Welcome to the Keaneshaped Keane FAQ. Thanks to everyone who's helped me with this; there's too many to mention, but the people on the messageboard have been brilliant :)
Some contents of this FAQ is now available in other languages:
Thanks for the translations guys!
Last updated:
Contact me: faq @ keaneshaped.co.uk
The basics
Who are Keane?The people
Do they have girlfriends?Technical questions
Does Tim sing at all?The music
What are the songs about?Online
Do the band have a myspace profile?Releases
What have they released?Artwork
What are the things on the cover of Hopes and Fears?Controversy
Do Keane hate the Darkness?Other
Have Keane won any awards?The basics
Tom Oliver Chaplin - Vocals, guitars, live keyboards (8th March 1979)
Tim James Rice-Oxley - Piano, keyboards, bass (2000-2007), guitar, percussion, backing
vocals (2nd June 1976)
Richard David Hughes - Drums, percussion, backing vocals (8th September 1975)
Jesse Quin is also listed in the album Perfect Symmetry for: bass, guitar (track 10), percussion, backing vocals.
For general info about Keane and a biography, see Keanemusic.com. There's also an interesting feature from early 2004 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3363889.stm.
James Sanger is credited with songwriting for Bedshaped, This Is The Last Time, Sunshine, She Has No Time, Walnut Tree and To The End Of The Earth. I believe in 2002, they went to James's studio at Les Essarts in the south of France, where they produced 12 demos which helped shape the Keane sound. According to the tab book, 15% of those songs are credited to "Chrysalis Music Limited" (as opposed to "BMG Music Publishing Limited" with whom Keane got a publishing contract in 2002), so I assume that's his cut!
Also, there used to be a guitarist named Dominic Scott, but he left the band in
July 2001. (Source)
As a 4piece, Tom played acoustic guitar as well as singing, and Tim featured on
bass! There are some pictures as evidence (!) on http://www.efestivals.co.uk/misc/reviews/keane010601.shtml and http://www.efestivals.co.uk/misc/interviews/keane010525.shtml.
At the band's headline slot at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park on 29th June 2005, Rufus Wainwright dueted on the song Try Again.
In November 2007, Jesse Quin played bass at the War Child concert (on Under Pressure) and also through the whole set at the Union Chapel, London.
Jesse Quin is credited on the album Perfect Symmetry for "bass, guitar (track 10), percussion, backing vocals"
The album Perfect Symmetry is the first time additional musicians have been used on record:
As children, they were looked after by a lady named "Cherry Keane". This was
eventually shortened to Keane.
TC: Why the name Keane?
Tim Rice-Oxley: We were sitting in this pub in Dublin waiting to play a gig and were
told that we needed a name. We hadn't actually gotten round to choosing one at that
point, it was just one of those things we kept putting off.
Anyway, we were all reminiscing about this old lady who used to look after us when we
were younger, her name was Cherry Keane. So in the end we decided to name ourselves
after her. Later on we decided to drop the 'Cherry' part and just be known as Keane.
We thought it was a magical name, we really liked it.
TC: So it has some significance then?
Tim Rice-Oxley:Yeah definitely. She was one of those people who really encouraged us
to follow our dreams and do the musical stuff we loved rather than worrying about
whether we were going to get 'proper' jobs. She was always really nice to us - even
when we sounded completely awful! She has a special place in our hearts.
The name "Keane" is pronounced the same as the English word "keen". Click here to hear the guys introduce the band and themselves.
"We grew up listening to The Beatles, Paul Simon, The Pet Shop Boys, Michael Jackson, Queen, and then got into U2, R.E.M, The Smiths, and Radiohead. I guess it's classic song writing that is the main influence rather than one band in particular - we love people like Nick Drake who can convey so much emotion and write songs and albums that will be loved and cherished for many years - the things that will be in people's record collections for their whole lives."
SourceYes, it seems there's a few artists... Keane - Keane - as you can probably guess from the pictures, this
isn't actually the Keane we know and love - sorry! Nor are Keane
Brothers - Keane Brothers or Keane Brothers - Today Tomorrow & Tonight.
Only what's listed on the Discography is truly by Rice-Oxley,
Chaplin and Hughes.
Tour information is available on the official site: http://www.keanemusic.com.
