RICHARD: I wanted to delay the release of the second album until September but, in the end, we didn't do that. It's a band, you make decisions together, and that included Tom. So we did what we did and who knows what difference it would have made or wouldn't have made. Maybe everything would have just gone tits up later.

CHRIS: Do you think it all detracted from the release of the record itself?

RICHARD: Well, when the record came out, it wasn't public and it wasn't known that this had all been going on. The U2 stuff was the previous summer, and it had obviously been going on for a long time, so a lot of things on the record were about those issues. But we couldn't talk about them because they were private issues. So we were saying, 'We've written this amazing record about... ...we can't tell you what it's about! But it's really really good...', which kind of does hinder your ability to talk about it.

ANDREW: It must have been hard to get out there and promote it without getting into specifics.

RICHARD: Well, you can say it's about 'tensions within the band', but then that just makes you sound like a wanker, because you're not being specific. You can say you're not getting on or whatever, but you can't say why you're not getting on. You end up looking a bit like its just... half-arsed, a bit non-specific, a bit wishy-washy.

ANDREW: When all the publicity was given to it being a dark album about tensions within the band, there was a lot of cynicism about it and people didn't 'buy it', but if they'd known what was going on...

RICHARD: Yeah, but... who cares?

ANDREW: Is that the attitude you have to almost everything people say about you?

RICHARD: Well, it has to be. Everyone's different but... I was chatting to somebody about the phrase 'a guilty pleasure', and we were talking about A-ha and how people wrote them off and then people came back to them. It's either good, or its not any good. I like A-ha, and I've liked A-ha for a long time and I imagine I will continue to. I don't feel bad for liking them, and I don't feel cool liking them now, in the same way that I like Wings. You know, 'Wingspan' is an amazing album, and everyone should own it! It's not necessarily the coolest thing you can like - although it seems to be becoming more cool – but all those 'really cool' people who didn't like it missed out on it for ten years! That's the punishment for being too cool.

ANDREW: Do you think music in Britain at the moment is too hung up on 'cool'?

RICHARD: Yeah, of course. I see tours sponsored by Top Man or Shockwaves, and you just think: how can you all think you're so cool when your tour is sponsored by Top Man?. How can you say that 'We're the coolest band in the world... sponsored by Shockwaves! You can have hair like mine!'? Just fuck off!

ANDREW: How do you feel about the attention that Tom attracts?

RICHARD: Tom gets a lot of grief. The other day – yesterday, in fact – we were waiting for our bags at Gatwick, and there were loads of people just taking photos of Tom, without asking, because everyone's got a cameraphone on them. You know, we were just standing there for our bags! It's really difficult – I wanted to... He has to restrain me at these times, to say 'Look, just don't worry about.', because it drives me absolutely mad, because it's really rude! If someone wants to take a photo, just come up and ask!

ANDREW: Did anyone ask?

RICHARD: No, nobody came up and asked. Fortunately, because then everybody would have come up and then everybody would have done it again, even though they'd already gotten a photo. It's just really rude, you know – there's flashes going off! It's pretty obvious when a flash comes in your direction that the camera was pointing at you. He gets a lot of grief from that, and he has to put up with a lot of invasions of privacy. I guess that's probably one of the reasons why he doesn't live in London – he lives in the countryside. I get to go everywhere pretty much anonymously – it's pretty rare, maybe five times a year or so, that somebody recognises me, which is great because I'm nobody special. I just play the drums in a band. Leave me alone!

CHRIS: Do you ever get caught out taking that too much for granted?

RICHARD: What, like buying porn or something?! (laughs) The only reason I say that is that the other day, we were all out ten pin bowling and as we were driving to the ten pin bowling place, I suggested we all stop at a newsagent and each go in and buy some porn... just to see if it ended up in the paper! We could get sponsorship, get rid of the Yamaha from the front of my drum-kit...

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: This is true! The poles... I wonder if we've seen the last of the poles...

ANDREW: A lot of the bits I like most on 'Under The Iron Sea' are your bits. Your drumming turns 'Atlantic' from what could have been an ordinary B-side into something really quite special.

RICHARD: Wow! That's nice. It's interesting you say B-side, because it was a B-side. That's why there's the demo of 'This Is The Last Time' as one of the B-sides, because we recorded...

