Chaplin rocks Live Earth in 2007: "The same thing that makes me a front man makes me a self-saboteur"
Fifteen minutes into Keane's rehearsal and their front man, Tom Chaplin, suddenly walks off stage. The band have run through just two tracks from their third album, Perfect Symmetry, when, mid-way through their third number, the singer pulls out his in-ear monitor, climbs off the stage and walks purposefully towards the doors of the sound-proofed room. But, if you're among Keane's loyal army of fans, fear not. Chaplin's band came close to splitting in 2006 after he quit the Japanese leg of the world tour for their second album, Under the Iron Sea, and went into rehab. Today, though, there's a rather less dramatic reason for his exit. When the singer gets to the back of the studio, he turns and watches his bandmates, keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley and drummer Richard Hughes. As the instrumental break from their 2004 hit, "Everybody's Changing", blasts from the room's industrial-strength speakers, Chaplin grins. Then, clearly satisfied with what he's hearing, he gallops back to the stage to belt out the chorus.
Four years ago, the release of this song by the indie label Fierce Panda helped catapult the piano-led trio from Battle, Sussex, out of dingy rock dives and on to arena stages around the globe. Their Mercury-nominated debut, Hopes And Fears, saturated the airwaves, selling six million copies worldwide and winning them a pair of Brit awards. Yet despite (or, indeed, because of) the success, the three polite, privately educated pals quickly became whipping boys in more credible circles. They were, it seemed, too posh, too tuneful, too good at making songs that sounded great on the radio. And, in Chaplin, they had that rarest of things: a front man who can really, really sing. Which, of course, isn't at all cool.
Not that you imagine Keane are thinking about any of that right now, as they rattle through their songs, clearly enjoying themselves. The band are in the south London rehearsal studio trying to work out how they're going to perform their barrelling, electro-ridden new songs. Determined to make laptop samples redundant, they're playing everything live. That has meant recruiting a bass player, their friend Jesse Quin. And, more significantly for a band who've become famous for their piano/drums/voice format, Chaplin is wielding an electric guitar.
The glossy appendage suits him. With his hair cut short and wearing black skinny jeans, Chaplin cuts a sleeker, more visceral and, indeed, sexier figure than he did when the band first appeared. He looks less like a cherubic choirboy out scrumping and more like, well, a proper rock star. In fact, all three members of Keane have a new air of confidence. At our meeting at a nearby gastropub before the rehearsal, they seem fresh-faced and rejuvenated. "I've not felt so excited since the first album came out," says Rice-Oxley.
Rice-Oxley is Keane's songwriter and linchpin. He isn't the boastful type, but the shy smile that surfaces when he talks about his band's new record is testament to his pride. Keane have every reason to feel pleased with themselves. Perfect Symmetry is an strikingly impressive record. Drawing obvious inspiration from David Bowie and Talking Heads, it's a rich morsel of confident and infectious Eighties-tinged pop, alive with hand claps and finger clicks, seared keyboards, vintage drum machines and, controversially, sinuous guitars.
All three are convinced that this is their best album yet. Of course, bands always say that, but the difference this time is that a) they're convincing and b) they're right. "Normally after mixing an album you've kind of had enough of hearing its songs," says Chaplin, "but I can't stop listening to this record, which I think is a good sign. We're getting a high from knowing we've just made an album that was potentially in us but could easily never have happened."
How bad did things get for Keane? As his bandmates laugh nervously, Hughes takes up the baton. "Well, I would say it was 'bad' with italics, possibly capitals, maybe even in bold." Keane's problems crept up on them. There were no tantrums or massive artistic fall-outs. Just a festering antipathy that grew like an acrid stench and threatened to corrode them from the inside out. Their August 2006 nadir found Chaplin in rehab for drink and drug abuse, a tour cancelled and the future of the band hanging in the balance. "The overall spirit of the band at the time was a little bleak," explains Rice-Oxley. "I just felt there was a general sense of us wanting to be somewhere else."
The cracks in the band had started to show before they'd finished touring their first album. "We played in Bangkok, and I remember feeling exhausted and jet-lagged," says Chaplin. "We'd completely lost the spirit, the fun and the enthusiasm for making music and being on the road." In retrospect, all agree that what the band needed most was some time off to adjust to, and recover from, the success of Hopes And Fears. But anxious to prove their songwriting mettle, the increasingly dysfunctional band went from two years of worldwide touring straight into the pressure-cooker confines of a recording studio. "We had just two days off," sighs Hughes, "and the only reason there was any delay at all was because our equipment couldn't get to the studio quick enough."
