17 December 2018
Newsdesk
The Kooks’ lead singer Luke Pritchard and guitarist Hugh Harris are the latest guests to appear on online music TV show Red Stripe Presents: This Feeling TV.
Hosted by Radio X presenter Gordon Smart, the interview kicked off with Luke and Hugh discussing supporting massive acts over the years, including the likes of The Rolling Stones. Hugh said, “Yeah it’s insane, I don’t know why they keep having us back but – we must be cheap.”
Gordon asks the Brit School graduates if they ever received any advice from Mick Jagger on how to command the stage, and Luke said, “Yeah, once we went for lunch, which was quite nice. I actually paid for his lunch. Yeah, he had a glass of champagne and a crab salad. We had this great chat and I did ask you know, and picked his brains, and for me, it’s definitely Mick. He’s just the greatest, to me, from even when I was a kid.
Hugh jumps in to jokingly say, “Never pay for your lunch” whist waving his finger.
Luke continued, “I guess, what I got from him was that he’s so passionate about other music. So he doesn’t really want to talk about himself so much. He just loves blues and rock n’ roll. He wanted to talk about other people and what they did for him. But yeah, I didn’t even notice, he just said ‘sorry guys I’ve gotta go now’. And I thought, he must have paid over by the counter, but no. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to [pay the bill].
Gordon adds, “Oh aye, that’s the best £480 you’ve ever spent on a crab salad and one glass of champagne.”
The band who are fresh from releasing their fifth album, entitled Let’s Go Sunshine, including singles No Pressure and All The Time, also chat about Luke’s recent engagement and being set to walk down the aisle with girlfriend and budding singer Ellie Rose. Gordon asks, “do you know that it’s tradition that you should spend 3 months salary on an engagement ring, did you subscribe to that theory?.”
Luke laughs and responds, “no, I don’t believe in spending loads of money on things like that personally, I think as well she knew which one [ring] she wanted.”
Gordon cheekily suggested, “just buy it when you’re out of tour, because then you’re not earning”, before Hugh added, “Yeah it’s amazing, I’ve never seen him so happy in my life, I think it’s fantastic and Ellie’s [Rose] a beautiful person. She keeps him in check as well.”
On the subject of meeting his future wife, Gordon asks Luke if rumours were correct that the pair met on a dating app. Luke happily admits, “yeah it was, Hugh’s [Harris] on there. You know what, it’s great! You get to chose a song, with your photos…my song was Arial Pink actually…It could have been like the Lily Allen cover of Naïve, couldn’t it.”
Gordon asks the band who are set to headline Community Festival 2019 on 30th June in London’s Finsbury Park, “the next steps looking really exciting as well, Community Festival, you’re headlining.”
Luke quickly responds, “it’s a mega one for us, it’s our fist ever headline festival in the UK. And it’s a great festival to be a part of, I love the name, the spirit, also the acts on…we’ve got quite a few friends on there like the Academics and Blossoms and also like Kate Nash, so I think it’s a really good bill.”
Hugh added, “I mean just thrilling, we are just humbled and honoured to still even be doing this. Not a lot of bands even make it past 3 or 4 years, let alone survive and waste pile, to still be playing to kids who give a hoot about us is awesome.”