ANDREW: 'Thin Air'

RICHARD: Ha! You know this better than me. That sounds about right. We recorded 'Thin Air' at Helioscentric with Andy Green, and then Ferdy (Unger-Hamilton) came down, who was still our A&R guy at the time. We all really liked it and he just said 'Keep this one in the bank for the second album. You'll feel good about having one song there.' And so Tim said, 'I've got these two things that I think I can join together...'. And that was 'Atlantic', which is why it's basically a song of two halves, because it was actually two songs that he joined together. Two sort-of half songs. He'd got the chords and he went off to try and write some words, because we obviously wanted to do it – this was at about 6pm on the day we had to finish recording. So he went off into this room with a piano at Helioscentric. After he'd recorded just the chords, basically just a pad all the way through, I started playing some drums along. And normally when I play the drums, I start with the melody and the melody guides where the drums go. The flow of the melody is what I think about the most when I'm trying to decide what to play on the drums – but I didn't have any melody! All I had was some chords. So I was just playing this bog-standard drum shit and then I thought, fuck it, I'll just swap it round two beats, and put the emphasis on the one instead of the three. Tim came in and really liked it, and so that, in a way, was really interesting because it was partly because we were doing it in such a different way. I'm really proud of it, so I'm glad you like it.

ANDREW: And, of course, there's 'Broken Toy' as well, which I guess you must have spent quite a bit of time on because it's so different to your usual style of drumming.

RICHARD: Yeah, well, I spent quite a long time trying to work out how to play the fucking thing! Tim had programmed a beat that sounded really like a sort of 'Kid A' song, his demo was just Logic drums, and it had a rough version of that beat which was all sort of echoes and delays, and I had to try and play it, but also turn it into a drum part rather than just a loop. That was really fun. It was really hard, though. I think we did a lot of that in New York actually, in the Magic Shop. There's a bit on the 'UTIS' DVD where I'm playing something or other, and I think they got me on camera saying 'God, that was really hard', but the thing they'd recorded me playing wasn't actually 'Broken Toy'! It is fun to try and do something different, but then, you know, when you're making a second record, you can do that. That's a really long song - six minute songs aren't out of place these days. How long is 'Paranoid Android', and that song 'What Sarah Did' from 'Plans' by Death Cab for Cutie? That's a good six-minuter, but that's amazing. Maybe we're going to go prog!

--------------

Look out for part two tomorrow...

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

The second part of our exclusive interview between Richard and two Keane fans

PART TWO:

ANDREW: I’ve read that Tim suggested to you that what you were doing wasn’t good enough when you were recording the second album.

RICHARD: Yeah, the first stuff that we did was... [pause and furrowed brow] I find it very difficult to remember chronology, but we’d done some recording, and I think then we had an American tour, because I remember having a conversation in a hotel in Santa Barbara or some place called Ojai – one of those weird words that you say wrong for a week and then you realise you’ve been saying it wrong and everyone’s just been thinking you’re a moron. Anyway, we’d been recording, and at the time I was trying to move into my flat and I was travelling down from London every day and back up, and Helioscentric’s a good two and a half hour drive. Also, we hadn’t written stuff in the same way. I find it so much easier if we’ve worked on stuff before we go into the studio, and this time we hadn’t. I don’t feel that I’m somebody who can just say ‘Right, I’m going to go do it this way,’ then I’m going to go do it that way. I like to work it out, practice it, get it right, know what I’m going to do and then record it. Obviously, with the second record, we hadn’t had any time to do that – Tim had written some songs, and it was a case of going in. And yes, he did say that. You have to say that stuff if you’re in a band, because it’s got your name on the front! We did re-record drums quite a lot more on this album, because previously we’d just go in, record the drums and then we’re done. With this, it was evolving, and sometimes we did songs three times.

CHRIS: I suppose on the first record you’d had years to perfect them.

RICHARD: Yeah, and we’d been gigging around the place and we’d pretty much got them down and recorded them as we’d played them in the gigs – there wasn’t a huge amount of studio trickery or wigging out or whatever. With the second one, it was very different. Hopefully with the third one, I’ll have a bit more time to prepare. You know, it’s hard to hear those things – it’s pretty difficult when someone turns round and says, ‘I don’t think what you’re doing is good enough’, but at that point you just have to sort of try and sit back and have a listen to it and see whether that’s true.

ANDREW: Are you proud of the fact that you stepped up to the mark – or that you think you stepped up to the mark?

