2006年8月INQ7对Keane采访报道：Keane 和我

Keane and I

By Tim Yap
Inquirer
URL: http://showbizandstyle.inq7.net/you/super/view_article.php?article_id=16008

Last updated 05:06pm (Mla time) 08/18/2006

BACK IN THE DAY WHEN we were still doing Super! radio over at 103.5 K Lite FM, one song stayed at the number one slot for the longest time. It became sort of an emo anthem at that time, and the UK band Keane rose from oblivion to becoming one of the hottest alternative rock bands of the Super! generation.

Yes, “Everybody’s changing,” we all know, but it was truly refreshing to meet Tom Chaplin (vocals), Tim Rice-Oxley (Piano/Bass/Vocals) and Richard Hughes (Drums/Vocals), otherwise known as the band Keane—and realize that they are just like you and me, only more expressive and sensitive.

“We’re very, very English, very male. We don’t talk to each other much,” said Tom when we met in Club 88 at the Davis Hotel in Bangkok where the band was billeted. Okay, maybe the expressive part was a bit much.

Amid all the attention that the regional media devoted to them, the three Brit boys exuded a very down-to-earth demeanor, gamely posing and signing autographs and hopping from one interview after another, even if they had just gotten off a plane a few hours ago. “I’m surprised I’m not jetlagging!” Tom, the most outspoken of the trio, shared.

From ‘Hopes and Fears’

“All the guitar places we would play at, we would still play there,” Tim, the song writer of the group confides. “In the old days I would just churn out a song–now it has to be a potential album. I feel some pressure.” And why not, when their first album, “Hopes and Fears” sold more than five million copies–without much promotion and fanfare at that. To top that, they even had sold-out gigs in New York’s Radio City.

Not bad for a band whose members went to school together in and around a small town called “Battle” in the southeast of England.

“It’s an amazing life, we’re experiencing so much more than normal human beings,” Tom talks about the trappings of rockstardom, “but people should understand that touring can be difficult.”

“We were living with each other but not talking to each other. Things got quite hostile. So one time, we just sat at the back of the bus, just talked, had a discussion. We realized that talking is good.” Hurrah to men who are not afraid to express themselves!

“Being on the road over the past couple of years has really educated us musically,” enthused Richard. It was around this time when they came up with their new song “Crystal Ball,” from their new album “Under the Iron Sea.”

Summing up the state

Why “Under the Iron Sea”? “It was written at a time when we felt like robots, numb to the world and each other.” Tom confessed. “Anxieties were locked in this unpredictable place. It summed up to the state where we are–under the iron sea.”

I wanted to applaud because it was the first time I heard a band admit that they sometimes do not get along with each other, and not the standard “We’re all the best of friends” line that most pop tarts dish out.

“It means a lot of feelings, or the lack of feelings we were feeling at that time.” Now you see, the title of your album plays an important part in communicating your metaphors. Listening to Keane speak collectively, you sense the sincerity emanating from their very core. So when you hear them sing or watch them perform live, you know you’re getting the real thing. It’s from the gut. Nothing rehearsed or dictated by some record company executive.

MCA Universal, their record company sent me a copy of their new album, “Under the Iron Sea” and their inlay (amazing artwork by the way) and their songs formed was a bittersweet journey into beauty and darkness.

Crystal Ball

“Our music inspires so many different people, as we’ve come to discover,” Tom waxes sentimental. “We’d like to reflect what people are feeling at the moment.”

Their first single, playing soon at a station near you, is “Crystal Ball”–about being lost and unhappy and wanting to escape from it all. Sounds like the soundtrack of someone’s life?

The music video for this song is about a guy who leaves for work, returns, and his identity is taken over by someone else.

No-boundaries music

One thing that has made their sound epic and unique is the non-usage of the guitar. “It’s just that our guitarist left,” explained Tim. “There are no boundaries that guide what we do. We’ll do anything. Tim messed around with the piano to make it sound like something that no one’s heard before,” Richard explains their openness to a new sound.

Tim further exposes their soul as a band. “Using a guitar would be one of those things. If it sounds great, we’ll do it. We’re not limited, that’s what makes us different musicians. We want to find ways of varying what we do live.”

And see them live is exactly what I did, at Bangkok’s Impact Arena where Keane fans from far and wide converged to watch them perform.

Watching them live is like attending a political rally with the lead singer going full capacity, with the lung power of a thousand activists. Tim’s powerfully possessed thrusts set the piano ablaze while Richard’s drum-beating can compete with the sound of canons being fired.

A call to arms

Together, they sing and speak of issues concerning the world today, like life evangelists out to change the world. No matter if their audience that night were predominantly non-English speaking Thais.

“There’s a sense of powerlessness is on generation,” Tim tells me the afternoon before the concert. “It’s a strange time to be a young person in the world and somehow we wanted to put that in a song, as a call to arms for our generation.”

The band realizes the power of their voice, and they know how to bring something good out of it. “We have a platform for people to hear what we have to say. Even if we’re not a famous band I would still write songs like these.” Tim feels that his pen is indeed mightier than any politician’s sword.

“If there is one thing that can change the world I think it’s pop music.”

Now that’s why I am keen on Keane.