David Furst: This is All of It. On WNYC. I'm David Furst filling in for Alison Stewart. It's been 20 years since listeners first heard this piano intro. [music - Keane: Somewhere Only We Know.]

David Furst: That's Somewhere Only We Know, the opening song to Hopes and Fears, the platinum debut album from the English rock band Keane. The band is currently on tour celebrating the album's 20th anniversary with a stop at Radio City Music Hall tonight and we are excited to have with us in WNYC's Studio 5 right now two of the band's founding members, lead singer Tom Chaplin.

Tom Chaplin: Hello.

David Furst: And keyboardist and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley. Welcome to All of It.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Thanks for having us.

Tom Chaplin: Yes, great to be here. Where are the other two? That's what I want to know [crosstalk].

David Furst: Well, it's great to have the two of you with us, get started with some music.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Absolutely, yes. We'd like to play a song off Hopes and Fears. It's called Everybody's Changing.

[music - Keane: Everybody's Changing]

David Furst: Everybody's Changing. Song from Hopes and Fears. Some music to really change the entire feel of the day here at WNYC. Thank you so much for that. Wow. This is what you're bringing to Radio City Music Hall tonight?

Tom Chaplin: It is, yes. It's been lovely to celebrate Hopes and Fears. We were a bit tentative about it when we were planning the whole thing last year thinking, is it too nostalgic? Is it too much of a nod to the past, whatever, but actually, it's obviously a record that completely changed our lives as musicians and allowed us to tour the world. I think also what we've noticed is just the impact it had on our fans and as we've learned, people around the world and so to be able to go out around the world and celebrate it with people and see the joy in their faces and what it brings back for them has been a lovely thing.

David Furst: You talk about the impact on your fans, the impact when you're first performing those songs when they're brand new, I imagine, is different from what you're seeing now 20 years later. Is it a celebration? Is that what you're feeling?

Tom Chaplin: Well, it is a celebration, I suppose. They've got a life of their own now. 20 years of playing these songs, the songs then have a life of their own and they've become a different thing. It's very hard to remember when we were first playing them. You may have a view on that, Tim.

Tim Rice-Oxley: We spent so many years playing clubs in London and around, I mean, really to tiny/non-existent crowds. It's funny, every night, for some reason, in the song Bedshaped, which is the last song of the set normally, I always think back to this pub in London called the Water Rats, and I remember playing that song there and it's so weird to then obviously be in a completely different place. All these people, this history, and yes, it's a pretty magical thing. As Tom says, it feels out of our control, which is beautiful. It's probably for the best.

David Furst: We're speaking with Tim Rice-Oxley and Tom Chaplin and we're talking about these songs being 20 years old but your experience together goes back well before that. The two of you met in grade school, right? I imagine the shared experience between the two of you leads to a musical connection, an understanding that you don't get when you play with other musicians. [inaudible 00:07:39]

Tom Chaplin: Yes, I think that's very true. Keane is like a brotherhood, really. It's like a family because we did grow up in the same small town, we went to the same schools. In fact, Tim's mom and dad are my godparents.

David Furst: Wow.

Tom Chaplin: In fact, Tim's a little bit older than I, but we were-- his brother Tom and I were very good mates as very small kids. There were two Toms who were inseparable. Then there was Tim, who was his elder brother and as the years went by I as very intrigued by Tim and his world of keyboards and all these songbooks and he would learn the chords and play the music of all these songs that I was getting into. Simon and Garfunkel, people like that.

As the years went by, we formed this musical bond and it grew out of that place but yes, it goes back almost as far as I can remember, really.

David Furst: The two of you went to the same primary school, right? Vinehall.

Tom Chaplin: Vinehall, yes.

David Furst: Where your father was also headmaster, correct?

Tom Chaplin: Yes. They were very happy days at that school, I think.

David Furst: Was it a point of pride that your father was headmaster or could be an embarrassment?

Tom Chaplin: Well, it was neither, really. I think I probably came in for harsher punishment [laughs] from some of the other kids but then I was also quite naughty, quite a boisterous [crosstalk].

David Furst: So perhaps it was deserved.

Tom Chaplin: It might well have been deserved. It's hard to be objective.