RICHARD: I don’t know... I’ve never really thought about it. If Tim stops complaining, then normally it’s a safe assumption. Either that or he gave up!

CHRIS: Are you going to be a lot more prepared for the third record?

RICHARD: Well, we’ve got some time in our barn, the HQ, which we’re going to spend working on stuff in advance. We’re mainly trying to work out if the songs are right, because I think Tim and Tom want to know. We’ve been having a few weeks of not doing anything, just a bit of a holiday, a bit of a chance to take a breather. I think they want to feel confident about how many songs we’ve got, so that’s why we’re principally doing it, but for me it's a great chance to get going on drum tracks. But absolutely, we want to do it slightly differently. Well, I do.

ANDREW: Is there anything that you’re particularly aiming for with album three? You’ve always wanted to strive to make that ‘classic’ record.

RICHARD: I think I used to think that it was all instinctive, but you can think about it to a certain extent. You can certainly try and push the way you’re doing things, and we’ve said in the past that we don’t want to just churn out records that are the same. I think the difference between the first two records, and the fact that some people have obviously come along with us and liked both of them, is kind of a vindication that you can actually try and develop as a band, rather than just doing the same thing. And so, once again, we’re going to try and do something different with the next one. There’s a lot of interesting stuff coming out of America that's... I mean, I’ve been listening to people like Dr Dre for a long time, I think ‘2001’s a ridiculously amazing record and its probably the most played thing on my iPod. I love the sparseness of that, and the last record was really dense, it was full of stuff. So maybe we’ll try something that’s as empty as possible. There’s certainly elements of that that you could experiment with. You could try and be more minimal in your approach with instruments and try to get a bit more funk in there. We’ll see! Or it might just be a rock album – you know, I don’t know. But yeah, we’re going to try and do something different.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: We haven’t decided what we’re going to do – genuinely! We’ve met a few people, but... you know, we’ll see. I can’t see us starting recording before Christmas. If things go really well, then maybe we will, but I would imagine we’ll be sort of working on stuff in the barn – maybe with a producer, or maybe pre-production-y type stuff in November or December. But I’d be surprised if we really start recording stuff. Also, the thing is, as soon as you start recording, that’s basically the next two years gone, invested, and your next month off will be two years away! And I know that having a month off is very self-indulgent and most people who have real jobs don’t get to just say, ‘I’m going to have a month off now’. But that’s just because... I’m lucky! As soon as you start recording, you record it, and then you mix it, and then as soon as you’re mixing it, you’re then playing it to people whilst doing the advance interviews for the world and then starting working out how to play the fucking thing, and then making videos, and then doing more interviews, and then you’re on tour, and then the album’s out and you’re still on tour, and then it’s festival, then another tour, then it’s a week off for Christmas followed by Australia or something, followed by America again, followed by more festivals, followed by meltdown! And then a month off! So it’s good to have a bit of time off before we get back into all that again!

CHRIS: How involved are you in the mixing and mastering stage of the albums? The last two albums have had a certain sound to them – quite punchy, quite compressed, quite ‘in your face’, quite modern-sounding – is that part of the Keane sound?

RICHARD: Well, on the second album, the vocals are much, much quieter in the mix than the first one. They’re much more embedded in the tracks, and that was something that we’d requested – in fact I remember Spike [Spike Stent, who mixed both albums] saying that they were way quieter than he would normally be comfortable with. We’re absolutely involved in the process – we’re there from the start to the finish of the mix. There are a couple of things in the pipeline which we’ve mixed recently and we’ve absolutely been there. And the more you do it, the more you have a relationship... like with Spike, we feel very confident with him that we can suggest something, he’ll try it out, if he thinks it’s shit he’ll say it’s shit. That’s difficult to do the first time. As for mastering, that's really subtle. Spike will listen to a mastered version of something and his ears are so good, I’ll tend to leave that stuff to him and Tim. But yeah, we’ll be there for the mix – it really does set the tone. We’ve been so lucky to have Spike do both our records, because he is a genius. He is so good at it.

CHRIS: So he’s someone you’d want to stick with?

RICHARD: I think we really really trust his opinion and that’s a really valuable thing to know. And he’s confident enough in his own opinions to tell you then. So yeah, absolutely.
CHRIS: It’s quite an anal thing, but it can make all the difference.