The people
Tim married around February 2005 in a low-key wedding, and Tom and Richard are reported in the media to have girlfriends - sorry girls.
"'Look,' he says, clearly offended. 'To be honest... the whole, sort of, girlfriends part of my life is not something I want to talk about. Why? It's private, that's why. And anyway, I'm the drummer in Keane. Why would anyone give a shit?'"
Richard, Q Magazine, January 2005.
You can read Tim's comment on the band's privacy here.
A word of warning - the boardies on the messageboard seem to take the same sort of stance, so you're unlikely to get an answer about details of any of the band's personal lives.
Colour - Tim - Green; Richard - Blue; Tom - Blue
Food - Tim - "i love greek and italian food, but i'll try anything. i
particularly like artichokes..."; Richard - "i love mushrooms and cheese,
often together."; Tom - "I'll eat plenty of anything but nothing beats a
hearty roast" (Source)
Tim is also apparently very fond of Macoroni cheese - 2/3rd cheddar. About 1/3rd
gruyere. A dash of English mustard as you thicken the sauce.
Cheese - Tim - Yarg; Richard - Gruyere; Tom - Stilton (Source)
Biscuits - Tim - custard creams; Richard - plain chocolate Hobnobs; Tom -
caramel digestive
"They're offering to buy the band some food. Eyes light up. Mars Bars and crisps
are ordered, while Rich gets barked at when he requests, quite camply, 'A Flake.' Tim
rolls his eyes ashamedly. 'These are our equivalent of drugs.'" (Source)
Technical questions
Between 2003 and 2007, Keane have used no guitars in their music - there are none on Hopes and Fears or Under The Iron Sea. The band have categorically stated this in many interviews, and the effects were created by using standard effects pedals and amplifiers.
Using guitars wasn't ruled out, because Tom's (Chaplin, singer) quite good at the guitar," keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley told NME.COM. "We were definitely envisaging the possibility of using a bit of guitar early on but we never got round to it."
Instead Rice-Oxley said the band became intent on experimenting with their piano-led set-up.
"I was touring around the world and, when I was on my travels, I picked up all these vintage cassette units and all these weird gadgets," he recalled. "When we got home and got in the studio, I realised that there was this whole world of sounds that no-one had ever really explored before.
"People are so obsessed with guitars, but putting an electric piano into a whole chain of effects and seeing what comes out is something that, as far as I know, no-one has ever done before."
He added that once the band had gone down this route six-stringed instruments didn't get a look in.
"We probably didn't ever consider becoming a guitar band again," Rice-Oxley explained. "We used to be a guitar band when we started and we've been there. The sounds on this record are really exciting and expressive of the lyrics and the music. I'm really excited about how far we can go with it."
SourceTom picked up an acoustic guitar again for the October 2006 UK tour for an acoustic version of Your Eyes Open, and at an Apple Store gig (12th December 2006) it featured on A Bad Dream and Is It Any Wonder. Throughout 2007, Tom has play acoustic guitar on many tracks - during Broken Toy it was a regular, and Tom has also played solo festival slots on acoustic guitar. He is yet to play electric guitar.
In January 2007, She Sells Sanctuary was the first recording to feature an acoustic guitar. Guitars have also been seen pictures of the forthcoming third album's recording sessions.
Tom and Tim played guitar on the album Perfect Symmetry, as did Jesse on Black Burning Heart.
Yes. (Let me know if you think you hear more!)
He's also been singing live since around October 2004.
Richard sings on the studio recording of Under Pressure, and also the album Perfect Symmetry. He also begun singing live in 2006.
Please note that this section is mostly centred around the 2004 setup, with some details from the 2006 setups. keanebackline.info promises a comprehensive guide to all gear over the years when it launches (but don't hold your breath ;))
Tim
Tim's main piano is a Yamaha CP70B Electric Piano. Click here for the CP70B manual. Other users of Yamaha CP70s have included U2, Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, John Paul Jones, Billy Joel and the Buggles (watch the video for Video Killed The Radio Star carefully). Tim has been known to use other very similar models, such as the CP70M for the Saturday Night Live performance. (Essentially the same, but with a MIDI output, 2 effects loops and active 7 band EQ). It's been revealed that Tim actually has 10 CP70Bs: 2 performances ones in US, 2 in UK; then 4 more for practice and recording, and 2 others for spare parts, including the original one.Richard
Richard uses a white Marine Pearl Yamaha "Maple Custom Absolute Nouveau" kit (12" rack tom, 14" and 16" floor toms, 13" snare, 22" kick) (Source), with Sabian HHX cymbals: 14" groove hats, 21" dry ride and 18" crash; as well as a hand hammered 17" crash, a groove wedge and a tambourine. (Source). He also has used other kits for American tours, and a variety of 'shaker' percussion for acoustic shows.
