DANCEY. SEXY. FUNKY. Despite the diverse array of descriptions of Keane's music to date it is unlikely that many reviewers would ever choose those three words. However, as we approach the release of their third album Perfect Symmetry, they are the exact words Tim Rice-Oxley uses to describe the band's new material to Keane Backline. "I think the songs do make you want to move - they're quite sexy in that respect and quite pop, which isn't something you could say about many of our previous songs... if any really!" he laughs.
Backline met up with Tim for lunch at a trendy south-east London eatery, to discuss some of the more technical aspects of the band and to gain an insight into what has been going on during the sessions for the third album. The band haven't been giving too much away on exactly what they've been crafting in the studio, but the signs point to a departure from their previous work. "I think this album is more different from Under the Iron Sea than Under the Iron Sea was from Hopes and Fears," says Tim thoughtfully. "But it's always hard to tell when you're in the band; you're so close to it. There are definitely songs on there that are closer to the first two albums - there's a sort-of 'sliding scale' of songs, from quite Keane-esque to totally different to anything we've done before."
This statement certainly seems to be borne out by some of the audio clips that have been chopped around on updates to the band's official website. The piano is still very much in evidence, but it has been joined by a number of other instruments - some of which are quite unexpected. While previous album Under the Iron Sea mirrored the band's own internal strife by sailing into much darker and grittier sonic territory, the third album seems like it will take an altogether-different path.
"Under the Iron Sea was defined by the CP70 piano going through lots of effects - that was the sound of that album. I've hardly done any of that this time, actually," Tim notes. "There's maybe a couple of examples of it, but this time it's a much more 'classic' sound. I bought a little piano a few months back - it's what they'd call a 'school piano'. We've been using that to record a lot and I really like it - it sounds really Beatles-y, an A Day In The Life type of sound. I just love the sound of that and combined with the analogue and digital synth stuff, it's a really nice blend that you don't hear that often."
Of course, using synthesizers in itself is nothing new for Keane; they have played an important role for the band since the departure of guitarist Dominic Scott in 2001, with most songs featuring at least a couple of synth parts. The difference with this album seems to be that many of the synth parts will be heard in the foreground, rather than just providing layers of sound below the surface. "The synth stuff has always been there, though it's never been a big part of what we've released," Tim agrees. "I think this is a much synthier album, though it's not an electro album - most of the songs are routed in real drums and in real bass... there's only a few with synth bass. So again it's very kind of late 70's Bowie - recording the basic tracks in a very real way, then just adding lots of synth on top. There's just such a variety of sounds and ideas, so I hope it sounds like something that's very much our own, but has all these influences and ideas from different styles of music."
So, it's still Keane - but with many new and interesting twists. One of those twists that has become apparent as the album sessions have progressed, and one which still proves to be divisive among fans, is the use of guitars on the new album. The thought of the six-string invading the piano world of Keane has filled a number of fans with dread, while it remains to be seen how the general media (who have often revelled in Keane's guitar-free status, if only to lambast them for it) will react to it. Tim appears a little perplexed that the use of guitars on the album should be perceived as a problem.
"It's weird, really... we've always said that we didn't deliberately make ourselves into that piano band. I think it worked really well for us - an easy pigeon-hole for people to identify you by, which is kinda good when you're starting out I suppose. But if you then make that your defining characteristic it then becomes a weight around your neck really," he says. In contrast to the consternation expressed from outside, Tim himself seems genuinely enthused by the use of guitars. "There's some really good guitar stuff! There's one particular fat guitar riff which is great, but then I hope that we've done all of these things in a slightly different way - really interesting sounds, rather than just using guitar for the sake of it, or for the sake of being different in the context of Keane. I think the sounds would be really interesting for any band."
Interesting indeed, and not only for the use of the guitar itself -Tom has played guitar at various points throughout the sessions - but also for the fact that Tim himself has been plucking and strumming on both acoustic and electric guitars. "Yeah, I've played quite a lot of guitar!" he says excitedly. "I mean, I'm bloody awful at it, but my theory is that when you first pick up an instrument, that's often when the best ideas come out - you make the most of your limitations. My guitar playing is not very good at all, but I can sit there for as many hours as it takes, playing round the same eight bars or something - whatever it takes to come up with a great riff... I've done quite a lot of that. Also little kinda percussive parts on the guitar, that maybe a normal guitarist wouldn't bother doing."
As Tim describes the many new things they've been trying, a palpable sense of excitement surrounding the third album really comes across. It sounds like a conscious attempt to push themselves outside of the comfort zone musically, even if it means directly challenging people's preconceptions of the band and the roles of its members.