RICHARD: It’s huge! Everything you record goes through that process. It’s massively important.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Yeah, I think we probably have. Most of them were being booked around the time that we were cancelling a lot of stuff, so I would imagine that if you were booking a festival, you wouldn’t think of Keane as a particularly safe bet. You’d want your big name headliners sorted out. But, weirdly, the fact that happened actually took some of the pressure off us. It’s meant that the last few months of touring have been really, really good fun because it’s been kind of on our own terms, and we’ve done a lot of our own shows. We had a chance to go to South America and stuff, which has been great. But yeah, it would be nice to do some big slots at some of the festivals we didn’t do this year, but the fact that we haven’t done them this year means that maybe we could do them at some point! We’ll see. We did do some so, though. The Isle of Wight was really fun and we did a festival called Werchter, and the line-up was completely ridiculous, Razorlight were on at 1pm. Then Snow Patrol, Amy Winehouse, Peter Gabriel, The Killers – that was the best Killers gig I’ve ever seen. And then it was us! At this point, we just thought we should fuck off, we’ll run off, we’re not here! ‘Nobody can find Keane! Put Snow Patrol back on!’

ANDREW: How do you feel about the way the music industry is changing? The live music scene is thriving, there’s sold out gigs on every night – are we moving toward a situation where gigs are the ‘big events’ instead of new albums being released by the artists playing them?

RICHARD: I think it’s going to be interesting. This is quite an industry conversation – it’s sort of very boring but very interesting at the same time. If you’re the kind of band who sells to people who know about computers, then basically you’re fucked. You could get to Number 5 in the charts, selling 10,000 records, but there’s probably 90,000 illegal downloads for those 10,000 legal sales. So, in a way, that’s great, because 100,000 people have got your album in the first week of release, which is amazing – you know, that’s a gold record. But you’re not going to get that gold record; in fact, you’re not going to get a silver record, you’re not going to be getting any money from it and the record label’s going to be going ‘Everyone loves them... why have we not sold any copies?’ And the band are going to be going ‘Will I still have to work at Sainsbury’s?’ or whatever. But, nevertheless, maybe if you’re that band, maybe the live scene is where you’re going to make your living, and that’s a good thing. I think you should be able to ‘do it’ live, unlike the Britneys of this world, who are very much cabaret.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Well... I’d rather they were listening to good bands than bad. Are Westlife still going?

ANDREW: Yes, as a four piece.

RICHARD: Oh... did Ronan leave?

ANDREW: Ronan wasn’t in Westlife, Richard.

RICHARD: I don’t fucking know. Robbie Williams has left Westlife! Hold the front page! Yeah, I don’t know. I must admit I did laugh very, very hard when Alex Turner said that thing about Take That at the Q Awards. I’m sure they’re very nice blokes but... fucking get over it, people. It’s funny. I can’t even remember what they won. Lifetime achievement, probably. Anyway... what were we talking about?

ANDREW: Do you think you’ve accomplished the mission of weaning people off Westlife?

RICHARD: I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of good music around and it gets on the radio, and that’s great, but there’s also a lot of really good music around that doesn’t get on the radio. I think there’s still a lot of shit that needs to be gotten rid of, and a lot of good stuff that doesn’t get played. I don’t want to name any names because it’s... you know, it’ll end up on the Bizarre page of the Sun or something, and I just... I can’t be arsed with all that.

ANDREW: Did you tire of the perceived spat between Tom and Kasabian?

RICHARD: Yeah. In fact, I was talking to Tom Meighan at Live Earth, and, you know, he’s a nice bloke. Nice velvet jacket, very smart. He said ‘It’s really nice to actually meet you and be able to talk directly to each other’. And he was saying ‘This thing’s been in the paper – I didn’t even do an interview with that newspaper! This thing was in a magazine – I didn’t even talk to that magazine!’. You know, when you read this stuff, you know there’s things Tom’s been quoted as saying that he didn’t say. But then some of it is funny, and if it’s funny then I don’t mind! I quite enjoy reading whatever Noel Gallagher has to say about whatever he’s talking about, because generally speaking, it’s really funny.

CHRIS: It must be quite flattering to have Noel Gallagher talking about you.

RICHARD: Well, exactly. I love that quote, ‘The three biggest twats in a band are the singer, the drummer and the keyboardist. That’s all I’m saying’ – That is absolute genius! And if I ever meet him, I would just congratulate him on his sense of humour. I didn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes when I heard that. It’s brilliant. So if it’s funny, then fair enough!

