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Watch The Kooks' stripped-back performance of their Naïve single on Radio X
27 March 2026, 12:00
The Kooks - Naive (Radio X Live Session)
Celebrate 20 years since the release of the single with this delicate throwback performance.
It's been 20 years since Luke Pritchard and co unleashed their Naïve single on unsuspecting indie kids on 27th March 2006.
Whether you were busy wallowing over unrequited love or preferred to be out to-tapping on the dance floor, there's no denying the impact The Kooks had on teenagers in the 2000s.
Two decades later, and Naïve still manages to have a place on the airwaves as much as it does in people's hearts, so why not celebrate it with an extra-special version of the track from the band themselves?
Back in 2018, frontman Pritchard and lead guitarist Hugh Harris visited Radio X HQ for a session of tracks from Let's Go Sunshine, their album released on the same year, alongside some of their biggest hits.
One such track was this memorable ballad, which you can watch in these sumptuous visuals above...
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Inside In/Inside Out celebrated its 20th anniversary in January this year and Pritchard told Radio X what it meant to him.
The record was released on the very same day as Arctic Monkeys seminal debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and Monkeys record came in at a UK number one, with The Kooks just behind in at number two.
However, insists there was no competition because the bands were very different.
"I didn't really think too much about it because The Kooks weren't really meant to be as big as we were," he told Radio X. "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."
Instead Pritchard remembers a sort of mutual appreciation between the two bands, adding: "They'd come to our gigs and we'd go to their gigs. We kind of knew them."
He went on: "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.
"Like, 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."
Despite the band's vast differences, the 41-year-old rocker is "proud" to share the milestone and be part of that time.
"Now I look back at it and I feel really proud that we were, like, at the same time as them. It was a really great time for music. And I loved that record then. I love that record now. And it got loads of kids into guitar music at that time and still now.
"So I felt like a good kind of... like a brotherhood with them, you know. It's amazing to be part of that pantheon, really..."
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