Why the hurry? The answer appears to be that beneath Rice-Oxley's affable self-assurance lies a defiant, competitive edge. Despite their legions of adoring fans, he admits he found the media criticism hard to take. In the States, the twice-Grammy-nominated band had been championed by Gwen Stefani and Kanye West, but in the UK they were dismissed by many critics as little more than a second-rate Coldplay. "We were really lucky to have had so much success with Hopes And Fears," says Rice-Oxley. "But then you become defined by it and you get fed up with people asking about Coldplay and dismissing you as 'Keane the piano-pop band' or whatever. It's almost inevitable that you have an knee-jerk reaction and say, 'Right, we're going to tear all that down and do something else instead.'"
Keane's second album, Under the Iron Sea, was that "something else". Its dark, claustrophobic songs are a testament to the dissolving relationships and simmering tensions around the time it was made. "We were very good at not talking about what was irking us," says Hughes. "Instead, Tim was left alone in the studio fighting not to make Hopes And Fears again. Most days in the afternoon I'd get in my car and go for a drive, just to get out of the studio – I just wanted to be on my own. And Tom was definitely the same."
Feeling isolated from his bandmates, Chaplin pushed himself still further away, struggling with his debilitating addiction to adulation and the illicit. "After Hopes And Fears came out we had all the trappings of success – fame and money – and personally I felt all those became negatives for me and they changed the dynamic between us," he says. "And I think the same thing that makes me want to be a front man probably makes me want to be a self-saboteur sometimes. There's a little part of me – actually, a huge part of me! – that's strangely extrovert, and somehow being up on stage is what makes me tick.
"But on the flip side, when you come off the road, you don't have that buzz and that praise and all those dangerous things. And so maybe you find solace in other dangerous things..." Chaplin shrugs. "There were certainly situations where I thought: 'Oh God, I don't even want to go back into the context of the band because everyone is going to hate me for what I've just done,' whatever it was." He laughs self-consciously. "At those times, I'd feel like the best policy was always to run away."
Which is exactly what he did in the midst of the band's Japanese tour. Soon after, he checked in to the Priory. Chaplin says he doesn't feel he gained much from his stint in rehab, but the band's enforced hiatus certainly gave the trio much-needed time for reflection.
"I think seeing Tom descending into this living hell brought home the fact that ultimately we care about each other hugely," says Hughes. "We didn't want to see each other unhappy."
With the avenues of communication reopened, Keane agreed to give the band another go and resumed their tour towards the end of 2006. "At that point, it still felt like it could all be over next month," recalls Chaplin.
Keane's turning point came in the summer of 2007, while recording a cover of Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure" for Radio 1 while on tour in Philadelphia. "There was just so much exuberance on that song," says Chaplin, "all the unison singing, hand claps and finger-clicking. We really enjoyed its funkiness, its flamboyance and carefree spirit. We took an enormous amount of inspiration from that."
There in a small studio, without a producer, Keane had stumbled on the blueprint for their next album. They'd also found that they could enjoy recording, together, for the first time since making Hopes And Fears. "It was a pretty good feeling," grins Chaplin.
It was one that continued into the recording of the new album, which they made in Paris, Berlin and Kent. "Our only rule for making the music this time was that we should be creating something that the three of us were absolutely in love with," says Rice-Oxley. After days spent tinkering in the studio, they even spent their evenings together. "We'd go out for dinner and actually work on our relationships," says Chaplin, "and not pretend that just because we've been friends all our lives that's enough to carry us through."
The results speak for themselves, with Perfect Symmetry already garnering the kind of critical acclaim that has often eluded the band.
Not that they seem overly bothered. "I think it's very easy to worry about whether you're considered to be cool," says Rice-Oxley. "I think the thing we've learnt from touring is that there are a lot of people all over the world who love our music. But the most important thing of all, which has informed the making of this record, is that you really shouldn't care about what everybody else thinks."
"The rest," nods Chaplin, with a twinkle in his eye, "is just extraneous bollocks."