--------

Look out for part three tomorrow...

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

The third part of our exclusive interview with Mr Hughes

Richard, Andrew and Chris

PART THREE:

ANDREW: There was someone on the message board who was planning to head over to New York for the Carnegie Hall show, then ended up cancelling, seeing the rescheduled date and then booking another flight at great expense for that, only to see that cancelled and...

RICHARD: (Head in hands) Can you not tell me any more of this? I do genuinely find this quite upsetting. It's just like, you know that this happens, when you cancel something, and that’s why we’ve been desperately trying not to cancel anything.

CHRIS: There are some very dedicated people around.

RICHARD: There are, and we know it, and we don’t cancel shows without good reason.

CHRIS: I read that a girl from Brazil sold her car so that she could come up to Europe to see a few gigs in the last month...

RICHARD: Fucking hell. That’s just, like... bonkers. I met a girl in Toronto who had flown from Thailand to Canada, just to see the gig. I mean, I went and got her a T-shirt, signed it and that, but I mean, I think she was still a bit behind on the monetary front... free T-shirt vs. three days in Canada!

ANDREW: Does it hearten you that there are people for whom it means that much?

RICHARD: Yeah, and that’s why I don’t read our press! Because I’d rather just meet people and talk to them than read what someone I’ve never met thinks. Yeah, it’s completely ridiculous, it’s totally amazing, the level of dedication you get from people. You know, just going to a gig is a fucking shag. Just any gig. Whenever I go to a gig as a punter, it’s so unpleasant. I’ve been spoilt! Especially in London. Like, put in another bar - I’m missing half the gig waiting to get a drink! You get treated like shit. The same happens at airports, so someone whose holiday is going around airports to go to gigs is putting up with a lot of grief in order to see a band. So yes, it is ridiculously flattering that people do that.

ANDREW: Do you think you jumped ahead to big venues almost too soon, almost like the child stars who grew up too quickly?

RICHARD: I don’t know – I don’t regret anything that has happened basically, but I agree that it was difficult to go from tiny crowds to huge ones. Like that Glastonbury thing, we literally played to 200 people in New York two nights before, and then we flew back and stayed overnight in a Travelodge on the way to Glastonbury, and played to 20,000 people! The stage was probably as big as the whole of any venue we’d played in the last month, because we’d been in America playing little venues. So that was very, very dramatic. The reason we did The O2 show was that we wanted to film it, because we’re very proud of that show and it took a lot of thought. We’d been working on trying to do those venues justice. With a show where two people are rooted to the spot, that is quite difficult, and that’s why the B-stage thing is a way of getting us out into the crowd. That was really cool because suddenly Tim and I felt like the people at the back could actually see whether we were smiling or frowning rather than having to get their binoculars out. So yeah, it was hard but it’s a challenge. I’m sure a lot of people raised their eyebrows when they heard the Arctic Monkeys were going to headline Glastonbury, they probably thought ‘They can’t do that! They’ve only got two albums out, and most of the songs are less than three minutes long! How are they going to do it?’, but they did it and that was great. And I was excited to see how they did it. They did it by just being really good, and that in a way is kind of ‘their thing’. It’s like – ‘fuck it, we’re just really good’. So there we go.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: I’m really proud of it. I know that if you go to a lot of gigs you might wish the setlist changed, but we’ve only got two albums out and we’re playing for quite a long time. Constructing a setlist is very difficult. We spend a long time coming up with it. If you’re REM and you’ve rehearsed 70 songs, then you’re never going to be short of a rocky song... but you always need one more rocker, whatever the setlist is. Anyone in a band will agree that you’re always short of one rocker, however long your set is - until you’ve got an enormous back catalogue. It’s true that some people will have been to a show before, but the majority of people in a room will only go to one show on a tour. You want to give them the best setlist, basically. You kind of have to accept that you’re playing in an arena to a lot of people who probably only know the singles, and you want to give them a good show - you want the atmosphere to be good. If you don’t want to do that, do secret unannounced gigs that aren’t in an arena – don’t do an arena show and then complain about the fact that you’re playing arenas, because nobody made you do it! You’re in an arena because you said ‘Yes, let's do an arena tour’, so you’ve got to do it properly. You’ve got to approach it like that.
I remember going to see U2 at Wembley in 1993 - Zoo TV - and then buying the video which was from Sydney, and it was largely the same show. Well, of course it is – they’ve spent thousands of pounds on films! Like we’ve had this film made for 'Atlantic'. Do you think we’re not going to play the fucking song after somebody has spent weeks making this film, and we’ve spent thousands of pounds hiring this ridiculous video screen? ‘Ah fuck it, lets just play a Beatles song instead.’

