2006年8月美国Harp对Keane报道：巡回路上一瞥

A View from the Road
By Steve Baltin

“I imagine some people are thinking the record is going to be 10 or 11 midpaced sort of piano-ballad love songs,” Keane drummer Richard Hughes says of the U.K. trio’s sophomore effort, Under The Iron Sea. “But it grabs you by the scruff of the neck, and it’s pretty brutal in places.”

Creative tension will do that to a band. After becoming superstars in their native England and earning buzz status here and even an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” on the strength of the perfect pop number, “Somewhere Only We Know,” the longtime friends—Hughes, vocalist Tom Chaplin and keyboardist Tim Rice-Oxley—went the route of a lot of bands, namely wanting to tell each other to sod off.

Adhering to an equally tried and tested rock ethos, “That which does not kill us makes a better band,” Keane’s second disc is a much more complete effort, one that changes moods as well as tempos, without sacrificing any of the gorgeous melodicism of their debut.

With the group ready to tour again, we caught up with the threesome to discover their essentials for surviving the road and find out how those favorites shaped the new disc.

Favorite cities:

Tim: Portland. It’s such a great music town. There are loads of great little music stores where you can pick up all these second hand gadgets from the ’60s.

Tom: Glasgow, Scotland. It was the first place where we got royally cheered on by our fans. It gave us real confidence to tour the rest of the world.

Favorite CDs:

Richard: On planes I really enjoy listening to Sigur Rós and a band called the Album Leaf, In a Safe Place, which is just amazing. None of us are really very good fliers and Sigur Rós and the Album Leaf chill me out a bit.

Tom: Rufus Wainwright, someone who has quite a lot of influence on the emotive, melodic side of Under the Iron Sea. We also toured with a guy from Detroit called Brendan Benson, who’s now in the Raconteurs with Jack White.

Favorite DVDs:

Richard: The first American tour we ever did, Band Of Brothers was our big thing. And I’m into most of the things HBO produces, like The Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm. We don’t have much of a routine in life and you miss stuff on TV, so DVD box sets are the best.

Favorite drink:
Richard: I remember hearing, the Killers say they always have Champagne on a Friday or a Sunday so they know what day of the week it is. So I always have Bloody Marys on a Friday. The irony is we did a two-month tour once where we only played on a Friday one time.

Favorite Books:
Tim: Bret Easton Ellis with American Psycho took people down into the darkish recesses of your person and dragged people into things that are kind of hardest to talk about. On this record, we wanted to talk about things that are hardest to talk about and put them into music. I can’t stand the idea of bands who want their music to be at arm’s length almost. All three of us feel that you shouldn’t hold anything back. That’s the kind of sacrifice you make.