The Kooks are a British indie rock band.

The band formed at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, where they were all students. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Luke Pritchard got bassist Max Rafferty involved in a college project, which formed the base of the band. After getting lead guitarist Hugh Harris and drummer Paul Garred involved, they chose a band name from the 1971 David Bowie album “Hunky Dory”, entitled "Kooks". It should be noted that when Virgin tried to trademark the name, they found that in the late/mid 1990s a Swedish band by the same name released a single in Sweden called "Too Much of Nothing".

The Kooks released a debut EP and played Brighton's Free Butt festival, and were instantly signed to Virgin Records. Pritchard has claimed he wrote The Kooks' hit song "Naïve" when he was only sixteen years old, which after release catapulted the debut album, “Inside In/Inside Out” in the charts for more than half of 2006 in the UK Top 20, has sold more than million copies and attained triple platinum status. During a promo tour, the band refused to be interviewed on Channel 4's Popworld after presenter Simon Amstell made repeated references to Pritchard's ex-girlfriend, Katie Melua.

The group released “Inside In/Inside Out” and went on their first US tour in October 2006, selling out shows both in New York and Los Angeles.[3]. They also played at the Reading/Leeds festivals in the NME/Radio 1 Tent to a huge crowd; the crowd was so big they were forced to stop playing at one point so that security could tell people to move back as people were being crushed.

On August 24, 2007 The Kooks announced through their mailing list that they are heading into the studio with Tony Hoffer to work on tracks for the next record.

www.thekooks.co.uk