The Kooks and Hard-Fi on the last great wave of British guitar bands
"I'm pretty sure we hung out in Brixton. Hopefully I didn't embarrass myself."Luke Pritchard, the eternally youthful lead singer of The Kooks, is reintroducing himself to fellow indie survivor and Hard-Fi frontman, Richard Archer.Both admit the 2000s, when they each sold millions of records, are a bit of a blur."But I think I'd remember if you'd done something odd," reassures Archer, all chiselled good looks and friendly bonhomie."It's weird, because we were all part of the same scene but, when you're on tour, everyone's like planets, orbiting around but missing each other."The Kooks and The 'Fi were at the epicentre of the last great indie boom – a scene that kicked off in 2002 when The Libertines jolted British guitar music out of its post-Britpop slump.Over the next half-decade, they joined acts like Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Razorlight as they surfed a wave to the top of the charts.Angular riffs, clever-clever lyrics and big, hooky choruses were the order of the day. By 2006, seven of the UK's 10 best-selling new albums were by guitar bands, including the Arctic Monkey's incendiary debut, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, and The Kooks' Inside In/Inside Out.But the party couldn't last forever.In 2008, The Word magazine coined the phrase "indie landfill" to describe a seemingly endless parade of identikit bloke-bands cluttering the airwaves.Where were they all coming from? Why couldn't you tell them apart? Why where they all called "The Something"?Almost overnight, radio stations ditched indie for a new generation of forward-thinking pop (Lady Gaga, Florence + The Machine) and club-centric hip-hop (Black Eyed Peas, Dizzee Rascal)."It did suddenly seem that four boys in a band became very un-hip," says Archer."The opportunities dried up in England," agrees Pritchard. "We were playing smaller venues and the vibe just wasn't exciting any more.""It got to a point where we were just exhausted," Archer continues. "It felt like we were screaming into the void. So we stopped and tried other things."
In the 2010s, Hard-Fi's guitarist Ross Phillips retrained as a tiler, while Archer formed the short-lived blues band OffWorld.But when he streamed an acoustic set of Hard-Fi songs during Covid, the response was big enough to tempt the band back on stage. A one-off gig at London's Forum sold out in minutes."The response was just so warm. I was quite taken aback by it," says Archer.The show led to a full reunion. This summer, the band will release a 20th anniversary edition of their class-conscious, Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Stars of CCTV, while preparing a long-delayed fourth album.The Kooks, meanwhile, never went away, recording a clutch of more experimental albums that blended drum loops, pastoral pop and even Ethiopian jazz influences.But today, the band are bigger than ever after hits like Naïve and Ooh La found a new audience on TikTok.Later this year, they will headline the O2 Arena for the first time, with18 to 24-year-olds making up 45% of the audience.How do they explain this sudden revival?"We're at that point where teenagers start going back to listen to the music their parents grew up with," Pritchard observes."In the 90s, we did it too, going back and discovering Nick Drake, so there's a circular nature to it. The scene, and even the fashion, has come around again."But there's something else, too. Songs like The Kooks' She Moves In Her Own Way and Hard-Fi's Hard To Beat have something that went missing in the 2010s - choruses you can sing until you're hoarse."Yeah, that anthemic thing was removed from guitar music," agrees Pritchard. "People started consuming music on earbuds, so they connected with the introspective stuff."But when we were gathering a little fanbase in Brighton, we'd play all these small clubs and you'd filter the setlist by whether people could sing along to the hook."
Archer recalls the grind of those early tours. In their first year, he reckons, Hard-Fi were on the road for "almost 365 days".But with one grassroots venue closing every fortnight in the UK, it's getting harder to book tours and road-test songs."What worries me is, if you're a new artist now, do you have the opportunity to go out there and make mistakes and fix them?" says Archer.A shrinking live scene isn't the only upheaval in the industry.The Kooks' debut album sold 1.5 million copies in 2006 – making it the fifth biggest record of the year. Compare that with 2024, when the best-selling album in the UK (Taylor Swift's Tortured Poets Department) only sold 600,000 copies.Streams have cannibalised sales, turning every artist into a cult act. It doesn't help that opportunities for promoting music have dried up.The only music TV show left standing is Later... With Jools Holland, while weekly music magazines like the NME are no more - not that everyone laments its demise."We were never the best friends with the NME," laughs Archer."Who was?" asks Pritchard. "There were two or three anointed bands and the rest of us were cast out."Are there any reviews seared into their memories?"No, I've done a lot of work on that," Pritchard jokes. "But I definitely was more sensitive than I should have been.""How can you not be, though?" asks Archer. "They're criticising something you've sweated blood and tears over."While compiling the anniversary edition of Stars of CCTV, he found an old clipping where a critic said the band's fans didn't understand real music."I kept it," he says, "so I could get revenge later.""You should frame it and put it in the loo," Pritchard suggests."Then I'd just be angry every time I have a dump."
But the music press was powerful in the 2000s. Both frontmen recall feeling pressure to live up to the NME's ideal of a gobby frontman. Archer, a thoughtful and introspective character, was even provoked into saying he wanted to be the biggest star in the world."I don't see the point in being just another indie band," he boasted in one interview. "What's the point of being parochial and small-time? I'm in competition with Eminem.""You had to be super-confident and say provocative things," Pritchard reflects now."But what I learned is that a lot of songwriters are introspective, insular people - and when you throw them in front of a camera, it's quite challenging."With hindsight, both men emerged from the 2000s relatively unscathed, and share a newfound appreciation for their early records.Pritchard, in particular, is revisiting the breathless pop of The Kooks' first two albums on their new record Never/Know, released this week."I felt like I slightly lost my identity [because] I'd been collaborating with outside producers so much," he says."So I went back and played all the records we were listening to when we started - not to repeat ourselves, but to get a firm hand on the identity again."The result is an album that's perfectly timed for summer road trips and sun-soaked festival sets, replete with buoyant melodies and timeless guitar grooves.Archer is in a similar place, with a new album inspired by a CD-Rom of old demos an ex-girlfriend sent to him last year.So, have the bands got a five-year plan?"Definitely - but it's locked up in my safe," laughs Pritchard. "I think it's good to have goals!""Do you really?" asks Archer, with a concerned frown."I literally don't know what I'm going to have for lunch."
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