‘It just came from all of us wanting to help our friend...’
After seven years away, Keane are back with a new album and tour. NICK PARKHOUSE spoke to drummer Richard Hughes
SIX years ago, just in time for the Christmas gift market, Island Records released The Best Of Keane. A retrospective featuring hits from five number one albums, the compilation seemed to draw a line under the career of a band who, for a decade, had been one of the UK’s most popular.
When singer Tom Chaplin announced his first solo album in 2016 that was, to all intents and purposes, the end of Keane. Now, however, the double Brit awardwinners are back with their first studio album in seven years – and no-one is more surprised than drummer Richard Hughes.
“It isn’t something that we really imagined would happen, if I’m being honest,” mused the drummer, just a few weeks before the release of sixth album Cause And Effect. “In our heads we were
pretty much done – Tom wanted to do some stuff of his own and I think he had a few ongoing issues that he really needed to deal with. It didn’t look good for us for a while.”
While Chaplin was overcoming some well-publicised issues to record his first solo album, bandmate and Keane songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley was struggling with personal problems of his own. After the breakdown of his marriage, the man responsible for writing multi-millionselling hits Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing had been banned from driving for being caught nearly three times the drink-drive limit. While these episodes had provided material for new songs, it seemed unlikely they would ever see the light of day.
Hughes takes up the story. “Tim had given up on the idea of there being more Keane records and so he’d started to think about doing a solo record himself. He’d put together some recordings, and I got him to send them to me.
“Tom and I both heard the songs and we thought they were really good. They were very dark as Tim’s marriage had broken up and he’d been struggling and feeling a bit rudderless.
“Tom felt that he wanted to help Tim get these songs out, and that meant making another Keane record,” says Hughes. “We all met up for lunch one day, sat in a pub garden and chatted away, just winding back the clock. Tom said that he really wanted to record the songs and that unleashed Tim who mentioned he had a few other things in the bank – and we realised there was an album here.
“Really, it just came from all of us wanting to reach out and help our friend
who was going through this terrible time.”
One of the reasons that it’s perhaps so surprising that Keane are back is that singer Chaplin was enjoying significant success as a solo artist. Debut album The Wave reached the top three in the UK album charts, and most recently he was seen singing the songs of Queen in a sell-out London show. I wondered whether having to take on the mantle of Freddie Mercury had actually worked to the band’s advantage?
“Yes. We started recording immediately after Tom had done the first Queen show. Normally we start with the drums and the bass and the piano and the last thing you do is the vocals, but his voice was in such good shape that we actually started with the vocals. He was saying that his range has got bigger...partly in response to the workout that he gave it with that show.
“I think these are the best vocals he’s done. Also, with his solo stuff, he’s become a better frontman. He’s got this confidence from steering his solo tour and I feel like he is as good as he has ever been. It’s really fun being on stage... it’s a joy to sit at the drum kit behind him.”
Having reunited for a series of big festival shows this summer, it’s clear that Keane are enjoying playing together. However, even going back to the early days of the mid2000s, this hasn’t always been the case. It’s been more than a decade since Hamburg Song brought issues between the band to the fore, and Hughes admits that it hasn’t always been plain sailing.
“We’ve all had our moments. The early days – it was difficult. We had overnight success after ten years of failure! It did all happen so fast that I think it took a while for our heads to get around it and I think we weren’t necessarily all on the same page all the time.
“You get very ambitious but at the same time you’re trying to enjoy things.
“The amount of pressure on Tom as a frontman to go from playing to 50 people to playing at Live 8; it felt like it happened overnight. Suddenly you’re playing in Hyde Park in front of 200,000 people plus it’s on the telly and Paul McCartney’s at the side of the stage. You’re thinking ‘this is insanity!’
“And I’m sitting at the back! So for Tom who’s at the front or Tim who’s written these songs – the pressures are very different.”
Rewind a few years, and with no sign of a new Keane record on the horizon, what would Richard’s next step have been?
“I don’t know! I was feeling so ‘over it’ that I didn’t play the drums for a couple of years. It felt like a chance to be at home and to decompress a little bit: my wife and I had a baby boy and basically I’ve just been at home being dad.
“My son absolutely loves the new record so my wife is basically sick of it! When I’m practising he comes down and he wants to play with me and sit at the kit. Getting behind the drums again has been like riding a bike. I’ve been working on a couple of things technique-wise and I feel like there’s always a chance to improve but it’s been really fun.”
With a series of live dates to follow the album release, it’s clear that Hughes is excited for what the rest of 2019 has in store. He pauses, before echoing the thoughts of millions of global fans: “I’ve had a lot of friends just say that it’s really nice that we’re back.”
■ Cause And Effect will be released by Island on September 20. Keane play the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, on October 4. Tickets: trch.com or 0115 989 5555.