"You know, I get quite bored of playing the CP70 sometimes!" Tim chuckles. "It's fun to do something different and challenge yourself. I think just turning to different instruments and working with different ideas makes you think in a different way, and I think all of us have really benefited from that... and the record has really benefited from that. You can feel the energy, enthusiasm and the novelty value of it all - it really comes through on the songs and I don't think we've ever really achieved that before. We've never captured that sense of fun, probably because it wasn't really there to be captured, certainly not on the second record! That's the best thing about it for me."
Having watched the album recording process from the outside over the course of the past 6 months, it's easy to see that sense of fun and experimentation that Tim talks about; almost every aspect of it seems different to the way they'd went about recording Under The Iron Sea, with everyone on the same side and being energised about the band again. They are now enjoying the experimentation of the album sessions, with the creative juices flowing freely again after the trauma of coming back from the brink during 2006.
"I think we've all been much more involved from an early stage in the songs, and I think the songs themselves have also generated much more enthusiasm," he glows. "We've also benefited from having a few months of not touring at the end of 2007 (apart from the War Child and Union Chapel gigs), so we just had a bit of a break. I was writing a lot of songs, but we weren't on top of each other all the time... everyone just seemed very excited about the new songs and we wanted to get stuck into them."
One of the major developments this time around has been having The Barn - a converted farmhouse in the Sussex countryside that acts as a central hub for the band, providing a location to record in and work on song ideas without the pressure or expense of a dedicated recording studio, while also providing a space to store the ever-increasing amounts of instruments they have. Additionally the band have been travelling around to record for the album, visiting Paris for a couple of weeks at the beginning of the year, followed by two separate jaunts to Berlin. "Having The Barn has been great, then having a couple of weeks in Paris, then a couple of weeks in Berlin, then coming back to The Barn for a bit before going back to Berlin - not getting stuck in a rut has been really good," Tim reveals.
We asked Tim if the freedom to take things at their own pace has allowed for more creative freedom, as well as the freedom to move forward without worrying about the weight of other people's expectations. He agrees, talking candidly about the delicate balance between being successful and maintaining integrity. "It's very easy to get crushed by the pressure of having to deliver something commercially successful... I think we really felt that with the second record. This time we didn't really think about it very much, and as it happens the songs have come out being more accessible than the second record..." he responds, before quickly adding, "But not through being contrived in that way. I think through just letting go and being excited about making music together, and the fact that we still exist as an entity after coming quite close to the edge - that has liberated us a lot."
By the sound of it, the fact that Keane managed come through such difficult times has enabled them not only to rediscover their own friendship and love of music, but also reinvigorated them with a desire to experiment - not to play it safe or be shackled by their own past or reputation. "You can see bands struggling with that all the time," agrees Tim. "I think in a way, we're really lucky that we went through that hard time and came out of it with a different frame of mind. So many bands are afraid to leave behind whatever it was that made them successful on the previous album. It's only by letting go of that fear and doing something that's actually exciting for you as a band... I think people do sense that when they listen to the radio or whatever and that's what makes a pop song great to listen to."
Backline asks whether the need to keep pushing the boundaries of what you can do is not only a good thing, but a necessity to avoid creative stagnation. "Yeah, I agree." says Tim. "I mean, there are plenty of bands who make a career out of doing the same things over and over again - but the bands that we love are just not like that, they're trying to do new things..." he elaborates. "I mean, my favourite Radiohead album is Kid A and my favourite U2 album is Achtung Baby and I'm sure there are numerous other examples of it, with people like The Beatles and Talking Heads - they've really made their best records when they've completely thrown their former selves out of the window and tried to do something totally different."
A sense of there being no rules to what you can or cannot do as a band?
"Yeah - if you find yourself in that position then your days are numbered, basically!" he laughs.
Aside from the use of things like guitars, one of the major factors that differentiate this album from its predecessors is the fact that Keane have produced the record themselves. While both Hopes and Fears and Under the Iron Sea were produced by Andy Green (who has since gone on to produce the debut album by Royworld, amongst a number of other production credits), this latest release will be the band's first attempt at being completely in charge of their own album. They have dabbled with self-production on a few previous occasions, but only on individual tracks; most notably the Under Pressure cover they recorded for BBC Radio 1 in the UK, which was subsequently included as a b-side on the single release of The Night Sky. That song was very well received by both listeners and fans alike, largely due to the fact that they managed to capture the spirit of the original track, as well as producing a cohesive, energised and exciting mix.
Backline notes that it must be quite satisfying to have reached a stage where the band can go it alone, without the need for any hand-holding.
