminiscences?

“No, I’ve finished a number of work on that,” Pritchard jokes. “However I undoubtedly was extra delicate than I ought to have been.”

“How are you going to not be, although?” asks Archer. “They’re criticising one thing you have sweated blood and tears over.”

Whereas compiling the anniversary version of Stars of CCTV, he discovered an outdated clipping the place a critic mentioned the band’s followers did not perceive actual music.

“I saved it,” he says, “so I might get revenge later.”

“You need to body it and put it within the lavatory,” Pritchard suggests.

“Then I’d simply be offended each time I’ve a dump.”

However the music press was highly effective within the 2000s. Each frontmen recall feeling strain to reside as much as the NME’s excellent of a gobby frontman.

Archer, a considerate and introspective character, was even provoked into saying he needed to be the largest star on this planet.

“I do not see the purpose in being simply one other indie band,” he boasted in a single interview. “What is the level of being parochial and small-time? I am in competitors with Eminem.”

“You needed to be super-confident and say provocative issues,” Pritchard displays now.

“However what I discovered is that a number of songwriters are introspective, insular individuals – and if you throw them in entrance of a digicam, it is fairly difficult.”

With hindsight, each males emerged from the 2000s comparatively unscathed, and share a newfound appreciation for his or her early information.

Pritchard, particularly, is revisiting the breathless pop of The Kooks’ first two albums on their new file By no means/Know, launched this week.

“I felt like I barely misplaced my identification [because] I might been collaborating with outdoors producers a lot,” he says.

“So I went again and performed all of the information we had been listening to after we began – to not repeat ourselves, however to get a agency hand on the identification once more.”

The result’s an album that is completely timed for summer time street journeys and sun-soaked competition units, replete with buoyant melodies and timeless guitar grooves.

Archer is in the same place, with a brand new album impressed by a CD-Rom of outdated demos an ex-girlfriend despatched to him final 12 months.

So, have the bands bought a five-year plan?

“Positively – nevertheless it’s locked up in my protected,” laughs Pritchard. “I feel it is good to have objectives!”

“Do you actually?” asks Archer, with a involved frown.

“I actually do not know what I will have for lunch.”