Luke Pritchard, vocals, guitar, songwriter
I wrote Naive when I was 15 or 16 – before we had the band – but I didn’t like it. I was quite a paranoid, unconfident kid and I had a relationship with someone who was getting into a world that I didn’t understand. The song is about the fear of someone doing something bad to you. The lyrics are real in some ways, but I was too young to have actually experienced that situation, so it was more me projecting my teenage fears. I’ve found myself in that situation since – it’s become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At that age, I’d get up at 2 or 3am and write tunes, and if I could remember something in the morning I’d know it was worth pursuing. Naive was like that, probably written very quickly. Hugh Harris, our guitarist, used to couch surf at my flat. We were at the Brit School at the same time but I didn’t really get to know him until we both went to Bimm [the British and Irish Modern Music Institute] in Brighton. He saw me playing guitar on the steps, then later when he jammed along I thought: “This guy’s amazing.” Paul Garred, our drummer, was there from the beginning and we found a bass-player in Max Rafferty. We were indie rock’n’roll but had more pop and bounce than other bands.
After we got signed it was a struggle for the record company to get us to record Naive. Paul quite liked it but I think Max thought it was cheesy. Our A&R manager said: “You have to record this.” I thought he meant as a B-side, but he said: “That’s the big single!” Nobody really wanted to do it, though, and halfway through everyone went to the pub. Then we just couldn’t get it right. But when I heard the finished mix, I thought: “Oh, people might like this.”
I’m still dumbfounded by the song’s success and how people connected with it. The video director poured his own experiences into the video, which gave it a different meaning – about cheating. We shot it in Nambucca on London’s Holloway Road – the Holloways’ hangout – which was pretty decadent. I thought Naive was just a throwaway campfire song, but the band brought it to life. Although I can still relate to the lyrics, I’m a changed man.
Hugh Harris, lead guitar, songwriter
There are versions of Naive in the vaults of Virgin Records that would make us die of embarrassment if we heard them now. We just couldn’t get the guitars to syncopate with the dancier rhythm. We tried it as ska. We even tried it as reggae. Eventually, I found a two-note guitar part and we simplified the drums, then just went over and over it again. It was exhausting. I don’t think the song really suited our band at the time, but it was huge.
Naive was the fourth single off the first album. There’s an occult-like magic to the structure in that it creates tension and then releases it with the chorus. We’d been listening to Ben Harper and early Jack Johnson – it’s a kind of beach, surfy song. We recorded it around the time that bands like Coldplay were moving into stadiums, and their muscular chord sequences on songs like In My Place pulled on the heartstrings. As a band, we were picking up on that and thinking: “Why not have a big pop record?” The idea was to then get people to listen to the weirder stuff we were coming up with.
It resonates with a lot of young people now and still brings fresh waves of fans to our shows. Parents play it to their children and siblings hand it down to their younger siblings. When it came out, it got played to death on Radio 1, but to see it still have power without the help of radio is enormously rewarding. Luke wrote it when he was very young but he was confident enough to sing about dysfunction. It’s coming from a young mind and it’s exactly what a young person can connect with.
The Kooks’ new album, 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark is released on 22 July on Lonely Cat/Awal Recordings.