As of 2006, it appears the tambourine has moved to Richard's left, above a new third floor tom. There is also a new type of Yamaha drum mic (thanks Tom!).
Tom
Studio and live setups
Studio setup - Andy Green (album producer/engineer/programmer) was interviewed for Sound on Sound magazine's August 2004 issue: click here for a transcript. This excellent article tells of the recording process in some detail and is 'geek heaven' (describing the type of tapes used for recording, microphones and setups used).
Live setup - For Tom and Tim's vocals, Sennheiser e935s are used. Also, Sennheiser e604s and e602s are used on the toms, e614s on overheads and hihats, and an e609 on the tambourine. Also used are a Shure 57 on snare top, Beta 57 on snare bottom, and a (Shure Beta?) 91 and Sennheiser 421 on kick. (Source). Click out that link for more information about the Front Of House and monitor setups.
As the observant of you may have noticed, there's an Apple Powerbook G4
computer (Titanium model) sitting to Tim's right (running the software package Logic Pro) which
plays samples, which have been recorded in advance. These are usually strings,
keyboard bass or bass guitar (all played by Tim), and the synth 'noises' such as
those found in Everybody's Changing.
In order for the band to stay in time with the computer, there has to be a click
track metronome (high and low congos) - imagine someone clapping along to every Keane
song all the way through. Tim, Richard and now Tom are equipped with earpieces to be
able to hear this (the Sennheiser ew300 G2 system if you're interested!). The giant
plectrum shaped object near Tim is a transmitter for his in-ear monitor.
They use the equipment in the above question, and have in the past sometimes used a
Fender 'The Twin' guitar amp as a piano monitor. The amp is miked up and this sound
is mixed with the sound straight from the piano, to produce the 'live piano' sound.
(As seen in the Everybody's Changing video and photo shoots)
For Keane, two PowerBook G4 systems and Logic Pro do double duty as live instruments, playing anywhere from 8 to 24 audio tracks per song. But running Logic Pro in a live setting poses unique challenges for programmer and technician Geoff Kakoschke. For maximum flexibility, Kakoschke builds each song separately using Rice-Oxley's original, pre-album Logic Pro tracks.
"Because I'm using Tim's original audio files," explains Kakoschke, "I decided I didn't want to get to the end and go, 'Right - that's the mix. It's set in stone.' I do all of my processing in real time. I use the Overdrive plug-in a lot to create valve warmth. There's also at least one PlatinumVerb in every song. And then there's a ton of automation to keep the parts - especially the bass parts - coming in and out nice and clean. Because of the power of the program and the power of the hardware we're running it on, doing everything in real time is great. And it means I can change something if I want to - at a second's notice."
Using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to control Rice-Oxley's onstage setup from his offstage PowerBook G4, Kakoschke loads the show. "We have a few acoustic moments where I load the songs in sets. For each set, the songs come up and we just switch between them. The songs are saved in such a way that they automatically go in the order they're meant to be, on the screen where they're meant to be."
As for the dual-PowerBook configuration he has devised, Kakoschke explains that "unlike a master-slave relationship, they're running completely independently - two systems running in sync, but unaware that the other exists. So we have this facility that if a system does have a problem, I can just hit the other system and on it goes."
As a notable exception, Tim played electric bass for the 12th December 2006 Apple Store gig (Regent Street, London, UK) - available on iTunes UK.
"In addition to its live audio acrobatics, Keane tours with an accompanying video show played back via a Power Mac G5 running High End System's Catalyst Pro 3.3. "This system allows me to control video playback directly from the lighting console," says video and lighting technician Rob Sinclair. "That way, I keep the video in sync with all my lighting cues."
