The Kooks Want To Have Fun

Brighton, England quartet The Kooks have achieved a great deal of success since forming four years ago. Their 2006 Inside In/Inside Out debut peaked at #2 on the U.K. album chart and the band garnered numerous honours, including the award for best U.K. and Ireland act at the 2006 MTV Europe Awards.

While their sophomore album, Konk, hit #1 on the U.K. chart shortly after its release last spring, The Kooks were plagued with setbacks, including drummer Paul Garred's arm injury and the loss of their bassist and founding member Max Rafferty.

ChartAttack caught up with Garred backstage before their set at the Virgin Festival in Toronto to talk about the problems the band faced during this time and how they now just want to have fun.

ChartAttack: So first off, Paul: Your arm. What happened?
Paul Garred: I picked up something really heavy, I think, and pulled loads of muscles in my arm and my nerves were all gone. And without realizing it, I was still playing, and made it a hell of a lot worse. So there was me in the gym for three months on that gym ball and doing all these little crazy exercises and stuff. So embarrassing.

So that happened around the same time when The Kooks hit a little rough spot, when your bassist left before your sophomore album Konk was released. What happened there?
The top and bottom of it, Max was moving in one direction and we were going somewhere else. I mean, there were so many different things, little things that added up to that sort of feeling that this isn't working. It's really sad because that was the original lineup, and it always will be. So many good memories, you know? But when you don't become so functional, it's tough.

Are you guys still friends?
Yeah. I don't see him as much as I used to, but we had a little text a while ago and he's doing alright.

His replacement, Dan Logan: How's he working out?
He's great. Credit to him, he slid in pretty seamlessly. Like, for us lads, it was really comforting for him to just slide in. 'Cause it can be hard sometimes. Like, I know when I was gone, it was really hard to have the same vibe, because when you've got someone in different, it can change. No one plays an instrument the same.

So are you going to keep him in the lineup?
Well, nothing's confirmed yet. Nothing's ruled in, nothing's ruled out. So we're just enjoying having fun again. And that's what we always wanted. It got a little dark for a while, so we just want to have fun.

The final dates of your tour are a bunch of sold-out shows in England, yet you guys aren't really that well-known in North America. What's it like being a massive success there and to be relatively unknown here?
For me, I don't really feel it so much. I used to really feel it, especially back home. You know, you just end up talking to people you don't really like, you know, back from school and stuff. But that's life. You do alright and people crawl out of the woodwork, don't they?

The thing with Britain is that… everything is always quite fresh and everyone wants a new band, a new band, a new band, and that's just the way it is. It's actually quite refreshing to come over here and kind of build things up slowly and have the time to get things right. I think it's healthy.

Check out the rest of this interview, and Garred's pretty face and adorable accent, here.