Ibiza Rocks Kooks Interview

Ahead of his gig headlining with band The Kooks, we sat down with frontman Luke Pritchard to talk how it feels to be back at Ibiza Rocks, what new artists he likes and when we can hear new material from the band...

Q: You will be headlining Ibiza Rocks tonight – how is it different than any other festival?

A: Ibiza Rocks is quite unique because it’s not really a festival, per se.  It’s not like you are going to see lots of different bands, it’s like a gig, but you are in the sun. You are somewhere where you would never usually see a gig. I came to Ibiza one time before since Ibiza Rocks started and you would have never expected to see a rock and roll band playing so it’s quite different.
For us as a band it’s really fun because we get to play in a place where we can chill by a swimming pool during the day and go out by the night.

Q: Is the crowd different than your usual?

A: It’s not necessarily that different but it’s always pumped up everytime we played here from the first time and hopefully tonight people will just wanna have a good time – helps a lot.

Q: Frightened Rabbit are opening for you tonight, are you a fan of their music?

A: I heard a few songs of theirs a while ago, I haven’t heard the record yet, I’d like to hear it. They are really, really cool. Just caught a bit of their set, they are great.

Q: Are you guys working on new material? When is your new record coming?

A: Right now we are in a bit of a limbo situation. We are doing some of  these summer festival but we are also recording the new album. We were just recording two weeks ago and now we have a week of gigs and then we will be back in the studio.
We are right in the middle of it, it’s really cool. It’s been a long time coming, we just can’t really wait to get the third album out, hopefully at the very beginning of next year.

Q: Is it going to be different than your previous albums?

A: I think the album will be true to how the band started out, it won’t be too much of a departure from that and it’s not gonna be contrived. We haven’t been intentionally trying to go for a new sound but obviously trying to freshen the sound.
We are working with a different producer call Jim Abbus, and he is obviously influencing the sound a lot. We will see but as yet we’ve only done a few tracks so we don’t know how its gonna shape up but its feeling really good.

Q: You mentioned a new producer – are there any new UK acts you really like?

A: There is always really cool UK music. At the moment the last thing I really got obsessed with though is a Swedish band Little Dragon, who are really cool. I thought that was really good. But English acts, I m trying to think… I mean I can’t think of an album recently that I thought was amazing to be honest.

But there are always small bands… there is a band called Tribes for example. They are friends of mine but actually I am a big fan of their music as well.

They are from Camden and I think they are doing really exciting music. There is a sort of scene going on there which I think is very interesting. But obviously there has a been a lot of R’n’B’ in the pop charts… The commercial side of music has gone that way. There are probably less bands than they were in England, I don’t know about elsewehere.

But they are a really cool band if anyone gets the chance to check out wants to check out Tribes, they are really good, you can find them on Myspace.