KEANE fans will either love it - or EIGHT it.
For the band are about to put out their most bizarre record yet... a "not quite an album" offering including a guest appearance by a RAPPER and a song in JAPANESE.
And all written and recorded entirely on their world tour.
In the band's first interview about their experiment - called Night Train - singer Tom Chaplin told Rated: "It isn't quite an album, but it's too important to be dismissed as a mini-album. We're just calling it an eight-track.
"Bands have been saying for a while that the internet means you can release what you want, when you want, and it's time a band like us proved that."
The record - due for release in May - will feature traditional Keane ballads like My Shadow and Your Love, alongside thumping dance tunes such as Back In Time and Looking Back, based around the theme from Rocky.
Horrified
But the bizarre element comes in with Looking Back and Stop For A Minute starring obscure Canadian rapper K'Naan. Tom became a fan thanks to his girlfriend Natalie who saw him at Glastonbury in 2006.
"I know a lot of people are horrified that a band with our nice image are working with a rapper," admits Tom, 30.
"And when they hear the songs they'll have to admit we've pulled it off. We don't make music just to confound our many critics. But it's great when we do!
"And I'd hate to be in a band that just sticks to the Oasis formula - making the same kind of record over and over again."
Talking to Rated over lunch at his local pub in rural Sussex, Tom is more relaxed than in his usually guarded interviews.
"It's because London intimidates me," he says. "I grew up in a village with wide-open countrysde and I feel shut in in London, like I don't belong there.
"We're friends with Lily Allen, but we're amazed at how confident she is. Lily came to see us on tour a few times, and whenever she comes backstage that big personality of hers takes over the room.
"Lily is from that showbiz background so nothing fazes her. Whereas we get nervous and defensive in big cities, because it's not where we feel at home." That nervousness helped Tom, keyboardist and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley and drummer Richard Hughes to create Night Train.
To fight off the boredom between gigs, they visited studios in every city, including Tokyo where they recorded You've Got To Help Yourself, a cover of a 1983 song by Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra.
"The chorus is in English, but the verses are Japanese and no way am I singing in Japanese," explains Tom. "I speak good French, but when we did a version of one of our old songs in French, it was so bad that our French record company refused to release it. So a Japanese pop star, Tigarah, sings the verses. We might release it as a single. Why not? It's really catchy."
Nice
Your Love sees Tim replace Tom as singer for the first time. So does this mean Tom might dethrone Tim as Keane's songwriter one day?
"If I think my songs are good enough, maybe," he shrugs. "The songs I write, I'm not sure if they're suitable for Keane." Why not do a solo album, then? "Maybe as well as Keane one day, who knows?," says Tom. "But when Tim's writing as many good songs as he is, it's not a priority."
Night Train will be promoted with on their Tour of the Forests next June and Tom doesn't rule out more Keane songs being written on the road - in between ruining their nice guy image, anyway.
"We're firm believers in the adage 'Be nice to people on the way up, in case you meet them on the way down'," he says of their polite reputation. "But among the three of us on the tourbus, the p***-taking is a disgrace - we're the most vile, disgusting, offensive creatures imaginable!"
Keane tour six forests from June 10-26 in association with The Forestry Commission. Tickets are £32, on sale on Friday from 01842 814642 or www.forestry.gov.uk/music For full dates, see www.keanemusic.com
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