how do you write best?
best? well, personally, i dont know. i like being on my own. i mean usually i carry round an idea in my head for quite a while about a song. you know, i dont really write words and then melt in all that to it. i usually just sing and then i write down whatever i sing. so, probably like, having an idea about a song runnin through my head for a while and then i like to be on my own, you know, with no one around for like miles. on my own just singin.
you played in berlin on saturday, how did you like it?
i thought it was really good, apart from being weak sound probably. we’ve really enjoyed it. it was a good welcome to berlin, never even been here, let alone played here. And then to have so many people that was amazing. you know, it was cool. it was weird that some people knew the songs. we enjoyed it. Its a good venue, cause its real a sweatbox, you can practically see the sweat dripping off the ceiling you know. i thought it was nice.
is it what influences you?
yeah, im pretty much influenced by songs. We all are. as supposed to like specific sort of genres or whatever. i mean lou reed big influence, bob marley, david bowie. you know people like real classic stuff really.
whats the record you play over and over every now and again?
honky dory! theres a few albums that i like. sticky fingers the stones, obviously. quite a few records. i get into moods, like everyone. you know, you have a week just listening to a record solid, just over and over and over. like ok computer, thats a genius record. So its stuff like that really.
could you explain your bandname? cause in german it doesnt make sense at all.
what does it mean in german?
if you would write kooks with just one o, it would be koks which is cocaine.
really? oh dear!
so what does it mean?
cocaine!!!! Oh sorry
maybe you are drug dealers?
yeah were drug dealers. How do you think we finance the band? Do you know what i mean.
you might have been working?
yeah it might. no it is actually a david bowie song called kooks and kooks is an american beatnik term for kookoo. you know crazy, its like a shorter version. so thats what it means in english.
you have quite a very bluesy jazzy touch in your songs? how does it happen?
well blues ive been listening to since i was a kid. my dad was blues musician. he always had john lee hocker and muddy waters on.
because it is?
i think we try to bring the old and the new together really. i think thats what our record... always we try to achieve is, to have a record where you have this old, quite traditional, but also sounding quite fresh. that’s what we wanted.
how was the recording?
it was good. it was really good fun actually. our record producer is amazing. he’s an absolut genius. i can’t really sing his praises high enough. i mean, he was an absolute inspiration. but you know, we had ups and downs you know and that kind of thing.
it was pretty long. we probably took to long over it in a way, we weren’t as focussed as we could’ve been or whatever. but you know it was fun. it was great. great experience. you know i mean to do a propper record. It was fucking amazing.
was it like you had imagined it to be? to make a first record?
not really. i thought... i mean yeah when we were in the band... i dont know how to put it really. but when i met these guys it already changed. i wouldnt have imagined it, to be in a band like this when i was younger. the way that we did it, the way we did the record. having so many different genres and really looking at every song like a different entity. and that was just the concept of it. yeah i dont know, i didnt know what to expect. I mean you dont know. i mean you, you just go in there and do a bit of work and get smashed. but its not really like that. its a lot of sitting around, a lot of listening back to stuff. and then thinking about doing it again. but it was cool. what was really good about it was, cause we had some money to do it from virgin, we got to use tape which is really cool. which we really really wanted to do, rather than recording onto computer. it was nice. and we got to use so many great guitars and amps. When we got in there we were like little kids in a candy shop. oh my god theres a 1970s (anmerk: fender telecaster guitar). Oh my god. we had these beautiful martin acoustic guitars and it was fucking amazing.
do you have a favourite song on the album?
mmh not really. i havent really listened to it that much on my own. do you know what i mean. like oh i love this song this is great. i think the one that came out the best for me is ooh la. cause that song, we pretty much wrote that while we were doing it. the recording of it was maybe the second or third time that we had ever played the song.
which of the songs did you write?
i pretty much wrote all of them except for the first and the last ones, which is seaside and got no love. and then matchbox, max and i wrote that together and time awaits max and i wrote it together. and paul wrote the first song seaside and max wrote the last song got no love.
what are you doing in the summer? will you go on festivals?
this summer? i got to say the coolest thing is, were doing the isle of wight pop festival. and were doin’ it on the same day as lou reed. so i’m quite unbelievably excited. i fucking love lou reed. so i’m just gonna die. cause in fact i’m gonna get to see him and gonna play on the same fucking stage. do you know what i mean? lou reed did a lot of work in berlin, didn’t he? him and david bowie, recorded some stuff?
could be dont know. any other festivals confirmed for you yet?
no not yet. I hope we get to play benicàssim (anmerk. FIB), i think it’s called, in spain. and i hope we get to play reading. i know glastonbury is not happening. We get to see some european ones, you know really.
are you a festival goer?
yeah, i mean i’ve been to quite a few in my time. but to be honest, im not to into the whole camping thing. I find it all a bit shit like. however much i wanna be a hippie, i can’t really do it. i just get really annoyed. i wanna have a shower, wanna brush my teeth, i don’t wanna have all this shit everywhere.
last question: tea or coffee?
haha, tea, but coffee, if its good coffee, theres nothing worse than bad coffee.
how do you like your coffee?
straight up. white, no sugar. i hate it when people have sugar in tea or coffee. i mean why, why ruin it. it’s weird. but then a lot of people think it’s weird to have milk in coffee. it’s just different folks.
we germans find it very weird to put milk in tea.
milk in tea, oh yeah. lovely. a bit of earl grey. you can’t beat a bit of english tea, biscuits. i got a song called tea and biscuits id like to take you out... sorry...
thank you for taking your time to do this interview.