A rift between the Kooks and the Arctic Monkeys hasn't healed and both are set to play at the same Australian festival.
The feud began in 2007, when Luke Pritchard, lead singer with Brighton band the Kooks, claimed Alex Turner, of Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys, tried to sabotage his guitar leads.
Pritchard didn't take the attack too lightly. He retaliated, kicking Turner in the face.
In 2008 the fight went public, with abuse and vindictive comments flying between them in the British tabloids and online music blogs. In May 2008, while filming the video for their single Do You Wanna, Pritchard claims he tried to reconcile with Turner. ''I tried to patch things up with Alex … but he just turned his back and walked away. I suppose they are quite arrogant,'' he later told The Daily Mirror.
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Four years on and both bands are set to headline this summer's Falls Festival in Victoria and Tasmania. But the water is not yet under the bridge, the Kooks say.
''That band is very strange,'' lead guitarist Hugh Harris tells S. ''They are quite difficult people really, aren't they?
''We're a similar age … a lot of people find it quite interesting to compare us but they're not friendly.''
Yet when asked whether there is now competition between the bands, Harris nonchalantly replies: ''Sometimes, not always - it's not my kind of thing to get involved. If I wanted to compete, I would have become a sportsman. I don't really care what other bands think about each other.''
Of course, this is not the first time high-profile musicians have clashed. In the US, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain openly criticised Pearl Jam as ''commercial sell-outs'' in 1992, before his suicide in 1994 (they did, however, reconcile before his death). In the mid-1990s it was Brit-pop band Oasis v Blur after they both released a single on the same day in 1995.
In 2009 the outspoken Lily Allen told Elton John to ''f--- off'', saying: ''I am 40 years younger than you and have my whole life ahead of me,'' in front of a shocked audience at London's GQ Men of the Year Awards.
Closer to home, Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning was not impressed when, in 1999, Ben Lee boasted his album, Breathing Tornados, would be the ''greatest Australian album of all time''. Fanning famously called Lee a ''precocious little c---''.
Falls organisers say they are ''unaware'' of the Kooks' and Arctic Monkeys' colourful history. But they assure S a Sheffield v Brighton brawl is unlikely as the bands are to swap between the Lorne and Marion Bay festival sites. ''The only time they'll be near each other will be in the air,'' a spokeswoman says.
Perhaps that's not such a bad idea.
The Kooks album, Junk of the Heart is out on Friday. Arctic Monkeys and the Kooks will play at the Falls Festivals in Lorne (sold out) and Marion Bay. See fallsfestival.com for details.
Source : http://www.smh.com.au/
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