[译]2008年官网的乐队背景资料

Tom Chaplin，负责主唱及其他，生于Hastings, 1979年3年8日
Tim Rice-Oxley (Timothy James Rice-Oxley)，负责钢琴及其他，生于Oxford, 1976年6月2日
Richard Hughes (Richard David Hughes)，负责打鼓及其他，生于Gravesent, Kent，1975年9月8日

Keane回来了。《Hopes And Fears》（2004）和《Under The Iron Sea》（2006）一共超过八百万的销售量，座无虚席的巡演，从Ivor Novellos到全英音乐奖的获奖，再加上一系列诸如《Is It Any Wonder?》《Everybody’s Changing》《Crystal Ball》和《Somewhere Only We Know》的经典热门曲目，经历过这些后，英国其中一支最让人喜欢的乐队将再一次给人们带来惊喜和刺激。

Tom Chaplin、Tim Rice-Oxley和Richard Hughes，三个自称坚持不再重耍旧技的队友，带来了《Perfect Symmetry》，这张充满了色彩斑斓的流行歌曲，和充沛纯粹的新鲜活力的新专辑。在这些充满活力的合唱中，可以感受到专辑的乐趣所在。跟以钢琴为主打 的经典首发《Hopes And Fears》与更加黑暗的《Under The Iron Sea》的截然不同一般，《Perfect Symmetry》与它们的截然不同让我们看到了一个在他们精力顶峰的Keane。这张专辑确定了Rice-Oxley在这个时代作为英国最优秀的作曲人 之一的地位，更见证了Keane抛弃所有过去的伎俩，完完全全跟着音乐来到它所需要的领域，从而造就了这张大胆创新的专辑，让人们听到它时也能感受到创作 时的乐趣。

Keane数百万的忠实歌迷会立刻发现《Perfect Symmetry》是一部只有Keane能完成的作品，而另一些可能会被他们所跨进的意想不到的领域吓跑了。的确，听过新专辑的开胃菜 《Spiralling》后，你也许根本没认出这是创作出《Somewhere Only We Know》的乐队的作品。的确，《Perfect Symmetry》是Keane第一张采用了音乐锯、萨克斯和透过一只鼓唱出歌来的专辑。专辑的录音过程在柏林、巴黎和伦敦进行。这也是他们第一张自主制 作的专辑，同时还获得知名制作人Jon Brion（与Rufus Wainwright和Kanye West合作过）和Stuart Price（与Madonna和Les Rhythmes Digitales合作过）的协助。三个男人一声欣喜的“喔!”便是你在专辑听到的第一个声音。

“我们总是说我们想挑战自己。”，Hughes说，“很多乐队，他们在发行一张专辑时，总是说他们挑战过自己了。但我们这些乐迷坐下来，一边读着这些话，一边想‘太棒了，我迫不及待想听它！’，然后你放这张碟来听，却想‘不对，等一下……’”

“我们的唱片公司恨不得我们做三张《Hopes And Fears》出来。”，他继续说道，“但我们已经做了一张了，一张就够了。”

“我觉得这绝对是我们做过的最好的音乐。”，Chaplin说，“我很期待人们能听到它。”

***

2008年官网的乐队背景资料

Keane are back. After over 8 million sales of Hopes And Fears (2004) and Under The Iron Sea (2006) combined, sold-out arena tours, awards spanning Ivor Novellos to BRITs, plus an undeniable collection of hits including Is It Any Wonder?, Everybody’s Changing, Crystal Ball and Somewhere Only We Know, one of Britain’s best-loved bands are about to surprise and thrill all over again.

Avowed believers in never retreading old ground, Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley and Richard Hughes return with Perfect Symmetry, a Technicolor explosion of stellar pop songs and pure, unashamed energy; the joy in which is audible in every finger-click and life-affirming chorus. As different as piano-helmed classic debut Hopes And Fears was from its darker cousin Under The Iron Sea, Perfect Symmetry finds Keane at the height of their powers. Confirming Rice-Oxley’s position as one of the finest British songwriters to emerge this decade, the 11-song set sees Keane throwing any last vestiges of caution to the wind and simply letting the music take them where it will. The result is a thrillingly bold album that’s as pleasurable to listen to as it was to make.