"I think we are able to do it and it was nice to find out we were doing a pretty good job of it," Tim smiles. "I think we got some really great results out of that, due to the sense of liberation. The only downside of it is that being a producer is very hard work, basically! Being the one who makes the decisions on everything... 'what shall we do here?' or 'which of those options is best?' - someone has to decide and it's normally the producer, so for us to take on that role as well did definitely add to our workload and the general stress of it all, but other than that it's been a really good thing."
Despite this though, the band did involve a couple of well-known industry figures for inspiration and guidance during the recording sessions; the first of which was renowned American musician and producer Jon Brion. Best known for his work with the likes of Kanye West and Fiona Apple, as well as a number of critically-acclaimed film scores, Brion was instrumental in encouraging the band to experiment and not be afraid of trying off-the-wall, wacky ideas. Although his busy schedule meant that he was only able to be present for a couple of weeks while the band were in Paris, his influence informed subsequent sessions.
Tim was delighted with Brion's involvement and with the sense of freedom that he imbued to the band: "I think that given the option, we would have loved to have him produce the whole album but he was just about to start work on a new Charlie Kaufman film [Synecdoche, New York]. Jon was great, very inspiring - it's a shame he couldn't stay longer because we really enjoyed it and I think he really enjoyed it as well... it was just bad timing really."
Brion's influence on the session was immediate - one of the most notable outcomes of it was the now-legendary trick of getting Tom to sing into a timpani drum for the song they were working on. "That was one of Jon's ideas," chuckles Tim. "It was a real turning point in a way - he just turned up in the studio in Paris and went 'Right, what have they got here?' and went sniffing around - he found these timpani drums and said 'OK, what can we do with these?'. So we did it, tried it and it sounded really cool. I think having someone else there to facilitate that really helped... lets give it a go and try it, you don't have to feel silly if it looks ridiculous or sounds crap or whatever, just give it a go. It produced quite a ghostly sound."
The Paris sessions were the point when the work for the album really got underway in earnest. The studio itself also provided extra creative inspiration, thanks to its large selection of weird and wonderful instruments. "We had a lot of fun there," Tim smiles. "That studio had this amazing cellar full of all these old instruments that they just don't use. I think they do a lot of hip-hop there now and a lot of the old gear just doesn't get used - they said it was quite unusual to have a band in." The location of the studio also provided for some amusement, as Tim recalls. "It was quite bizarre really, because the studio is in the basement of a shopping centre and in order to get to their basement storage you had to go through the shopping centre on a 5 minute walk around to another part of the building - so we were pulling all these things out and wheeling all these old organs, vibraphones and timpanis through the corridors of this quite fancy shopping centre. Everyone must've thought we were extremely peculiar!" he laughs.
Tim also added to his increasing collection of vintage instruments during their stay in Paris by purchasing a Prophet T8 synthesizer during a shopping trip - helpfully documented on video by Tom during one of the band's web updates. The T8 was introduced in 1983 by American company Sequential Circuits and is a very highly regarded and rare beast. Tim again gives credit to Jon Brion for his role in the purchase. "Again, that was Jon's influence - on his second day he just said 'Let's go out shopping!'. So we went out to see what interesting stuff we could find... we didn't actually find that much apart from this amazing synth," he says. "I'd heard about it but didn't know if it was that good or if it was good value for money, but Jon said they were amazing and he had one himself. They're quite rare and it was good value, so buy it! We took it back to the studio and plugged it in and used it on at least a couple of the songs - it sounds amazing."
After their stint in Paris was completed and Brion had returned to the US, the band decamped to Berlin for the first of two sets of recording in Teldex Studios. While they were there, they were briefly joined by Stuart Price for further inspiration and ideas. Price's work with the likes of Madonna, The Killers and P Diddy, as well as his numerous remix credits under the moniker of The Thin White Duke, marked him out as an equally important though altogether different source of inspiration to Jon Brion.
"Stuart was great as well, but also very different - much more dancey," Tim notes. "I think he encouraged the more electronica side of it and definitely made us think about having a hook on the intro, making sure everything is catchy rather than just playing through the chords or whatever. We had a lot of fun with him when he came out to Berlin - he was only there for a couple of days, but we decided that our premise should be trying to find the most tasteless sounds and parts that we could possibly think of."
It was a premise that lasted not only through the rest of their stay in Berlin, but stuck with them throughout the whole process of making the album, as Tim explains: "In a way, I think that really informed what we did after that because it made it us think, 'Well, we don't care what anyone else thinks' - if we think this is fun and exciting then who cares whether it's cool or not? You can tie yourself up in knots thinking about whether something is fashionable or not, or is it cool in a retro way, or cool in an ironic way - trying to be cool or fashionable just chokes you, I think. Stuart helped us to just get to what sounds best and what sounds fun to our ears, regardless of what kind of agenda you've got."
