The Kooks didn’t feel “particularly in competition” with Arctic Monkeys in their heyday, because they were “so different”.
Both groups released their debut albums, The Kooks’ Inside In/Inside Out, and Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, on the same day, January 23, 2006, but Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard has insisted his band didn’t compare themselves to the Teddy Picker hitmakers because The Kooks “weren’t really meant to be as big as [they] were”.
Speaking to Radio X, he said: “I didn’t really think too much about it because The Kooks weren’t really meant to be as big as we were.
“Like, we had a very small record deal. Everyone was talking about the Arctic Monkeys, like, no one really was talking about us, so we didn’t really feel particularly in competition.
“It’s funny now with the lens, you see it.
“It’s quite a similar scene, but I felt like we were so different.
“Like, at the time we were in such a different kind of space.”
Despite style similarities between the two bands, Luke insists Arctic Monkeys were performing “rock and roll rap”-like tunes, that were “very tough”, while his group focused on “warm” songs.
He added: “To me, it was almost like they were doing, like, rap music.
“It was like rock and roll rap, you know, and it was, like, very tough and, like, almost like industrial.
“Like, the record was really mixed, so industrial, that first one… and we were more warm.
“They’d come to our gigs and we’d go to their gigs. We kind of knew them.”
However, relations turned sour in 2008 when Luke kicked Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner in the face on stage.
He told the Daily Mirror newspaper at the time: “We have had a weird relationship with the Arctics since we first met.
“I had to kick Alex in the face after he tried to pull the leads out of my guitar pedals while we were on stage.
“I tried to patch things up with Alex but he just turned his back and walked away. I suppose they are quite arrogant.”
However, last year, Luke put the incident down to “crazy times”, and insisted there isn’t a “rivalry” between the two groups.
He told the Daily Mail newspaper: “On a personal level, there’s never been a rivalry.
“But I respect them, and I think they respect us. We come across them quite a bit, and it’s always fine.
“There was the ‘kick in the head’ – we were meant to tour with them around our first album, and it didn’t happen.
“They came down to our gig, and there was a bit of an incident. But again, it was all fun. It was crazy times, man.”
