Music

Rahav Segev for The New York Times

LADS ON THE LOOSE: Luke Pritchard, left, and Paul Garred.

LUKE PRITCHARD is an unlikely rock star. A self-proclaimed “awkward guy” with a trained voice and contempt for the trappings of stardom, he is not exactly textbook cool, yet it works.

The Kooks, the band he started in England with three friends from music school, have sold over a million copies of their debut album, “Inside In/Inside Out,” going triple platinum in Britain, and have opened for the Rolling Stones. Mr. Pritchard, 21, often finds himself trailed by schoolgirls too shy to actually approach him.

Yet while the rest of his band spent a recent day off in New York embracing rock history with a visit to CBGB hours before its demolition, their lead singer could be found ice-skating in Central Park.

Later that evening, Mr. Pritchard joked about how silly he must have looked. “I was ice-skating in my skinny jeans,” he said while dining at the seafood restaurant Lure Fishbar in SoHo with his drummer Paul Garred, who wore a pristine CB’s shirt. The band’s teenage guitarist, Hugh Harris, was hanging out at the Hudson Hotel with Pete Denton, who is filling in for the founding bassist, Max Rafferty, while he is on hiatus due to exhaustion.

Mr. Pritchard looked the part of a newly anointed British rock star with his Chelsea boots and thick mop of curls — until he removed his leather jacket and pointed out the duct tape over the brand label. “I’m embarrassed because it’s D&G, but I like the jacket a lot,” he said.

It’s this dichotomy of cool and uncool that makes his music so accessible. With songs about anxiety and impotence, Mr. Pritchard’s lyrical content tends to veer toward the paranoid, but when paired with lively melodies and catchy choruses in the vein of the Kinks, gloom and glee intermingle in a way that would make the Smiths proud.

“We’re like punks with morals,” Mr. Pritchard said. “Pacifist punks.”

“We cause destruction and then apologize immediately,” Mr. Garred continued with a laugh.

“Exactly,” Mr. Pritchard said. “We’re the kind of people who would trash a hotel room and clean it up afterward.”

The Kooks reside in Brighton, a southern seaside city known as London-by-the-Sea, and have no plans to make the expected move to the capital city. “Everyone in London thinks they’re wicked,” Mr. Pritchard said.

While sipping on hot sake, the men debated what to drink next. When Mr. Garred requested a Sapporo, the waitress asked Mr. Pritchard if he would like one, too.

“No, I’m not that hungry.”

“It’s a beer,” she said. “Sapporo.”

“Oh, is that a beer?” he replied, breaking into hysterics with Mr. Garred. “I thought you said tempura!” The laughter continued when moments later, Mr. Pritchard reached for what he thought was vinegar and doused a bowl of potato chips in soy sauce.

After dinner, they strolled over to Bleecker Street. “New York is cinematic; it’s like being in a movie,” said Mr. Pritchard, who was recognized six times on his first day in New York, not bad considering that the band’s album was just recently released in the United States.

The men met their bandmates and friends at the blues bar Terra Blues. Once inside, the Englishmen were awestruck by the seasoned American blues musicians in Moe Holmes and the Pioneers, and before long Mr. Pritchard was summoned to the stage. After proving himself with an acoustic version of one of his own tunes, he was backed by the band on the old blues song “Nobody’s Fault but Mine.”

His performance met with wild applause, prompting Mr. Holmes, who has played with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Ike and Tina Turner, to announce to the crowd, “Just remember you saw Luke here first.”