It remains to be seen how different the finished album would have turned out if either Brion or Price were fully on-board for the whole process, but Tim believes that their brief involvement was still extremely worthwhile and important. "I actually think it worked out really well" he explains, "because in a way it enabled us to take their ideas and add a load of our own! I think we actually work really well 'without the teacher in the room' almost. I think that not having the pressure of anyone sitting there wondering what the hell you're playing at is quite nice, and that probably enabled us to just go for it on lots of really weird ideas - most of which have turned out to be really good."
Perhaps the great visible change in the latest chapter of Keane's existence has been the involvement of Jesse Quin - a friend of the band, as well as an accomplished musician in his own right - throughout the whole process of recording the album. His primary role has been to take over bass-playing duties from Tim, allowing for the return of a more live feel when recording. However, as it became apparent that Jesse was playing more and more of a part in the band (appearing in both photo and video updates on the official website), a small-but-vocal minority of fans expressed their fears and reservations about the move, with reactions ranging from mild concern to vitriolic rants about it ruining the band. Tim lets out a weary sigh before discussing the motivations that led to Quin being brought into the process.
"We've been having the bass player debate for about 6 years," he sighs. "When I swapped from bass to keyboards, that immediately created that problem with the bass. We finally decided to give it a go - I think all of us were again feeling that sense of 'Why not?' - the time has come to just be a bit more free and stop worrying so much about whether it breaks up the band dynamic or looks weird or whatever. We should just do whatever makes it more fun for us and makes it sound great. So we got him involved for the Union Chapel gig - it was really fun and chilled out, so then we thought we'd ask him if he wanted to be involved in rehearsing the songs for the recording. He originally wasn't even going to play on the record necessarily... but it just felt really good, and it was great fun working up the songs with him and not being reliant on overdubs or the computer or whatever. It's just worked out really well - he's a really lovely guy and fun to work with, he's really musical. He's been involved much more than a session musician would be, so I think we feel much more that he's like a part of the band in a way - in everything but name I suppose."
The level of involvement that Quin has had throughout the recording process has not only made the recording easier, but also brings other benefits - a major one is that as a friend and musician, he has brought his own influences into the mix and made the parts his own, rather than turning up to play a part and then go away again. "I think that's true actually," says Tim. "I think a more 'world weary' musician would just come in and play their bass, then clock off when they're done, but Jesse's been very much a part of the band for this process. I don't know what'll happen in the future, but we've certainly tried to make him feel that he's included just as much as anyone else. He's been on all our adventures, getting the night train to Berlin and back and all the ups and downs of making the record. And most importantly, I think the music has really benefited from his involvement."
Quin is also a multi-instrumentalist, and has been playing lots of other instruments beyond just the bass - "he's one on those annoying geniuses in that sense!" says Tim, jokingly. When Backline informed Tim that some fans were lamenting the loss of his bass-playing on the recordings, he was gracious for their support but preferred to look at it as a positive rather than a negative. "It's been a big weight off me actually, not having to worry about the bass," he says, almost relieved. "I don't think I have played any bass during the recording, apart from synth bass. Although quite a lot of Jesse's parts have been based on demo parts that I did - but he plays them much better than I do! Hopefully whatever makes my bass parts good will shine through. He's also taken the ideas and developed them and also came up with his own things as well."
Many of the blog updates made by the band during the recordings have mentioned the extensive use of backing vocals on the forthcoming tracks, and this is something that Quin has also been a part of. Tim explains that Jon Brion's advice also played an important role in increasing the use of these vocal approaches. "I think a lot of that came from working with Jon... he was saying that you should really feel that you are listening to a record that was fun to make, and that a really good thing to do is for everyone to be singing together, or if you're doing handclaps get everyone to do it together, or get everyone to hit a snare drum at the same time - try and record stuff live as much as you can, so we've tried to do as much of that as possible."
Tim believes that the backing vocals have moved onto a completely different level compared to those on Under the Iron Sea, and are now much more integral to the entire sound of the album. "The sound of me, Jesse and Richard singing together, the three-part harmonies have become part of the sound of the record - we've done a lot of it and it has been a big thing," he says. "It's not something that we've ever done much of before at all - I don't think Richard had ever done any backing vocals in the studio until we did Under Pressure. He's a great singer, he's just not that confident - but in the spirit of just going for it, we've got much more into that and he's been great. Jesse as well... and Tom's done some wicked backing vocals - really good stuff. It's really been a new thing for us... it's a big part of this record. I don't know how much those kind of things jump out at people sonically, but in terms of imparting more humanity to the sound it really makes a big difference."