ANDREW: So you have thought about dropping in covers?

RICHARD: Well we’ve tried it occasionally! We did do 'The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore' once, but we felt it didn’t work. It just seemed a bit throwaway, which is a terrible thing for a great song. No, we just like playing our stuff really. Although apparently we covered one of Snow Patrol’s songs at our Manchester show – I think we did 'Your Eyes Open', and the reviewer wrote that we’d covered Snow Patrol’s 'Eyes Open', in the middle of the gig! It’s not some obscure hidden track, it’s on the first album! It’s on the fucking tracklisting on the back! Oh, I laughed so hard.

ANDREW: They probably didn’t give it that good a review either, when they’ve left after three songs with the photographer…

RICHARD: Yeah. Yeah, that’s happened a lot. I think one of the things that made me stop reading stuff was the number of times you’d read something that says ‘At the start of this review, I think I should say up front that I don’t like Keane’. And it’s like – then why are you going? If you’re a punter and you don’t like Keane, you generally don’t find yourself logging onto Ticketmaster and buying tickets for one of their gigs! So don’t bother reviewing it. I don’t mind. It doesn’t bother me whether somebody from whatever publication reviews it or doesn’t review it.

CHRIS: I personally think the live set seems a bit more fluid and varied than when you toured 'Hopes and Fears'. Is that something you’ve tried to work on, or have you just let go a bit more?

RICHARD: I think it’s partly letting yourself go, because I don’t pretend to be some kind of amazing drummer who can just turn his hand to anything. It’s difficult – I’ve always felt like I’m on the borderline of stage fright whilst on stage. I never really look up during the first few songs to see everyone, I’m just trying to get through them and then relax into it. It’s like anything that is quite nerve-wracking. I can understand why so many musicians have heart problems! One of these days I’m actually going to go and buy a heart rate monitor and have it on during a show, like a big show, and see what the hell goes on.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Yeah, well, Radiohead have done that I think! Or was it Massive Attack? But somebody has had that idea, and I think it would be really funny. Your heart is pounding before you go on, at something like Live Earth, it’s like ‘Fucking hell, this is ridiculous!’. But yeah, I feel like I have been much more relaxed. In fact, the last two gigs we did, the one in Portugal and the one in Spain, I was dicking about all over the place. It was really good fun. Before the Portugal one Tom and I were doing our stupid cheesy rock versions of 'Hamburg Song' - you can piss about when you’re warming up, because basically you’ve just got to be playing and singing just to get your muscles warming up. And I just thought ‘Fuck it, I’m going to do that tonight on stage’ and I just dicked about a bit which was really good fun! So I definitely feel more relaxed behind the kit than I have done in a long time… just in time for us to stop again! Great!

ANDREW: When there have been the hiatuses and it could very well have been that the band wasn’t going to continue, Tim at least has the fallback that he’s quite in demand in terms of people who want to write with him.

RICHARD: Oh yeah, absolutely. Last thing I heard, he was going to be writing for Ashlee Simpson! [Laughs] It’s not true. I can assure you it’s not true! But I must admit, I did laugh quite hard about it.

ANDREW: I assume Tom would then take some time off to address his problems. But what would you have done?

RICHARD: What would I have done like if we’d have six months, or a year, or if Keane have broken up? God, yeah, I don’t know! I have no idea.

ANDREW: Do you have like a future career plan after Keane?

RICHARD: Career plan! Er… no! I’m interested in many things – I think the more I read the newspaper and listen to Democracy Now and things, I become more and more angry. I can see myself trying to become more involved in political activism. I think there’s a lot of bad stuff and somebody’s got to do something about it. I find myself shouting at the TV and then I realise that instead of shouting at the TV I should actually just do something about it myself. I support Amnesty International and various other organisations, and try and get involved in a few things, but at the same time at the moment I am a drummer in a band. But if I wasn’t, then I think I would get more and more involved in that because fortunately for me I’m reasonably… I don’t need to go and get a job tomorrow if Keane stops. So I can basically pick and choose what I like. But at the same time I really love playing the drums. And if somebody turned around and said ‘Do you want to play the drums on this?’ I’d probably have a listen to the demos and see what I thought. But we’ll see – I’m not some kind of Steve Gadd-style, or Jason McGerr-style amazing drummer that can just turn his hand to anything, but I think for the right band I could maybe do something. I’ve not really thought about it much, as I like what I’m doing now. But there was a while there where I didn’t really know whether we were going to do any more shows ever again.

