Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson found jokes about the band "hurtful" after they were branded "very uncool".

The 46-year-old singer believes the group were considered "very cool" for a short period after shooting to fame in 2004 with their song 'Oh My God' and hit album 'Employment' the following year, but Wilson says they soon fell out of favour and became an "acceptable punching bag" and the criticism stung.

He told The Independent newspaper: "I think we were an acceptable punching bag ... We became quite big quite quickly, and we were having fun, and we wouldn’t bite back because we didn’t care ... I wasn’t ready for a lot of it [the criticism]. Some stuff was quite hurtful."

Wilson added: "We were very cool for a short period of time. And if you’re cool for a short time, then you’re very uncool after that. People will turn against you."

He explained one example came when a comedian was presenting the NME Award for Best Album and joked the prize was meaningless because the Kaiser Chiefs had previously won it - and Wilson admits he was irritated by the jibe.

He added: "He [the comedian] said it because he knew it was an acceptable joke, and that no one was going to complain about it.

"It annoyed me because even if you think our band’s [bad] it’s still an easy joke. We were an easy punch for a lot of people."

The singer went on to insist he believes the group never became big enough to sell out stadiums because they found it difficult to get past all the criticism. He explained: "I think to be the biggest band in the world, you have to really not care about people not liking you.

"And that’s why we never really broke into that stadium territory because I cared too much about people not liking me. If you’ve got balls of steel, you just push on through."