While millions of paid-up Keane fans will immediately recognise Perfect Symmetry as a body of work that could have come from no other group, others are likely to be knocked sideways by their various leaps into uncharted territory. Indeed, after hearing download-record-breaking first taste Spiralling, it’s possible you might not have even recognised it the work of “the Somewhere Only We Know band”. Certainly, Perfect Symmetry is the first Keane album to feature musical saw, saxophone, vocals recorded through a drum; studio sessions in Berlin, Paris and London; their first self produced album, with input from esteemed producers Jon Brion (Rufus Wainwright; Kanye West) and Stuart Price (Madonna; Les Rhythmes Digitales) and the sound of three men yelping a delighted ‘Oooh!’ as virtually the first thing you hear.

“We’ve always said we want to challenge ourselves,” says Hughes. “Most bands, when they release an album, always say they’ve pushed themselves. But we’re all music lovers and we sit there and read these things and think ‘Great, can’t wait to hear it!’ and then you put it on and you think ‘Oh. Hang on a minute…’”

“There’s nothing that our record company would have loved more than for us to have delivered Hopes And Fears three times,” he continues. “But we’ve already done one, and one’s enough.”

“I think by a million miles it’s the best thing we’ve put together,” says Chaplin. “I can’t wait for people to hear it.”

***

2010年2月Billboard报道:Keane五月搭上《Night Train》

Keane Boarding the ‘Night Train’ This May

http://www.billboard.com/news/keane-boarding-the-night-train-this-may-1004071403.story#/news/keane-boarding-the-night-train-this-may-1004071403.story

by Michael D. Ayers, N.Y. | Feb 26, 2010 11:28 EST

British rock act Keane is set to return this spring with its fourth album, “Night Train.” Due May 11 via Cherrytree/Interscope, the set contains only 8 songs, but features collaborations with rapper K’Naan, Japanese MC Tigarah and a rare lead vocal performance from Keane keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley.

“Night Train’s” title and material was born out of Keane’s world tour for 2008’s “Perfect Symmetry,” of which the band’sfavorite method of travel became taking trains between gigs. “The idea was to chuck out a single, or at most an EP in October,” Keane vocalist Tom Chaplin tells Billboard.com. “But it turned into something more. I think we see it as a body of work that we made during touring. Just a document of different places and moods.”

Chaplin says that the tunes on “Night Train” were written out on the road during the “Perfect Symmetry” tour and recorded at various studios around the globe, depending on where they were at the moment. “I think most bands feel like this, but out on the road, it can be a desolate place at times. A sense of not being that creative. And this is a bit more spontaneous. We’ve always felt that everything must be just so. And you can drive yourself loopy if you dissect every part you’re doing.”

Alongside Coldplay and Radiohead, Keane has become one of Britain’s best exports over the last several years . According to Nielsen SoundScan, “Perfect Symmetry” sold 135,000. But those numbers pale in comparison to 2006’s “Under the Iron Sea,” which has sold 392,000, and the band’s 2004 debut, “Hopes and Fears,” which has sold 1,000,000.

“Maybe it was a step too far for some people as far as what they expect from Keane,” Chaplin says of “Perfect Symmetry’”s sales. “It doesn’t bother us too much. In a way, it makes us hungrier. You realize you only get one chance in a band. Using the same tricks is a boring idea. We really want to keep moving.”

Although nothing is on the books at the moment, Chaplin has high hopes that Keane will return stateside this summer for a tour.

Here is the track list for “Night Train”:

“House Lights”
“Back in Time”
“Stop For a Minute” (featuring K’Naan)
“Clear Skies”
“Ishin Dengshin (You’ve Got To Help Yourself)” (Featuring Tigarah)
“Your Love”
“Looking Back” (Featuring K’Naan)
“My Shadow”

Keane2006年官网的背景资料

We grew up and went to school together in and around a small town called ‘Battle’ in the south of England. There is not much to do in Battle, but in the late 1980s, during school holidays spent playing football, we discovered music, like most kids do, and pretty soon were swapping our favourite new albums and artists.

