Power-pop trio Keane has had an extraordinary year since the release of their full-length debut, Hopes and Fears, last May. Although partial credit goes to a well-planned media strategy, Keane is also guilty of being extremely talented and terribly unique. More proof of this came on May 26th, 2005 when they were honored with Ivor Nouello Award as “Songwriters of the Year.” Keane has seemingly has been on tour non-stop and will spend the first half of this month supporting Regina Spektor and are then slotted to headline at six festivals before joining U2 for 5 shows.
Formed in Sussex England in 1997 by childhood mates, vocalist Tom Chaplin, drummer Richard Hughes, pianist Tim Rice-Oxley, and guitarist Dominic Scott, Keane was originally a cover band playing Beatles, Oasis, and U2 songs. However, neither doing other bands’ tunes nor having a guitar player lasted very long, “When we started out we were a standard four-piece. I was playing the bass and we had a guitarist. In 2001, disheartened by our many disappointments and general lack of progress, the guitarist gave up and left to do other things. After several long months trying to work out how to make music without him, we landed on the idea of me just playing piano,” explained Tim. “Piano is what I really like playing and what I write on, and it just seemed to make everything click into place. After that we never felt we needed a guitarist. I play bass on the record, so there’s still that lovely low end ‘grunt’.”
With the lineup firmly cemented, Keane (named after Cherry Keane, a longtime friend of Tom Chaplin’s family) began composing their own music. Initial influences such as the Beatles, U2, and the Smiths are easily spotted on the group’s debut, “I guess good songwriting has always been the key – both musically and lyrically,” says Tim. The band began to gig around London and gain a loyal cult following. One such pub was the 12 Bar Club where they caught the break they were waiting; Simon Williams from Fierce Prada Records caught the young act and quickly signed them, “Fierce Panda is Simon Williams’ label and it’s legendary for having discovered most of the biggest British bands around at present,” explained Tim.
The first order of business at Fierce Prada was to get a single out. Keane recorded “Everybody’s Changing” which was released in limited edition but was met with great optimism, “The opportunity to release 500 copies of a song was a huge step forward for us at a time when we were close to despairing. As it turned out, that song got on the radio and everything snowballed from there,” said Tim. With the buzz generated by the single, several labels were bidding for the young trio’s signatures, “It didn’t go to our heads. We knew that we had a long, long way to go before we could really say we’d achieved anything. But that sudden burst of interest meant that we could do a bit of touring and recording. That in turn led to a bigger deal with Island Records in England and Interscope in the States which in turn meant we could do bigger tours and record a proper album. After so many years of frustration we just saw all these opportunities as ways of making up for lost time, getting better as a band and making music the way we’d always dreamed of.”
Keane constructs grand sound-scapes and Tom Chaplin’s voice possesses a Bono-like falsetto. One thing that stands out above everything else are their sensitively penned lyrics, “All our songs are very personal and based on real experience. A lot of the songs are about people and the way we interact with each other. Some, example, ‘Bedshaped’ and ‘Somewhere Only We Know,’ are songs more about friendship and shared experiences rather than just love songs. I guess most of the strange things that have happened to us over the last few years have ended up in songs, and that’s the best way for us to express ourselves I think,” explains Tim.
Since the release of Hopes and Fears, Keane has joined the Brit-pop breakfast club and have been compared to Coldplay and Travis. “They’re both good bands but I don’t think the comparison stands up to scrutiny. If people listen to our whole record they’ll find songs like ‘Untitled 1’ and ‘Bedshaped’ that bear no resemblance to any of that stuff. Even tracks like ‘Bend and Break’ and ‘This Is The Last Time’ are more all-out rock than you’d hear from your average British indie band,” explained Tim, “We really don’t pay much attention to what other bands are doing, we just do what comes instinctively and I think we are doing things pretty different to anything else out there. I think as we develop over the coming months the gap between us and those other bands will become even more marked.”
Critics have pointed out that perhaps one reason for the bands’ success is the novelty of having neither a bass or a guitar player, “We know people commented on it in reviews, but a lot of people who have only listened to our records don’t realize until they read about us, so I guess it’s an easy talking point, but not actually that significant. We’d like to think people are drawn to our songs, but who knows?” said Tim.
Success in the states has come as a result of constant touring and unrelenting promotion but it is slowly paying off for the young band, “We’re still very new and we’re not falling into the trap of thinking we can ‘break America’ with a couple of tours and one song on the radio. A lot of British bands make that mistake. It’s a huge place full of great bands and it will take us years to get to all the towns we want to play in. We’re pleasantly surprised by how well it’s gone so far, but we’ll be working as hard as we can to get the songs out to as many people as we can. We really believe our music can mean something to people just as the music we love has changed our lives, so we’ll keep doing our best to make that connection all over America,” said Tim.
As for the future of Keane, they are gearing up to enter the studio and already have recorded a couple of tracks, “It’s such good fun being in the studio and working on new things, so we can’t wait. We know the second album can be really hard so we are going to take our time and only release it when it’s ready. We certainly want to make a better record, and a different one, rather than a sequel. We feel we have it in us to make something great, so we’re going to try,” explained Richard. “We feel so lucky, and yes it’s great to know your music is being heard far and wide, especially when you travel to places and talk to people who have really connected with the songs. That was always our hope – that our music could mean something really special to people.”