ANDREW: Could you see yourself following someone like Dave Rowntree (Blur drummer who stood for election representing the Labour Party)?

RICHARD: Yeah, well, maybe… Well actually, no. I’m not enormously party-political, and I think a lot of the problems are bigger than the party-political process can solve. Also, a lot of them are American-based, rather than UK-based, but I fear that we’re following a lot of them very quickly in this country. I don’t think I would want to get aligned to one party, because I think you get fucked over. If you watch those Britpop documentaries, or ask Damon Albarn about how he felt after he’d had his photo taken, or Noel Gallagher, they all realised that the politicians are just a bunch of smarmy cunts who use whoever they can to further their own personal credit. They were there to have their picture taken with famous pop stars and therefore get a few more votes, and I don’t think that’s a particularly cynical reading of it.
So no, I don’t think the political process is ‘it’ for me. But there’s a lot of bad shit happening that doesn’t get talked about. We’ve agreed to be part of this missile defence system in the UK - and everyone’s reading the Bizarre column and what some fucking waste of space from Big Brother said about some other fucking waste of space from Big Brother, rather than ‘Actually, don’t you think we should maybe not try and do this?’. Let’s talk about something real, for once, please.

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Look out for the final part tomorrow!

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

The fourth and final part of our exclusive interview with Richard

PART FOUR:

CHRIS: The whole band seems to have gotten more political recently – doing concerts like Live Earth and Live 8 in support of issues – much more so than when 'Hopes & Fears' originally came out. Is that something the whole band is really involved in?

RICHARD: I think the Live Earth thing was something that we all desperately wanted to be involved with. I took a Geography degree you know, so I was aware of some of this stuff. Having grown up in the countryside, as Tom has said, we don't particularly want to see it turned into a desert. So there are things we're all passionate about – the political stuff is something I'm very into, but I think each of us have our own particular things that we care about. But it's all just getting a bit older, and it happens – you start giving a shit about this stuff.

ANDREW: Usually people get older and they start worrying about the basic tax rates and become very conservative.

RICHARD: Yeah. I'm in such a ridiculously privileged position, just because Keane has done well – if I can't think about some of this stuff then I have no right to expect anyone else to. I guess I've just had enough of hearing myself shout at the TV.

ANDREW: Do you think Live Earth was the right way to approach things? You're probably going to be able to get a different perspective on this than a lot of commentators who've not had the chance to be really close to the campaign.

RICHARD: I think it is difficult to build upon things, because as I said, politicians are basically just going to do what they can to let it all blow over until everyone's forgotten about it – 'We'll pledge this - and we won't actually write the cheque' or 'We'll say we're going to do this' and then we'll actually do this, or put in the word 'maybe' in very small letters in the contract. As I've said in the past, the thing that I think Live Earth has going for it is that there's a politician at the helm, and he knows how it works - he's seen it all happen. He's been trying to get legislation through in America since the late 70s I think. He's got 30 years of being stone-walled and laughed out of Congress or whatever. So I think the fact there's a politician rather than a pop star at the helm, it at least gives it a bit of a fighting chance.

ANDREW: I think what mainly fuelled people's cynicism was that you're basically some of the worst offenders in terms of carbon emissions…

RICHARD: Yeah, it's right and it's true. There was a little handbook for us: 'How you can make your concerts have a smaller impact', and we got the train there. We did that whole leg, Amsterdam, then back to Live Earth, all on the trains. We didn't fly, and we didn't do it as a gimmick. We did it because we don't like flying. But it is possible to do that. It takes a bit longer but it's actually really relaxing.

ANDREW: There's something quite romantic about the train.

RICHARD: There is! And whilst the other day we flew back from Spain, last year we took 50-something flights and this year we've taken 20-something, so it is possible to reduce it. We're saying we don't like private jets, we don't want to take internal flights. If we've got to go to America, we're looking into the whole offsetting thing, but that's not ideal. Of course it's hypocritical, but I imagine a few people watched and a few people took some action. I try and cycle around London, or just get the Tube – small things.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Yeah, it might have been, but I don't think it would have got on TV in the same way. It was basically blanket coverage, and a load of short films that were shown inbetween the bands. That for me was the important bit, the 'infomercials'.

