The Kooks have been a name synonymous with indie rock for over a decade.

Having broken on to the scene in 2006 with their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out, hits such as She Moves In Her Own Way and Naive shot them to the centre of the mainstream and they haven’t looked back since.

It would be tough to say that their star is as high in the sky as it was in those early days but The Kooks have made a habit of churning out consistently solid indie rock for more than ten years.

On August 31 the band will release their fifth studio album, Let’s Go Sunshine.

It will be their first album since 2014’s Listen.

The band are currently out on the festival circuit, ahead of the album’s release, with new songs going down a treat.

“I love playing festivals, I think there’s something super vibey about it,” says frontman Luke Pritchard.

“I’m getting on a bit now though, the travel does take its toll. When I go to Heathrow the woman at the counter will be like ‘you guys are back again’, they always recognise us.”

Despite their packed schedule, Luke has still taken the time to talk about their upcoming release.

The excitement in his voice is clear when he is talking about the music – there are even some incredibly happy expletives that I’ve had to omit from the text, but it all helps give the impression that the band are ready and raring for these songs to be heard.

It’s been a long four years in the making, having had a selection of songs almost fully in the bag, before deciding to scrap them and go for something entirely new.

The singer says the decision was made to give the band a chance to look what they were doing and where they wanted to go with it.

He said: “The thing with this record is that we took our time, we made some moves, we had a chat with ourselves and asked what we’re about. It was a bit of a philosophical debate on why we’re doing this and what we were trying to do.

“We all just wanted to make a real band record, go against the grain. If you were to switch on the radio you’d see that guitar music isn’t as popular with a lot of people, they’re trying to tell you which way to go, but we wanted to make a bit of a stand.

“I don’t think there’s going to be another record like it this year. It’s the album to get if you love great British band music.”

It is clear to hear that when Luke talks about making a “real band record” he wants to veer away from what mainstream pop and rock sounds like.

There is a definite argument to be made that chart music has become stagnant and some might say most chart music does tend to sound fairly similar.

For Luke and the band it seems that scrapping their original work gave them a new lease of life and made the process of writing far better.

“It was good stuff, I still think it’s good, but it just wasn’t The Kooks,” Luke says about the material that was set aside.

He adds: “We wanted to make a massive band album, so that’s when the sessions started.

“The songs just flowed, once we made that sort of vision the songs started coming.

“We’re a Britpop band, what we wanted to do on this album is point to Oasis, The Kinks, Blur.

“It is what it says on the tin.”

Listening to some of the band’s older material, like 2014’s Listen and 2010’s Junk Of The Heart, it seems that there was a tendency to veer away from the signature sound that had made them a household name in the mid-2000s.

Luke admits that while it was nice to change things, the group ultimately felt it was time to go back to what they knew and what they felt they should sound like.

“We changed the recording process on Listen, it was a healthy thing, but it’s what you feel.

“If we felt like we were doing great stuff on that trajectory then we would have continued on it.”

The change of direction clearly worked.

Let’s Go Sunshine is 15 songs that hark back to the days of Inside In/Inside Out.

Any fan of vintage Kooks will be into this album, as Luke can testify.

“They feel like songs that we’ve been playing for ten years,” he said.

“No Pressure has got a bit of Beatles or Beach Boys in it, it’s very us.

“When I wrote it I felt like I could have written it for our first album.

The intensity and vigour that Luke talks about the songs with shows exactly how excited he is for the album to drop.

There is one song in particular which Luke has a personal connection to.

Honey Bee is the ninth song on the album, and it is one with a beautiful backstory.

“I basically took a song that my dad wrote in the 70s. I was jamming it in the studio and the guys thought it was my song, but my dad wrote it,” says Luke.

“My dad died when I was a kid, so he’s not around, but what I did was put his vocals into the second verse. It’s quite cool, it’s a duet with my dad, it’s a nice moment.

“It was really weird singing along with him.”

It’s tough to imagine how that must feel, but it is sure to make for a mind-blowing song, especially when you know the story behind it.

To celebrate the release of the album, the band also announced a string of intimate shows and it would be hard for them to do that without returning to the county they were founded in.

With roots firmly planted in Brighton, the band are also considered hometown favourites of the Sussex coast.

Luke, along with guitarist Hugh Harris and drummer Paul Garred all studied at the BRIT School in Croydon, before moving to Brighton to study at BIMM.

There they met original bassist Max Rafferty and formed The Kooks.

Having played many hometown shows in the city, this time the band are going a bit further out.

They hit the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on September 10, a show Luke is particularly looking forward to.

“I’ve not played there before so I’m very excited for that, I’ve heard really good things about it,” he said.

“We really wanted to look at places that are a bit outside the norm, but I’m sure we’ll be back in Brighton soon enough.”

It is the talk of being back in Brighton soon that stirs the most excitement.

For a group with such a history in the city, a hometown show is always that little more special.

Luke also hopes to have time to have a look around the city.

He said: “I don’t live in Brighton any more but we have roots in Brighton. I think Brighton is a really special city, and I get these waves of memories from it.

“Because we’re thought of as a Brighton band it is always a little more special when we plays shows there.”

As Luke departs, maybe to get on another plane, or just to enjoy a bit of down time, it’s obvious that the rest of this year is going to be busy for the band that took their first steps on the Sussex coastline.

Whether you buy the new album, see them in Bexhill, or both, you’ll be seeing a revitalised Kooks, ready to storm the world once again.