Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Dear Sunday – The Kooks, Inside In / Inside Out, (2006)
Dear Inside In / Inside Out,
I met you when a friend had your CD playing in their car. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight (or listen should I say) because it’s hard to feel that way about something you’ve just heard, and for me loving music comes from knowing a song inside in and (inside) out. Rather, I would say when I first heard the album I knew that it was something that I should invest in, something that would be worth taking the time to listen to and fall in love with.
I grew up learning your songs from YouTube tutorials before I even knew what chords were – and it wasn’t just to sing ‘Seaside’ to girls. I grew up watching live concerts of The Kooks, imagining what it would be like to do what they’re doing for a living. You have inspired us in more ways than you could imagine. We still jam out your songs ‘til this day. You can’t help but want to sing along to ‘Naïve’, and the crowd thinks the same every time we’ve thrown it in our set as a cover.
Recently, as a band, we were watching an interview with The Kooks that mentioned that this whole album, except for one song, was recorded on tape with no click. This blew our minds because, for us, the recording process has always been so systematic and rigid. It really does go to show that there are thousands of ways of doing things and there never is necessarily one best way to do things. They also mentioned that no one really knows what you are singing about in ‘Naïve’ which is so cool, because for us, and I’m sure lots of artists out there, we can be our own roadblock for writing lyrics at times. They mentioned; “Sometimes we just write words that sound good together, and then use that to form our song”. This really goes to show that you can analyse things as much as you want but sometimes things just work and you don’t know why but they just do. Music is crazy, weird and unexplainable and that’s why we love it.
I’d be lying if I said that you hadn’t influenced the way we approach music. Listening to you was like listening to the kind of music that we would want to make if we ever had the chance to. Catchy melodies, bright lead lines and the combination of Luke’s lead vocals and Hugh’s harmonies are all things that have greatly influenced the way we do things.
Thank you Inside In / Inside Out for everything you have done for us as a band. Thank you for the countless hours of entertainment and the unmeasurable amounts of inspiration that you have given me. You will always have a place in my heart and I can’t imagine you’ll be leaving that place any time soon at all.
Love, Dear Sunday
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