David Furst: Tim, I was reading a comment from you recently. I think it was in the Guardian you were talking about a photo of you taken back in those school days and saying it was the last time in your life that you still felt cool. I mean, for somebody who has performed on stage at Glastonbury Festival and will be heading to Radio City Music Hall tonight, that's an incredible thing to say.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Yes. We're blessed and cursed with an acute sense of self-deprecation or whatever but I think when we first came out or first had some success or whatever, as a band, we were definitely known as not being very cool and we were surrounded by this whole scene of cool bands and skinny--

David Furst: There's always somebody cooler, right?

Tim Rice-Oxley: I mean, definitely everyone was cooler. The funny thing is, obviously at the time, it was a bit of a-- it bothered us but I think actually, what's happened as the years have gone by is that it's meant that we're kind of out-- we've never been in fashion, particularly, so now we haven't fallen out of fashion and actually, the music has spoken for itself and we're still here.

David Furst: That was good training for a long career.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Unintentionally, yes.

[laughter]

Tom Chaplin: I think if you get too enamored with the idea of coolness and being part of what's currently the thing, it's a dangerous game to play because obviously everything moves on. I think we were always very interested in the bands and the artists who made timeless, classic music and I think that's always where our intentions have been.

David Furst: What do you remember about each other when you were both first in school together?

Tom Chaplin: Well, we boarded at this school even though my parents lived on the site. I wanted to board because there was a real-- there was a lovely community of boarders, so I wanted to board. In fact, I remember Tim, I think, was my dorm leader, and he was actually very kind. He looked after me when I first arrived.

Tim Rice-Oxley: I don't remember that at all.

Tom Chaplin: Do you not remember that? I may have just made that up. I may have just dreamt it.

Tim Rice-Oxley: No, it's probably true. It's just such a long time ago.

David Furst: It's incredible. I mean, but when did you first start to think of each other as potential bandmates? Hey, let's work together.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Well, the thing was that we, like a lot of kids I suppose, our connection, really, for most of our young lives was more about sport, I would say, than anything else. It was all like, I don't know, just running around and doing boy stuff and it wasn't until-- I mean, we did start to dabble a bit with songwriting, but it wasn't until probably into our early 20s, I can't remember but yes, it wasn't till later, anyway, that we started to think seriously about music or even seriously about the idea of trying to play music together.

Tom was always a really good singer and that was one of his things. I felt like you were very much in the musical world as a kid, whereas Richard and I, were the real duffers who got put at the back of the class to play the tambourine. Try not to ruin it for everyone else.

Tom Chaplin: I was probably naturally a bit more extroverted as well and so I think that-- because when we first formed the band, there were four of us and three of us were all contributing songs and we didn't really know who the singer should be but I think it quite quickly made sense that, oh, yeah, Tom's the big show off, let's get him to be the frontman.

David Furst: I want to play a little clip. This is a very early recording, I believe-- you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the very first song you released as Keane. It's called call me what you like.

Tom Chaplin: Oh, wow.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Okay.

David Furst: Came out in 2000. Let's hear a little clip.

[music: Keane - Call Me What You Like]

David Furst: Do you remember this song?

Tom Chaplin: Absolutely.

David Furst: Absolutely.

Tom Chaplin: I mean, it's interesting because that's only three or four years before Hopes and Fears came out. I don't think that was strictly a formal release. It wasn't done through a label or anything but you can really see we hadn't quite arrived at what we wanted to or what we were going to be.

David Furst: Your voice certainly already sounds fantastic.

Tom Chaplin: It sounds good, but I can hear I'm trying a bit too hard. What's interesting is that at that point, we still had a guitarist in the band.

David Furst: Well, yes because fans know your sound, really, from that debut album which has such prominent piano and keyboard, and here there's a lot of guitars in the mix.

Tom Chaplin: Yeah. So at that point, we were living in London. We were trying to sort of get signed on the London circuit and we had a guitarist called Dominic. He was a great guitarist, as you can hear from that recording but I think at that point, there were so many bands in London who just wanted to be Radiohead and you can definitely hear a little bit of that influence.

Tim Rice-Oxley: And Travis as well.

Tom Chaplin: And Travis.

Tim Rice-Oxley: The acoustic is so Travis.

Tom Chaplin: Yes, absolutely.

Tim Rice-Oxley: The double dragged keys.

Tom Chaplin: I can hear the seeds of what Keane would become in there, but I can't quite hear the finished article or whatever.