Both Sinclair and filmmaker Corin Hardy, who created all the original video content, used Final Cut Pro and Compressor to edit and compress for projection. And for upcoming tour dates, Sinclair is using Motion to prepare new graphics."
The projections for the Hopes and Fears tour were created and directed by Corin Hardy. The 'egghead man' and shadow puppets were created by David Lupton.
The music
"I find the fact that the guitar has taken over quite weird. The piano's been around for hundreds of years in various forms and the guitar has been around a much shorter time so it's quite strange that it dominates popular music to such an extent.
In the current climate, you get bands like Ben Folds Five - they use piano an awful lot, Hope of The States have a piano live, Coldplay obviously. Piano is there, it's just not the focus.
Guitar has got to such a point where you get the three boys from Busted all doing the jump up in the air at the same time, and I certainly find that some of the people at our gigs are relieved that there isn't someone jumping up at the start of the chorus doing the classic Pete Townshend move! It's not a statement, and we'll probably end up using guitars at some point. It's just the way that works for us, we've just evolved into this way - we did actually have a lead guitarist, but he left the band."
SourceTom also used to play guitar in the previous lineup, as did lead guitarist Dom Scott. He picked up an acoustic guitar again for the October 2006 UK tour, for an acoustic version of Your Eyes Open, and at an Apple Store gig (12th December 2006) it featured on A Bad Dream and Is It Any Wonder.
Lyrics are available from http://keaneshaped.co.uk/disco.
There is piano sheet music available for Hopes and Fears from Amazon and also Somewhere Only We Know from musicroom.com.
However, simple tabs for every released Keane song ever are still available for free, from http://keaneshaped.co.uk/tabs.
Although Tim writes the basis for all songs, each member adds their own style to their parts - they have all been credited in all releases so far! (Rice-Oxley, Chaplin, Hughes). Tom has alluded to producing a solo album in the future on a number of occasions.
Online
Yes! The band's official myspace is http://www.myspace.com/keane.
http://forum.keanemusic.com. Sign up, and say hi in "We Might As Well Be Strangers"!
http://keane.trinitystreetdirect.com has some,
although it's slightly cheaper at gigs (no P&P!). Merchandise will almost always
be available where Keane are playing.
As a general rule of thumb, only stuff made by Sandbag (or its Keane section, "Rag
and Bone Clothing") is official. If you use touts you're getting probably inferior
goods which aren't helping out the band - you've been warned!
Releases
See the Keane discography at http://keaneshaped.co.uk/disco.
These albums are fan-make fake releases of various Keane songs. Bootlegs. Pirate CDs. Illegal albums. They are not officially approved or endorsed by the band and record labels. Please be aware that by downloading them, you are committing music piracy.
On both collection, the majority of tracks are available for download - please see the discography for links to legally download the songs in high quality.
Please note that the track 'The Theft Of Octo' is simply The Iron Sea played backwards, and not a new song.
Highest UK chart positions: May 03 - Everybody's Changing - did not chart (although BBC reported 122) Oct 03 - This Is The Last Time - did not chart (ineligible due to web links) Feb 04 - Somewhere Only We Know - 3 Apr 04 - Everybody's Changing - 4 May 04 - Hopes And Fears - 1 Aug 04 - Bedshaped - 10 Nov 04 - This Is The Last Time - 18 May 06 - Is It Any Wonder? - 3 Jun 06 - Under The Iron Sea - 1 Aug 06 - Crystal Ball - 20 Oct 06 - Nothing In My Way - 19 Jan 07 - A Bad Dream - 23 Oct 07 - The Night Sky - did not chart (ineligible due to a free poster with 7" and a competition) Aug 08 - Spiralling - 23 Oct 08 - Perfect Symmetry - 1 Oct 08 - The Lovers Are Losing - 52 Dec 08 - Perfect Symmetry - did not chart
For complete chart runs, see the Discography.
Yes! As well as loads of unofficial fan remixes, here are those which have been officially approved by the band.
The track "On A Day Like Today" was omitted from many international releases of Hopes and Fears, so that Universal could label the UK edition as a "Special Edition" of the album. The band however consider "On A Day Like Today" to definately be a part of Hopes and Fears! Thus if you've bought Hopes and Fears in the UK but it doesn't have the track on, or a sticker, then it's probably been cheaply imported. The track can be downloaded from 7Digital.