In terms of the lead vocals, further strides have also been made. During an episode of unofficial Keane podcast Beyond The Iron Sea, a certain ginger-haired Scotsman confidently proclaimed that the lead vocals were "never generally recorded in one take, but rather that a number of takes were recorded and the bests bits of those pieced together to make the final result". There was therefore much embarassment and back-pedalling when Tom did an audio update a few weeks later, proudly proclaiming to have been a 'one-take wonder' without the need for 'comping' a vocal from multiple different takes. When informed of this, Tim laughs and attempts to spare Keane Backline's blushes by saying the reality is probably somewhere in the middle of both statements.
"It varies with Tom... what normally happens is that he'll sing a song a lot, but there'll be a little purple patch of maybe 3 or 4 takes that are just amazing," he notes. "I mean, we all know that he's a great singer and his worst take probably sounds better than my best take! But when you know that he can really lift a song on to a different place, you've got to persevere until you get that incredible couple of takes. Most of the songs have been done that way, where there's a few takes that have been comp'd together. I can think of at least one song off the top of my head that is only one take and it sounds amazing! It's a great gift that he's got."
Happily, there is no disagreement when it comes to the way that Chaplin's vocals have advanced since the release of the first album in 2004. This is a trend that continues on the new album; something which Tim puts down to the way they approach recording the vocals in the studio. "It's amazing comparing his singing now to Hopes and Fears - it's so much more energized now, so much more character," he says. "I think the big breakthrough for us has just been having him singing live in the control room. So it's not just him in that strange little vocal booth, miles from everyone else - he's hardly done any vocals that way on this record. He's just using the same mic he uses live and it just sounds great, it sounds very live and really rocking. We just turn up the speakers in the room and if there's a bit of spill on it, it doesn't really matter. Plus his voice is so loud as well, that we don't really need to crank the mic up to get a good signal out of it! It's just a much more fun way of doing it - he can do a take and then we can chat about, rather than having to go through the talk-back mic - I think that can be very isolating and not very vibey."
Isolating perhaps, but even Chaplin himself acknowledged that it's probably "an engineer's nightmare" to record vocals like that, because the mic will pickup the sound coming out of the speakers. Tim downplays this, believing the benefits of the approach for them far outweigh any of the drawbacks. "It's really not a big deal, actually," he says. "I'm sure it has a lot to do with the incredible power that his voice has... I've comp'd a few of the vocals on this album and you wouldn't think it was much more than a bit of headphone spill or whatever - most of the time it's absolutely fine."
Much mirth and confusion resulted when Chaplin described a particular track on the album as featuring him "ranting à la Satan". Tim laughs at his friend's 'unusual' description, before attempting to give his on take on it. "When we were finishing the last lot of touring and were starting to talk a bit about the new stuff, we were listening to a lot of Kanye West and Jay-Z and we were trying to fit those styles of music together, which was quite fun," he says. "I remember everyone saying 'Woah, you're not going to have Tom rapping are you, haha!' Eventually I think we thought, 'Well if that's the stupidest thing anyone could think of... maybe we should do it!' I wouldn't describe it as a rap as such - a rant is a probably a good way of putting it... we have got a great bit of Tom talking or shouting, which is never something that we would never have done on the last album!"
The drums and percussion on the new material are also singled out for special mention by Tim. Again, much was made of the difficulties and arguments between himself and Richard Hughes during the sessions for Under the Iron Sea, but Tim says that much like Chaplin's singing, Hughes has also come into his own on the new album. "Richard's drumming has been in a completely different league on this record," he gushes. "We were knocking heads quite a bit on the previous record, I think we were just all tired and just didn't have the enthusiasm for it that we should have done. But this time round, he's playing amazingly and seems to be really enjoying playing the drums and coming up with new parts."
One of the website updates from Berlin showed a Roland TR808 drum machine lying on a desk in the control room, fuelling speculation that this album might merge classic 80's-style electronic beats with Hughes' powerful drumming. "Yeah, there's a bit of that," Tim elaborates. "There's one song that certainly starts off being very 'drum machine-y' and on that one, we were getting Richard to play the 808 using his drum pads so you get the classic 808 sound but with more of a human feel, and then I think we ended up interweaving that with a real drum kit - it sounds really nice. In fact that particular song had a little Roland CR-78 on it as well - so you have that, the 808 and the real drums all playing off each other, doing different parts."