David Furst: Well, the band Keane are with us in the studio celebrating 20 years of the debut album Hopes and Fears. Performing at Radio City tonight. Tim, in the last 20 years, have you thought about what makes a Keane song?

Tim Rice-Oxley: I've thought about it. The funny thing is, especially playing live and trying to pick our set list every night or every tour or whatever, you realize that actually, we've accrued a quite large collection of songs now and actually, there's a real variety which even we, I think, tend to forget. There's a lot of weirder stuff, more ethereal stuff in amongst all the big soaring notes, which Tom's so good at, and the catchy choruses and stuff.

I think really, the thing that defines us probably is emotional authenticity, which is something we talked about quite a lot recently because you always trying to find your way forward creatively and find out what is it that we're trying to achieve together if we make new music? I think it's really hard to put your finger on until you start playing but I think that the thing at the core of it is that we're always really-- we struggle to do anything apart from be really honest about, normally, ourselves and most of the songs are essentially about ourselves.

A lot of them are actually really about the band, even. There's a bit of a-- Musically, I don't know, there's a lot of catchy-- we're very melody driven generally but I do think really it's the emotional authenticity that actually draws people to the music.

David Furst: We're speaking with Tim Rice-Oxley and Tom Chaplin with Keane, and we continue the conversation in just a moment with some more live music as well. This is All of It on WNYC. This is All of It on WNYC. I'm David Furst, and for Alison Stewart. We are here with Tom Chaplin and Tim Rice-Oxley of the band Keane at Radio City Music Hall tonight. Can we hear some more music?

Tom Chaplin: Yes. We're going to play a song called This is The Last Time.

[music - Keane: This is The Last Time]

David Furst: Insert applause here. Sounds incredible. Thank you for the performance. Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley, the band Keane. You'll be at Radio City Music Hall tonight. What can we expect from this show?

Tom Chaplin: Well, this tour has felt like just one big celebration, really, a celebration of hopes and fears but yes, also just the music since the last 20 years and just this amazing bond that I feel like we have with our fans. I think as Tim was saying about the emotional element of the music, I think you really see it etched in people's faces it shows. They really give us so much emotionally and it's a real outpouring of every feeling. Joy and sadness and excitement. There's that.

That for me, is the core of the show and of course, we try and take people on a journey with the set list and provide lots of variety and fun lights and me prancing around the stage, twirling around as well. It's just great fun, I think.

David Furst: And as you're celebrating this 20 years of Hopes and Fears, there's a new version of this album out, right, Tim? A deluxe edition with a lot of extra material.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Yes, we put a lot of work into it, actually, and dug very deep into the archives probably too deep.

[laughter]

David Furst: For fans, it's never too deep.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Yes. There are three people out there who are going to be very excited about the demo of me singing whatever [crosstalk].

Tom Chaplin: Whatever was scraped off the bottom of the barrel.

Tim Rice-Oxley: It's a great start. I mean, it's amazing. It's been amazing for us as well. As Tom says, we were a little bit skeptical about the whole concept, I think but actually, as soon as you start digging in-- I mean, I loved going back trying to find very early demos. Really, the original demo of Somewhere Only We Know for example, and you can hear us talking between takes and stuff. The thing that made me laugh about it is that we just haven't changed. It's the same jokes.

David Furst: The conversations that you hear.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Yes.

Tom Chaplin: Incredibly puerile. The whole thing.

Tim Rice-Oxley: In between these incredibly emotional takes, Tom will still--

David Furst: It's great to chart that evolution [inaudible 00:24:02].

Tim Rice-Oxley: Yes, but I think it's great, as you say, for fans there's so much stuff. All the B-sides and rarities, stuff that's never been released before. We actually recorded one song specially for it. There's a load of demos, stuff that we'd completely forgotten about and definitely hasn't been heard before. It's a pretty cool thing.

David Furst: Very cool and can we get you to play one more song before you rush off to the show tonight?

Tom Chaplin: Yes. Well, we're going to play the song that Tim was talking about called Somewhere Only We Know.

[music - Keane: Somewhere Only We Know]

David Furst: Lead singer Tom Chaplin. Keyboardist, pianist songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley. Thank you so much for joining us today. You are playing Radio City Music Hall tonight, so don't let me keep you. You got to run out of here right now. Thank you so much for joining us and have a fantastic show tonight.

Tom Chaplin: Thanks for having us.

Tim Rice-Oxley: Thank you.

 

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