The track "The Iron Sea" was omitted from many international releases of Under The Iron Sea, so that Universal could label the UK edition as a "Special Edition" of the album. The band however consider "The Iron Sea" to definately be a part of Under The Iron Sea!
However, the song "The Iron Sea" does feature after the end of track 7 (Put It Behind You) on international versions, although is not listed in the tracklistings.
It has no vocals, although some websites mistaken list the lyrics for "Beyond The Sea" by Bobby Davrin ("Somewhere beyond the sea").
There are rough estimates for each item in the Discography section.
Yes - please see http://keaneshaped.co.uk/disco.
The band released their Strangers DVD on 14th November 2005 in the UK, and on the 22nd November in the USA. You can find more information about the DVD in the Discography section.
A number of short DVDs have already been released featuring the videos from the Hopes and Fears singles campaign - such as the This Is The Last Time DVD, German Bedshaped DVD (also sent out in a competition for those who bought the Live Recordings 2004 EP), various Far Eastern versions of the album, and a USA Dual Disc version of Hopes and Fears.
The Keane Live recording of their 2007 O2 Arena, London show was released in 2007.
A recording of their Keane Curate A Night For War Child is to be released in 2008.
Simply press "Enter" on your remote (or keyboard if you're viewing on a computer) to turn on the interactive menu. The options change every chapter and you can select the various videos and extras from here.
Disc 1| Chapter | Song | Up | Left | Right | Down |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Sunshine | Live | With Or Without You (radio session) | Backstage (Brixton feature) | |
| 3 | Tom | Tim | Richard | Photo Archive | |
| 4 | Dom | Hope and Anchor | |||
| 5 | Somewhere Only We Know | Live | Video [UK] | Video [US] | |
| 6 | After The Gig (Cochella) | ||||
| 7 | Can't Stop Now | Live | About Song | ||
| 8 | She Has No Time | Live | Live Visuals | About Song | |
| 9 | Your Eyes Open | Live | About Song | ||
| 10 | This Is The Last Time | Live | Video | Making Of | About Song |
| 11 | Allemande | Live | Tom's voice | Drumming | |
| 12 | Songwriting |
| Chapter | Song | Up | Left | Right | Down |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Snowed Under | Live | |||
| 2 | Bedshaped | Live | Video | Making Of | About Song |
| 3 | We Might As Well Be Strangers | Live | Live Acoustic | Live Visuals | About Song |
| 4 | On Nick Drake | ||||
| 5 | Bend and Break | Live | TV Ad 1 | TV Ad 2 | TV Ad 3 |
| 6 | On A Day Like Today | Live | Gallery | ||
| 7 | Everybody's Changing | Live | Video [UK] | Video [US] | About Song |
| 8 | Backstage (at Brits) | ||||
| 9 | Hamburg Song | Live | About Song | ||
| 10 | Ivor Novellos | ||||
| 11 | Try Again | Duet (Rufus feature) |
For information about the videos, montages of what they look like, and where to find them, see the Videography section.
Keane fans from the internet messageboard have produced two fanzines.
Artwork
Although they might look like golf clubs or microphone stands, the objects on the
cover are actually piano hammers. There's also a nice animation here, and FAQ about pianos here.
The different regions of the world have different colour covers:
This artwork was designed by Alex Lake, who has produced a lot of the artwork for Keane, and been at countless gigs doing photos.
For Under The Iron Sea, a font was designed especially for Keane. Click here to download a fan version of the font (upper case only). Click here to download another fan version of the font (thank to Allan in Guatemala!).
The 'simple thing' aliens were created by the video director Corin Hardy, but were based upon the 'kodamas' from the anime film "Princess Mononoke" - see here for apicture of the origials!
"Q: What is Kodama, the white little creature?
Kodama means "echo" (its literal meaning is a "tree spirit"). However, since its name
is written in Katakana, not in Kanji, it could also mean "small ball" or "small
spirit". They (there are many, in various sizes and shapes) are a kind of spirit who
live in the forest. Although Kodama (a tree spirit) appears in many Japanese
folktales, Kodama as a little white creature is Miyazaki's creation."
Controversy
No. Here's the story in full...
"A BATTLE of the bands is raging today, after the singer of super group Keane described top of-the-bill The Darkness as a 'joke'.