The band sound like they're really on their game, brimming with an enthusiasm and confidence that was missing during the last album. "Everyone is just feeling really good about it - it's been much more of a band process," agrees Tim. "Probably more than even the first record, actually... we spent so long working on the songs for the first record, even before we had a record deal, that by the time we came to record it, it was almost a bit of a formality in a way - we'd played the songs live, we knew what we wanted them to sound like. It was just a question of making sure that the CP70 sounded as beefy as it does live and so on. What you hear on the record is largely what you would've heard if you came to see us at the Water Rats or wherever."
Certainly, that's not going to be the case with some of the instrumentation used on the forthcoming album; Keane's voyage into new sonic territory has led to the use of a few unexpected instruments. Firstly, there's the use of musical saw on one track, which Tim had already mentioned during a previous blog update. "The musical saw was an idea I'd had, just from watching that movie Delicatessen," he confirms. "I'd always wanted to use it on a song and we finally managed to match the sound to a song. It sounds amazing actually - really beautiful." To Backline's ears, the sound of the saw is similar to that of a Theremin (an electric instrument that has notoriety for being the only instrument you play without touching), which although a pretty bizarre instrument in itself, would seem a more likely fit for Keane. Tim agrees, even confirming that they actually bought a Theremin during the tour rehearsals for Under the Iron Sea.
"That was one of Tom's ideas when we were rehearsing last time - 'I need a Theremin, get me a Theremin!'," he chuckles. "But he couldn't be bothered to learn how to use it. I think the tour rehearsals were the only time it emerged from its packaging!" Ironically though, it may well be the case that the musical saw will give a lease of life to the Theremin within the context of Keane. "I think when it comes to gigs, that might be the only way of reproducing the musical saw sound," Tim acknowledges. "Taking some saw players out on the road might be a bit of an expensive luxury! We had two different players when we recorded, 'cause we didn't quite cover it all the first time. The second guy that came down was very up for going out on the road or doing a gig or two - so if we every get to do something like the O2 again, then maybe we'll bring someone out for it."
But the unexpected instruments didn't stop with the musical saw. There was the highly retro VCS3 synthesizer - immortalised in a video update where its screeching sounds were being applied live to a track, while Hughes pleaded 'Make it stop!'. Perhaps even more unexpectedly, Tim confesses to the appearance of a saxophone on the latest track they've been recording! "If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought we'd ever have a sax player on one of our tracks, I'd have said it was the worst idea ever!" he admits. "But this time, we've almost tried to be slightly perverse about the whole thing and think 'What is the last thing we'd ever usually turn to for this track?'... and anything that makes us recoil slightly, we've actually tried to face those fears and do them - and pretty much every time, it's turned into something brilliant. It just feels so fresh for us - I suppose you take something that we wouldn't normally do and then twist it into something that's good for us, and that's been really fun... there's been real violin, the musical saw, sax, and quite a lot of guitar."
All of these new sounds and instrumentation lead onto an obvious question - how will the band approach playing the new material live? Under the Iron Sea brought with it a new set of challenges in order to translate it to the live world, thanks to the many weird and wonderful effects on the piano, more complex song arrangements and darker sound. Translating the new material into a form that will work live seems like it will potentially be an even bigger challenge, even just down to the sheer diversity of instrumentation that's been used. It's certainly going to be a very cluttered stage! "Yeah! But I like that... I've always felt that our stage is too clean," Tim laughs. "It's going to be really fun... I remember seeing Radiohead at Hammersmith Apollo a couple of years ago and on every song, they were playing different instruments, different stuff was being wheeled out. It felt very musical for a start, but also visually varied - you don't feel 'Right, that's the people in the band, that's what each one of them does'. I think that'd be great for us... there is such variety now, it'd be great to move from one instrument to another. I think all of us will be doing that - I hope so! We've barely thought about it yet, but we need to!"
Observant fans will already have noted that the stage set-up had reached a point of real complication, with the complexities of the technology threatening to derail the performance at some points. The difficulties caused by the vastly increased complexity of the on-stage set-up reached nadir during the climax of the band's very wet, very windy show at Westerpark, Amsterdam in July 2007. A failure with the effects set-up meant that the CP70 couldn't be used for set-closer Bedshaped - ordinarily, this shouldn't have been an issue, but as Tim recalls, the reality proved different.
"That was one of those things were in theory, I should have been able to leap across to the Rhodes piano, but just everything had gone wrong - I even went to Tom's piano and that didn't work right either!" he cringes. Instead, he had to soldier through the song playing heavily distorted piano from Tom's Yamaha CP60. "That made me realise that [the effects and synth set-up] had all got too complicated, so we're trying to replace all that."
