‘We’re better than ever’

As the band celebrate 20 years

“The album was life-changing”, says Keane frontman Tom Chaplin as he reflects on the group’s seminal debut album Hopes And Fears 20 years on from its release.

And that is was for the group of 20something-year-olds school friends who had been playing gigs around London for years in the hope of making a name for themselves.

Fuelled by the hits Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing, their first record soared up the charts across the world, including becoming one of the best selling album’s of the year in the UK. The following year it picked up the Brit award for best British album and secured them the British breakthrough act prize.

“I don’t think we ever expected then that Hopes And Fears would be quite the record that it became”, Chaplin tells me.

“It really was a mainstream success and all over the world and for an indie band who just wanted to make records it was exhilarating, but also, at times, quite a terrifying experience as well.

“It was just a beautiful feeling to know that the music seemed to resonate with so many people so I look back on it with huge fondness. Not that there weren’t problems but, for the most part, I’m so grateful that the record has done so much for us as a band and us as people.”

The original line-up – of composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim RiceOxley, drummer Richard Hughes, guitarist Dominic Scott and singer Chaplin – all attended the private boarding school Tonbridge School.

Scott left the band in 2001 and Jesse Quin was later added as a bassist. Chaplin recalls the years of graft within the mid-to-late-90s when they were set on breaking through.

“We had to work out how to write songs, how to be a half decent live band, how to be heard, how to record and it felt like an age because we were desperate to get cracking and release music,” he says.

They cemented their position within the music industry with their following studio albums – 2006’s Under The Iron Sea, 2008’s Perfect Symmetry and 2012’s Strangeland – which all went to No.1. However, the group announced they were going on a hiatus in 2013.

After six years, the indie rockers made a comeback with their fifth studio album Cause And Effect, which peaked at No.2, proving that their reunion was truly welcomed.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the record that started everything for them, the band are releasing a remastered version and are on a world tour with UK shows UK in May. Their summer schedule is also swiftly filling up as they have just been announced to perform on the main Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in June before they headline Latitude Festival in July alongside Kasabian, London Grammar and Duran Duran.

The singer says Latitude has long been a favourite of his for the lineup’s diversity and hails the opportunity to headline it as a “great honour”.

“To be top of the bill is very special”, he adds.

“There’s obviously a bit more pressure when people come with expectation of seeing you as a headliner but then again we’ve spent 20 years doing this so we more or less know what we’re doing at this stage.

“And I feel like we’re playing better and performing better than we ever have done. My hope is just that as the sun goes down and we’re playing a set that people will be taken on a beautiful and emotional journey, which I think is what we always try and do with our music.”

Tom Chaplin, far right, with his Keane bandmates. And, inset, performing on the Graham Norton show