Tom Chaplin insisted that people who go to see Justin Hawkins' sensational band will be 'embarrassed' to admit that they were fans in a few years.
Speaking exclusively to The Razz, Tom said: 'I'll be trying to catch lots of bands at T in the Park but not The Darkness. I don't want to be too controversial. I'm not a Darkness fan. I just think that in a few years people will look back and say: 'God, do you remember whenwe loved The Darkness?' and find it embarrassing.
'I'd rather watch Spinal Tap,' he said. 'It's funnier. It's a shame The Darkness take themselves so seriously. Unfortunately, they are just a novelty act. I hear they are impressive live, but they are not a band who speak to me. I wonder what they can do next. I would love to see them make a complete departure musically because they are not breaking any barriers. You just can't imagine their sound going somewhere.
He added: 'Being a real music fan, there are so many great bands. It was interesting at Glastonbury watching an awe-inspiring guy like Paul McCartney playing. His singing was brilliant. He was fantastic. I can't imagine me feeling that way if I go to see The Darkness.'
'I'm a bit tired of being diplomatic and guarded about stuff. Everyone, including us, is entitled to an opinion. It's not a personal slur on Justin Hawkins, but it is just not music that speaks to me in any sort of way. As far as the outfits are concerned, what you make of them is a matter of opinion. You won't see us in Spandex.'"
Source"What are those public schoolboys like? We used to call namby-pambys like that bedwetters - but now they've taken it to a whole new league.
Keane are now more sheet-soilers than bedwetters and play music to suck your thumb to. I did try to have a word with their lead singer about all this but I just couldn't get his dummy off him - he has a very strong grip you know."
Source"i'm afraid this is just a tabloid trying to get a bit of scandal going, and talk of any rivalry between us and the darkness is just utter bollocks so i suggest you guys ignore it. they're one of the most entertaining bands to emerge for years, and their current popularity is a testament to that. and anything that gets people out to see gigs is good news. we also have a lot of respect and sympathy for the band because, like us, they had to spend years and years working and waiting before anyone paid them any attention. however i think it's pretty apparent that we're into completely different styles of music from them (apart from, is suspect, a shared love of early queen!), and so it's hardly suprising that tom should say that those songs don't move him as much as some other music does. anyone who says they adore every single band out there is blatantly lying. and as for the future, it goes without saying that any band has to develop and change if they're going to stay relevant and keep suprising people....and at the moment the darkness' appeal is so rooted in a particular style that it's hard to guess where they'll go next. but it was hard to guess how u2 would develop after the joshua tree, and they came back with achtung baby. and personally i hope for the sake of the music scene as a whole that the darkness do stick around, because we need bands like that just as much we need keane or dr dre or norah jones or slipknot or aphex twin. it's a shame some people struggle to appreciate the grey areas between loving a band and hating them, but i guess that sort of possessiveness and agression has long been a part of music fandom. frankly i think there's enough aggression in the world just now without bands (and their fans) turning on each other. and, as we've said in many interviews, we're very proud of the fact that keane fans don't subscribe to that attitude. anyway that's what i think, and as far as we as a band are concerned that's the end of it. love from tim"
SourceThis comment was later picked up by the NME (claimed to be an 'exclusive', even though it was word-for-word the same as the above).
"Keane apologised for insulting The
Darkness recently. Do you accept their apology?
Justin: "They didn't insult us anyway. We just didn't like their music and that's
fine. [I presume they meant "They just didn't like our music and that's fine" -
Chris] I actually quite enjoyed the singles that we heard to be honest. I heard
a few songs on the radio and it is very difficult to make a judgement on a band
based on their singles. But they [are] alright. Poppy Radiohead."
No.
KEANE star TIM RICE-OXLEY has accused THE LIBERTINES of lying about their "rough background" to improve their rock and roll image.
The BEDSHAPED pianist and his bandmate TOM CHAPLIN went drinking with Libertines stars CARL BARAT and GARY POWELL and were shocked by their polite and sophisticated demeanour.
And Rice-Oxley is still furious about the troubled band's dishonesty, and insists fans respect Keane because unlike The Libertines, they are honest enough to admit they're from a white, middle-class background.
He fumes, " I think we show more guts and honesty by being ourselves. One in ten bands you meet are probably middle class kids who got into music for the same reasons we did. Some people lie and say they grew up on a rough estate when they didn't.