Tim goes on to explain why they had become so reliant on the technology, and particularly on the use of the laptop. "There are two main reasons why we've relied on it... firstly, for the bass because there's no other way of doing it. Though hopefully if Jesse comes on tour with us - which he should unless we really piss him off over the next couple of weeks - then that will be that problem sorted. So really then we're back to being a four-piece band effectively, so we could play pretty much anything without the computers," says Tim, before adding a caveat. "But the only problem is, especially when I'm playing the Nord Lead 3 [the red synthesizer that sits on-top of the CP70 during live shows] and the piano, and Tom's playing one or two things as well and singing at the same time, if the CP70 is going through a POD [the red effects units that are in the right-hand side rack] with a complex effects chain on it and the Nord is also going through another POD with an equally complex chain of effects, then there's just no way I could possibly make all those changes on like, the beginning of chorus 2 of a song - you'd need about 10 feet to do it!"
There were already a few moments in songs were Tim had to be negotiate some effects changes while playing that were quite difficult - notably in songs like Put It Behind You and Is It Any Wonder?, where some very fancy footwork was required! "Yeah, it's not good," Tim agrees. "You're standing on the sustain pedal and making a change with your left foot, so you're not really standing on anything - almost hovering in mid-air! But it's all part of the fun!"
One of the other issues they are hoping to be able to address to some degree this time is the lack of flexibility that has been imposed on them by the use of the laptop for playing back pre-recorded parts such as bass, strings and synth. Jesse Quin's involvement on bass will clearly go some way towards solving the problem, but Tim acknowledges there are still other issues to deal with. "It's definitely something that we're talking about. Flexibility is very important to us and it's something we've missed over the last few years - it's just working out how to do it, because obviously we've only got so many hands!" he smiles. "If we can manage without the computer at all then we will - there's not that much it needs to be there for, apart from those effects changes at parts of songs. What we want is to get away from being reliant on the technology - I don't think any of us like the fact that those prosaic, practical needs are determining what we do on-stage musically... it shouldn't be that way. We'll try to really pull things back I think, so that we're not being controlled by the machines!"
Backline counters this by asking about the various little flourishes that are also coming off the laptop currently - songs like Everybody's Changing feature lots of little sweeps and synth parts from the studio version. Wouldn't they be difficult to achieve otherwise? "A lot of what comes off of the computer apart from the bass is pretty superfluous, really," Tim replies, somewhat surprisingly. "I never liked the fact that there were all the little filter sweeps and whatever from the Hopes and Fears songs, but we just never got round to taking it out. As ever, because there was all a last-minute panic in trying to get things up-and-running in time for touring on the second album, there wasn't any time to go through it all and mute tracks or whatever. But really, a lot of it is dispensable I think... it wouldn't be that difficult to get to the point where it was just the four of us performing on stage, so I hope we can get to that point - quickly!"
Even the abundance of synth parts on the new record will bring its own challenges when approaching live arrangements for the new songs. It's unlikely that the vintage synths themselves will come out on the road and Tim acknowledges that he doesn't yet know exactly how they'll do it. "The analogue stuff is all just far too unreliable to take out on the road - the CS80 [best known for its amusingly titled 'Funky 1-4' presets] tends to go out of tune after about half an hour!" Tim laughs. "I don't know what we'll use. I've got a Korg Triton Extreme which is really nice, and I've used quite a lot on this album. That has some good analogue samples on it, so that would be quite good, I guess... and also the Nords as well. Plus there's so many great software synths... like there's a really great CS80 software synth and I've used that on at least one song. So we'll find a way... but I might try and take a couple of vintage things out, because they're quite fun and they're quite good visually as well. Things like the VCS3 - it'd be quite good to have something like that on-stage and be twiddling the knobs, rather than just hitting a patch button!"
If the VCS3 were to go out on the road, it might be recommended that fans be given free ear-plugs on entry to the gigs! Tim laughs when he recalls that particular incident in the studio: "The thing about that was that not only was it a horrible sound, but it was so loud - we were listening to it so loud in the studio, killing everyone! We did end up using that sound actually, but it definitely had to be used very sparingly."
Regardless of the final approach that the band end up taking for playing the new material live, there's no doubt about the fact that the process of recording the album is complete; things are very much on the home-straight, with the finishing line well-and-truly in sight. "Very much so!" says Tim. "We've done a few weeks of mixing and still have a couple more to do. We're also now into that world of thinking about playing live, artwork, choosing singles, photo shoots and so on. We're back to a similar situation that we had on the first record, where we thought that we were spoiled for choice for singles... that probably sounds incredibly arrogant, but I think we do feel that there's probably 6 songs that could definitely be singles. And of those, 4 or 5 of them have definitely been going to be the first single at some point during the past couple of weeks! It's difficult because we're so excited and we want everyone to hear all of them at the same time - you feel like when you release the first single, everyone judges you on just that one song. The album is very varied and it's frustrating to have it judged on one song - we'll try to find a way around it, I think."
