There are certain bands that don’t necessarily kick down your front door and demand to become part of your life. They just sort of wander in, grab a beer from the refrigerator and somehow they’re still hanging around 15 years later.
The Kooks are one of those bands.
Going through a breakup? There’s a Kooks song for that. Lose an old friend? They’ve got you. Having one of those months at work where changing your name and moving to Costa Rica starts feeling like a legitimate career strategy? Don’t worry, they’ve probably got something for that too.
And the strange thing is, plenty of people have been listening to The Kooks for years without really realizing just how much of their music they know.
Put on “Naive.” Put on “She Moves in Her Own Way.” Try “Ooh La,” “Bad Habit,” “Always Where I Need to Be,” “Junk of the Heart (Happy)” or “Seaside.”
Eventually you’re going to hit one where somebody across the room says, “Wait… this is The Kooks?”
Yes.
Welcome aboard. You’ve apparently been a fan this entire time.
Now, more than 20 years after the band first formed in Brighton, The Kooks have finished another album, and frontman Luke Pritchard says this one is heading somewhere darker, stranger and more psychedelic.
I’m completely here for it.
The Next Kooks Album Is Already Finished
The follow-up to 2025’s Never/Know has been recorded, with the band working alongside producer Tony Berg, whose résumé includes work with artists such as Phoebe Bridgers and Sombr.
For Pritchard, working with Berg wasn’t some random studio pairing. He had apparently wanted to collaborate with him for quite some time, and the experience pushed the band, particularly Pritchard’s songwriting, into new territory.
Rather than simply recording another collection of comfortable Kooks songs, the band seems to have deliberately challenged itself.
Pritchard has described the finished record as retaining the fundamental DNA of The Kooks while becoming darker, more psychedelic and more rooted than some of their recent work. He’s even suggested it could rank among the most accomplished music they’ve ever made.
Every musician says the new album is the best thing they’ve ever done, naturally. Nobody finishes twelve months in the studio and announces, “Well, this one’s pretty average, but the contractual obligations have been satisfied.”
Still, with The Kooks, I’m willing to listen.
They Actually Lived Together to Make It
There’s another interesting wrinkle to how this record came together.
The members of The Kooks now live in different parts of the country, so instead of emailing files back and forth until everyone forgot why they started making the album in the first place, they reunited for a month-long residential recording session.
For four weeks, they lived together and made music together.
That’s refreshingly old-school.
And possibly terrifying.
Anyone who has ever taken a vacation with close friends knows that four weeks under one roof can either produce an incredible album or an unsolved criminal investigation.
Fortunately, The Kooks appear to have gotten an album.
The setup allowed them to record more like a traditional band, with Berg working as a classic behind-the-glass producer rather than assembling the project digitally one instrument at a time. For a group whose appeal has always depended heavily on chemistry, particularly between Pritchard and guitarist Hugh Harris, that approach makes a lot of sense.
Pritchard says that connection with Harris still feels electric after all these years.
That’s probably one of the biggest reasons The Kooks still sound like The Kooks.
More Than 20 Years of Being Delightfully Difficult to Categorize
The Kooks formed in Brighton in 2004, emerging during that glorious mid-2000s explosion when British guitar bands seemed to reproduce overnight.
Arctic Monkeys. Franz Ferdinand. Bloc Party. Kaiser Chiefs. Razorlight. The Fratellis.
And somewhere inside all of that beautiful indie-rock chaos were The Kooks, except they never quite sounded like everybody else.
Their 2006 debut, Inside In/Inside Out, became the record that launched them internationally, eventually reaching No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart and producing several of the songs that remain synonymous with the band.
“Naive” became their defining early hit, reaching the UK Top 5, while “She Moves in Her Own Way” also cracked the Top 10. The debut itself became a multi-platinum success in the UK and established The Kooks as considerably more than another temporary entry in Britain’s seemingly endless parade of guitar bands.
They followed it with Konk in 2008, and that record accomplished something the debut narrowly missed: it reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart.