Tim had a few piano lessons at school, but quickly bored of the endless scales and classical music, so gave up trying, only to discover that he could play Buddy Holly tunes with what he had picked up. That was it, the start of years playing the songs he enjoyed listening to on a Casio keyboard, programming a pocket-sized sequencer, and trying to write his own songs to play to his friends.

As soon as Rich started out on the drums we started playing together, recruiting a guitarist; Dominic, and soon after, a singer; Tom.

Music was the only thing we all wanted to do. We had nobody to teach us aside from the tapes in our walkmans, and our Beatles’ songbooks, so it took a while to get the hang of playing and writing. By 1999, we moved to London to seek a record deal and conquer the world.

Two years on, without a record deal, and with one less member, the three of us fled back to the countryside, broke and downhearted, suffering the ill-effects of two years spent in dead-end jobs by day, and dank rehearsal rooms by night.

Salvation arrived, as ever, in the form of music; an opportunity to go to a dilapidated farmhouse in France and record some new demos. The guitar lines were forgotten, and a new sound gradually emerged. ­ Pianos and keyboard took over and Tom’s voice found the space it needed. We headed back home, eager to play our new songs to people.

By January 2003 we’d been given the chance to release a record on tiny-but-legendary indie label, Fierce Panda, whose head honcho had seen us play at the 12 Bar Club in London. We went back to Battle and recorded ‘Everybody’s Changing’. The song was made ‘Single of the Week’ by influential Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq, and gradually picked up by others. All 500 copies sold, and we could barely believe it. We took toured the UK for the first time, playing to packed houses and empty rooms. We paid for the fuel and food with what we had earned the night before, ­the money safely stored in a plastic food container.

The lure of a real band that was getting played on the radio and touring the UK was too much to resist, and pretty much all of the big labels had got their chequebooks out. We signed a deal that offered us total creative control over our music, and went to a small local studio called Helioscentric to record and co-produce (with Andy Green) our debut album ‘Hopes and Fears’ in late 2003, and headed back out on the road.

We released ‘Hopes and Fears’ in May 2004.

The continuing tour we embarked upon led us around the world for another eighteen months. In 2004 we played four UK tours, and by October 2005 had played 5 American tours which included playing alongside U2 at Madison Square Gardens, visited Mexico, Japan, Australia, toured Europe, played festivals all over the world, and played at the London ‘Live 8′ show.

‘Hopes and Fears’ sold over 5 million copies worldwide. We won two Brit Awards in 2005 (British Breakthrough Act and Best Album); Q Magazine’s Best Album award; and were nominated in the Best New Act category at The Grammys, but the touring was taking its toll – we needed to get back into the studio, and back to our homes. During every break we could find since 2004, we had been recording bits and pieces, and in October 2005 we headed straight back into the studio for the new sessions with Andy Green, finishing off in December.

The new album, ‘Under The Iron Sea’ was recorded at The Magic Shop in Soho, New York, and back at Helioscentric Studios, near Battle.

In making this record we tried to confront all our worst fears, to ruthlessly scrutinise ourselves, our relationship with each other, with other people, and with the world at large, and to make a journey into the darkest places we could find.

It made for an incredibly intense atmosphere during the writing and recording of the album, and the resultant songs and sounds very much reflect that. In the songs we created a kind of sinister fairytale-world-gone-wrong, a feeling of confusion and numbness represented by a dark place under an impenetrable iron sea. To express all this we created entirely new sounds by putting an old electric piano and various analogue synths through many different combinations of vintage guitar effects pedals, creating soundscapes that range from the percussive to vast oppressive walls of distortion.

We were writing, singing and performing with a drive, intensity and fury that is almost unrecognisable from our previous music.

It was important that this album had a strong visual presence too, and the start of that was the collaboration with Irvine Welsh on ‘Atlantic’ offered somebody who both inspired us, and found his own inspiration in our music.

His resulting film echoes the importance of that visual identity we strove for.

We wrote Under The Iron Sea because we needed a record that was going to make us feel alive again.