"And the white, middle-class media buys it. A band like The Libertines are no rougher in terms of background than we are.
"Me and Tom went out in Japan with Carl and Gary from The Libertines. People who read the music press wouldn't believe that could be true. But it is. They're very nice people who weren't smoking crack."
Source"i would like to point out that this is indeed a badly written tabloid story, featuring a variety of inaccurate, out-of-context, misattributed and fictitious quotes. i've never met any of the libertines and i would never call them 'middle-class liars'. please ignore this bullshit story and tell any libertines fans you know to do the same! merry christmas all. tim"
SourceNo. Check out the following messageboard post from Tim, in response to an article in the Guardian (Friday 8th July 2005) claiming the band were styled.
Dear everyone,
We're pretty angry about the article in The Guardian today by Alexis Petridis in which he bizarrely chooses to use Keane as an illustration of how all bands today are manufactured.
Even though most people in the media have been extremely kind to us in the last couple of years, we've nonetheless become used to the odd poor review and snide comment. Generally our approach is to try to ignore all media coverage of the band, good and bad, and get on with playing gigs and writing songs. However, when someone chooses to present as the truth a series of lies and wild inaccuracies about the way we are as people and as a band, we feel unable to just sit here and shrug our shoulders.
Mr Petridis' account of how our band has been shaped and polished by image consultants, media trainers and stylists is so stupidly inaccurate as to actually be vaguely amusing. It's hard to tell whether his story is founded on some inexplicable malice or merely incompetent research, but he has certainly been very creative. The suggestion that Moving Brands had anything to do with creating an image or ethos for the band is offensive and ridiculous. The idea that we might have been sat down to conduct mock interviews is bordering on hilarious. Our one tentative brush with someone who brought us free clothes to wear felt so awkward and uncomfortable that we vowed never to do it again. Finally, Alex lake is not an employee of Moving Brands, nor is he any kind of image consultant; he is a trusted friend, sometime roadie and independent photographer who has taken many excellent shots of the band and with us has designed most of our record sleeves.
The journalist's conclusion that many so-called indie bands are in fact manufactured products may well be correct for all I know. However, Keane is not one of those bands. I doubt there are many bands out there who have less to do with the strange world of manufactured pop than us. I doubt there is any band out there that has more complete artistic control and independence in everything it does. I don't know of any band out there that has waited and worked for longer to have its moment in the spotlight. And I don't understand how a supposedly music-loving journalist can whinge about the lack of integrity in British music and at the same time bemoan the success of a band of childhood friends that writes intensely personal songs, controls all its artistic output, and rejects styling or branding of any kind. Our image, if we have one, has been shaped only by me, Tom and Richard and the songs we write.
SourceOther
Yes! As well as many smaller awards and countless nominations, Keane have picked up:
Mansers Shaw (as mentioned in Snowed Under) is a place in Battle, of Battle of Hastings fame (at the time it was empty fields, but William built the Battle Abbey to celebrate his victory). It is one of the supposed locations of the Malfosse - a part of the Battle of Hastings after King Harold's death where the Saxons killed quite a few Normans and almost won the battle. Mansers Shaw was even called Malfosse as an alternative name until the early part of the last century.
Some of the members of the messageboard have been on 'pilgrimages' there (myself included!) - Click here to read Dave's account.
There's also some pictures - thanks very much to Dave!
Picture 1, picture 2, picture 3,
picture 4, picture 5, picture
6
On 22nd August 2006, the band's official site (keanemusic.com) released this statement:
Following last week's announcement that Tom has been diagnosed with exhaustion, he has admitted himself into a private clinic.
Tom said, "I've been having to deal with an increasing problem with drink and drugs, and the time has come to get the professional help I need to sort myself out. I feel desperately disappointed to be letting down our fans, but I want to get myself right now so that I can be back on the road for the rest of the year."
As a result, the band will be taking a break from touring and some US dates will be postponed.
All subsequent dates for August 2006 amd the September/October 2006 USA tour were cancelled. The band made their return to huge critical and fan acclaim in Hull, UK on 17th October 2006.
Although recreational alcohol/cannabis use has been alluded to previously in interviews, this was the first official statement on the matter.