The album’s lead single, “Always Where I Need to Be,” became another Top 10 UK hit.
The Kooks have also earned major industry recognition over the years, including a BRIT Award nomination for Best British Group, while their songwriting and recordings have collected certifications across multiple countries.
But numbers only explain part of their longevity.
The Songs Have Aged Surprisingly Well
The thing I find fascinating about The Kooks is how little their best music feels trapped in the era that produced it.
Go listen to “Naive” today.
It doesn’t scream 2006.
Neither does “Ooh La.”
“Bad Habit” came years later and somehow feels like it belongs in exactly the same universe without sounding like the band was desperately trying to recreate its debut.
Then there’s “Junk of the Heart (Happy),” one of those songs capable of sneaking into your head and setting up permanent residence before you’ve even realized what’s happening.
That’s their superpower.
The Kooks don’t beat you over the head.
They write melodies that quietly attach themselves to your brain.
Two days later you’re standing in Publix humming one of them while trying to remember why you walked into the produce section.
Surviving the Part Nobody Talks About
Twenty-plus years in a band isn’t simply a story about albums and tours.
It’s also about surviving everything that normally destroys bands.
The Kooks have experienced major lineup changes throughout their career, including the departure of original bassist Max Rafferty and drummer Paul Garred stepping away from the group. Pritchard has acknowledged that losing important creative partners was difficult and that adjusting took years.
Yet The Kooks never manufactured some dramatic farewell tour, disappeared for three years and then miraculously “reunited” when somebody noticed festival guarantees had gotten larger.
They just kept going.
That might be the least rock-star thing imaginable, which somehow makes it incredibly rock and roll.
Pritchard credits part of the band’s longevity to their willingness not to take themselves too seriously, but underneath that is something considerably more important: they still genuinely enjoy making music together.
You can’t fake that for two decades.
Well, you can.
Fleetwood Mac basically turned it into an Olympic event.
But it’s probably exhausting.
Darker and Psychedelic Sounds Pretty Damn Good to Me
The idea of The Kooks leaning further into psychedelia is particularly interesting because the building blocks have always been there.
Their music has bounced between indie rock, Britpop, soul, folk, funk and pop without ever completely abandoning the guitars and melodies that made people care about them in the first place.
Letting those ingredients get a little darker and stranger could be exactly what a band at this stage of its career needs.
They don’t need another “Naive.”
We already have “Naive.”
They don’t need to recreate Inside In/Inside Out either.
That record exists. It’s fantastic. Leave it alone.
What I’d rather hear is what happens when musicians who have spent more than two decades together stop worrying about what a Kooks record is supposed to sound like and start exploring what it could sound like.
Apparently, that’s exactly what they’ve done.
You’ve Probably Loved The Kooks Longer Than You Realize
So embrace the weirdness.
Get in touch with your inner hippie.
Find the headphones you bought because they supposedly make everything sound better, turn off whatever algorithm has been feeding you the same 14 songs for six months, and spend some time rediscovering The Kooks.
Start with “Naive.”
Then “Ooh La.”
Hit “Bad Habit.”
Throw on “Junk of the Heart.”
Keep going.
And when their next album finally arrives, we’ll find out whether Luke Pritchard was right about it being some of the band’s most accomplished work.
I’m betting he might be.
Because after more than 20 years, The Kooks aren’t surviving on nostalgia.
They’re still curious.
For a rock band that’s been around since 2004, that might be the most important achievement of all.
Keep Finding Live Music With Static Live
While we wait for The Kooks to unleash their darker psychedelic side on the world, Static Live is helping music fans find what’s happening much closer to home.
The Static Live Music Calendar App covers Florida’s East Coast, including Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Flagler Beach and surrounding communities, helping fans discover local bands, venues, concerts and live events without spending half the evening digging through social media.
We’re also working toward expanding Static Live into additional cities, because great local music exists everywhere. Finding it shouldn’t require detective training.
Download the Static Live Music Calendar App, support live music, and maybe give The Kooks another spin while you’re at it.
