2006年8月the Times报道：Tom Chaplin: 好男孩为名利付出代价

The Times August 23, 2006

Times2

The face
Penny Wark

TOM CHAPLIN: Nice guy pays the price of fame

Exhaustion was never a convincing euphemism for rock star excess and now the rumours have been confirmed: Tom Chaplin, the lead singer of Keane, does indeed have a problem with drink and drugs, and that’s why he is holed up in The Priory. But while his confession will please those who always thought the band too inoffensive to be true, the majority will wish this nice boy well.

You could say that Chaplin and his public-school chums were never going to cut it as rock musicians by being earnest and honest and drinking camomile tea. But if Chaplin, Richard Hughes and Tim Rice-Oxley were the mild men of rock, it was because they were being themselves: sensitive, polite middle-class boys who have favourite biscuits and saw no reason to morph into monsters. So during their two years of full-on fame, commentators have noted their Christian goodness and a resemblance to geography teachers. Judge us by our music, the boys said, and people did, applauding the integrity, honesty and intelligence of the lyrics. Hell, they even named the band after Chaplin’s nanny.

Chaplin, he of the cherubic face and nectar-sweet voice, comes from a stable family in Battle, East Sussex, where he met Hughes and Rice-Oxley at junior school. His parents were teachers known for their good works, but Chaplin eschewed university in favour of music and so began a lengthy footslogging apprenticeship. This ended when Keane’s first album, Hopes and Fears, entered the UK chart at No 1 and sold five million copies. They celebrated with a picnic on Hampstead Heath, and went on to support U2, tour in the US, play the main stage at Glastonbury and pick up a couple of Brits.

Throughout it all, Chaplin’s affable but undemonstrative charm engaged, and at Live8 he spoke about bumping into Sir Paul Mc-Cartney and being starstruck. He may have been gauche but he was genuine and the marketing people had no complaints, though they might have noted the comment from Chaplin that there was nothing mundane about their lives any more.

The tone shifted more explicitly this year with the release of their second album, Under the Iron Sea, when it was obvious that the lyrics referred to rifts in the band and times that were less than harmonious. But if the schedule was gruelling, well, that’s what happens when rock stars tour, even when they don’t play it the conventionally hedonistic way.

Actually, at 27, Chaplin owns a Ferrari, so he is hardly immune to the perks of his status. And now that he has fallen into the abyss said to await all rock stars, we can only hope that he climbs out swiftly and reminds himself of the joys of caramel digestives.