Perhaps we'll see something vaguely similar to what they did for the Under the Iron Sea - a download-only release featuring an extended version of Atlantic, closely followed by Is It Any Wonder? as the 'proper' first single. One of the interesting aspects to that approach was that it showcased two tracks at opposite ends of the spectrum. "I think we'll try to do something along those lines," Tim acknowledges, before noting that nothing is yet decided. "It's tricky, because everyone has got their favourites - there's several different songs that people want to get out there as soon as possible."
Of the few songs actually mentioned by the band, the one that has been talked up the most is title track Perfect Symmetry, naturally leading to much speculation that it will be the first release from the album. "That's definitely one of the ones... it's probably the best single we've ever done, I think," Tim declares. "We mixed it recently and it does sound amazing, even if I say so myself! It's quite long though, there's a lot of bits to it... it's got a lot to take in, you have to listen to it a few times for it to make sense. So maybe that means it's not suitable as first single... I don't know - the jury is still out on that one!"
Either way, the fact that the band have mentioned it so much seems to indicate that it will be one of the cornerstones of the record. "I think it's a very important song for the album - it's a very weighty-feeling song," agrees Tim. "We all absolutely love it and are very proud of it - in a way, it's in the middle of the spectrum, it's not at the most extremes of weirdness. It's got a great big piano riff in it, but it switches from being a big, epic song into an Eno-esque section, then into a big arena-rock section, then into a gospel choir bit! We'll just need to wait and see... it may end up being the first single, but I've got a feeling it won't."
Tim believes that the variety of songs and sounds on the album will make it much more difficult to categorise, but will still be able to come across well to an audience, whether it's on CD, in a theatre or in an arena. "We haven't tried to deliberately create any particular kind of sound for the overall album, so there's a lot of variety and it's not easily pigeonholed," he says. "I'd say it's quite a big-sounding record, but not in a bombastic way. It's obviously quite ambitious sonically, and that will obviously translate well to bigger venues. If we're lucky to ever get to play those big arenas again, I think the songs will sound amazing in them. They're definitely not indie-club sounding songs... I don't think there's a lot of music like it around, so it's almost quite difficult to picture it being played live! We're really looking forward to getting into it, because I think they will sound amazing. Rhythmically, some of them are a lot more danceable, though maybe not in a four-to-the-floor way necessarily..." He trails off for a minute, before adding, "I suppose the word would be funky. I'm forever in fear of that word, because it makes me think... bad things! But it'll be nice to have a different type of groove in the set."
It sounds like there's a lot of work ahead, in the run up to release and the first live shows! "Yeah, it's slightly nerve-wracking!" Tim admits, while sipping on a cup of mint tea. "It's difficult because we're at a point now were we're working more intensively than ever trying to get the record finished, but we're also having to think about things like the live stuff and all those peripheral things like artwork, just the general planning of the touring and everything else. It's quite hard to focus on everything, but it's a nice position to be in."
With the first gig already announced for late September, it's reasonable to assume that the debates on how to play the songs live will be sorted sooner rather than later. "Yeah, it's all hands on-deck really," says Tim. "Even though we're all totally and utterly knackered, everyone's still really excited about playing live and getting the songs going live. We've been kind of waiting for it all along, thinking about how great these songs will be to play live... so it's nice to now be within touching distance of it. It just feels like the next stage, rather than being a grind. I think we'll probably start playing about a month before the album comes out and we'll be rehearsing for a few weeks before that... so it's all somewhat imminent! That's our next barrage and barrel of fun, so I hope people will just come out and enjoy it."
With our conversation drawing to a close, Tim does confess to feeling a little anxious about how well people will take to the new songs and new approach of the band. After all, having invested so much time and energy into the process, it's obvious they'll be hoping that people will be willing to embrace their new direction. "It wouldn't be accurate to say that I don't care what other people will think of it," he admits. "I think it would be heartbreaking for us if people didn't fall in love with the songs in the same way we have. But I think that they will and I feel confident about that - maybe just because we love it so much that there must be something there!"
As a final thought - we ask Tim if he thinks that this new album will see Keane scaling new heights of success. "We're just so close to it, it's difficult to tell - one minute I think it's the best album ever made, and the next I think it's utterly awful!" he laughs. "But I think that's probably a good sign - as long as it doesn't feel safe or boring, we'll have achieved what we set out to achieve."
Info taken from http://www.keanebackline.info/site/