Keane2006年官网的背景资料

我们在英国南部的一座叫”Battle”的小镇里一起长大和上学。在Battle里没有什么东西好做的，但在20世纪八十年代末，我们在学校假期踢足球时像许多小孩子一样发现了音乐，而且很快就开始搜罗我们最喜欢的专辑和歌手。

Tim在学校里上了几节钢琴课，却很快就对没完没了的音阶和古典音乐感到无聊了。于是他放弃了上课，却发现他能把听到的Buddy Holly的音调弹出来。于是他开始在一台Casio钢琴上弹奏自己喜欢的歌，在一台口袋大小的音序器上编程，并努力去写自己的歌曲来表演给他的朋友听。

当Rich一开始打鼓，我们就立刻一起组队，招募了吉他手Dominic，然后不久，主唱Tom。

我们唯一想做的就是音乐。没有人教，我们就自己从walkman的录音带和Beatles的乐谱里学。因此过了一段时间我们才懂得演奏和 创作。到了1999年，我们前往伦敦去寻找一个唱片合约，然后要征服世界。

两年过去了，我们不但没有唱片约，还少了一个队员，我们三个逃回乡下，信心尽失，被这两年日要做没有前途的工作，夜要在阴暗潮湿的房间里排练的生活所留下的阴影折磨着。

像从来的一样，拯救以音乐的形式到来了。这次我们有机会去一个坍坯的法国农房里去录制一些新的样本。吉他的谱子被忘记了，而新的声音逐渐产生了。钢琴和键盘取代其位，Tom的嗓音也找到其所。我们于是回家，渴望着向人们演奏我们的新歌。

我们在2004年五月发行了Hopes And Fears。

我们之后展开的持续的巡回演出让我们又用了18个月周游世界。在2004年我们演出了四个英国巡回，而到了2005年十月我们又完成五个美国巡演，其中包括在Madison Square Gardens（纽约麦迪逊广场花园）与U2的同台演出。我们访问了墨西哥、日本、澳大利亚，巡演了欧洲，在世界各地的音乐节上表演，还有在伦敦Live 8的表演。

Hopes And Fears在全球销售超过了五百万张。在2005年 我们赢得了两项Brit Awards（全英音乐奖）奖项（英国最佳突破奖和最佳专辑奖）和Q Magazine的最佳专辑奖，并获得了Grammys(格莱美)最佳新人的提名。但是巡演总有它的代价－－我们需要回到录音室，回到家里。自从2004 年起，我们就在能拥有的每个间隙录制了一些零零碎碎的东西。在2005年十月，我们径直回到录音室与Andy Green展开新的工作，并在十二月份结束。

新专辑Under The Iron Sea先是在纽约Soho的The Magic Shop里录制，然后回到Battle附近的Helioscentric Studios完成。

在制作这张专辑时，我们努力地去面对我们所有的巨大的恐惧，去无情地审视自己，审视我们之间、我们与他人、以至我们与外在 世界的关系，去我们能找到的最黑暗的地方探索。

这在创作和录制过程中产生了难以置信的紧张气氛，而由此生成的歌曲和声音很好地反映了这一点。在歌曲里我们制造出了一种童话世界要出错的不祥征兆，一种由一个不可到达的铁海下的黑暗地方象征的迷惑和麻木。为了表达这一切，我们用电子钢琴和各种模拟合成音穿插于各种不同的有浓厚吉他效果的踏板钢琴声来创造出全新的声音，从而制造出从打击到沉重的分裂巨墙的声音意境。

我们带着驱动力、力量和愤怒写着，唱着，表演着。而这些驱动力、力量和愤怒在我们以前的音乐里几乎不能被感受得到。

同样重要的还有这张专辑有强烈的视觉现实感。而启动这种现 实感的是与Irvine Welsh在Atlantic上的合作。他们两者启发了我们，而他也在我们的音乐里获得启发。

他制作出来的影片又再次强调了我 们追求的视觉特有的效果。

我们创作了Under The Iron Sea，因为我们需要一张能让我们感觉重获生机的专辑。

2006年六月