ANDREW: You're almost trying to get it in behind people's defences.

RICHARD: Well, yeah! We were like one of those moth traps – we're the flashing blue light, and in front of it is the little electrical grill that kills everyone! But you're right. In the context of global pollution, frankly it's a drop in the ocean. You know what, I don't have any kids – that's my biggest contribution, and I'm vegetarian. Those are the two biggest contributions that I make towards my carbon footprint – that I don't have any kids and I don't eat meat.

ANDREW: That's a sad outlook for humankind if we save the world by not having kids.

RICHARD: Yeah, but nobody talks about it, and it's one of the problems. I think if I don't have children, somehow I think there are still enough human beings for us to have a fighting chance of survival. Those other 9 billion, by the time I die, will probably just about still be there!

ANDREW: Tell us a bit about your photography.

RICHARD: OK, I have a camera. I'm going to take a picture of you two by the way – the interviewers to accompany your piece. Yeah, I just like doing it. It's a great thing to do when you're on tour, because you spend so much time in random places that lend themselves to you having a look round. I just love doing it. Actually, Rob and I are going to publish a book of our photos. You heard it here first! We're going to see if we can put out a book of photos from the last couple of years on tour, because obviously he takes lots of pictures too. I don't know if you've seen his Flickr site, but he's a very talented photographer apart from the ones that have appeared on our website. So yeah, Rob and I thought it would be really good fun to try and publish a book of pictures.

CHRIS: So that's the type of book drummers write then?

RICHARD: Exactly – pictures! That's genius. That's precisely the type of book drummers write.

ANDREW: You can put that quote on the back cover.

RICHARD: 'It's the kind of book drummers write'. That is absolutely genius. Yeah, so I love doing it. Like after a show if we're somewhere like Haugesund, there was this amazing boat yard across the bridge and Rob and I and Matt [another of the crew] - instead of getting shit-faced, we just went and spent a couple of hours in this weird, not quite dark night that you had in Norway, breaking into the shipyard, climbing the fence, and taking pictures. The photography is something I love doing and I guess maybe it is a drummers' thing.
I actually used to be really into it when I was at school, and then my girlfriend bought me a camera about three years ago, maybe, and I got really back into it. And I love that – because we go to such amazing places and I wish I'd been taking pictures from the start. Well I did take a few. But the book should be really good fun, because Rob takes a lot of pictures during soundchecks and things and he's got a really good eye. We'll try and stick some of the wanky arty ones in the back of the book, and the ones of Tim and Tom at the front! It should just be an interesting thing. I guess it'll probably be out next year some time… Who'd have thought it? It'll be a laugh.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: I'll send you a copy. [To Chris] You'll have to buy yours. Unless I can use that quote.

CHRIS: I'll think about it.

ANDREW: Have you moved away from film to using a digital camera yet?

RICHARD: I haven't.

ANDREW: Is that a romance thing?

RICHARD: It's partly a romance thing, and it's partly because I really like film. Rob still occasionally takes a shot where he feels the colour balance is not what he was hoping. I'm colourblind, so I trust film, whereas I wouldn't trust the digital thing to get the colours right. He'll take a shot and say 'God, I love the way that it's just greens and blues', and I'll be like '…yeah!'. It's partly that, and yeah, I do like the romance of it, and also I've bought shitloads of film cameras. It breaks my heart to just put them on a shelf. Maybe one day though. I love Rob's one-a-day flickr thing he does [a photo of himself every day], and I'd like to do that, but you can only really do that with digital. But once you get one digital you're just going to do it, so yeah. We'll see. As long as I can still get film I think I'm going to stay with that.

ANDREW: You're looking very dapper on stage these days, wearing a suit and so on.

RICHARD: Well it's not a suit, but yeah – I like the jacket. I went to see Radiohead play at Hammersmith Apollo and Phil Selway played the entire show in a white suit. And he was still wearing it when he left the stage. I just thought 'You're so cool'. And Charlie Watts has definitely set the bar fairly high for the elegant drummer. I just like jackets.

ANDREW: What was it like playing with the Stones? Did they really come and kick you out of the backstage area?

RICHARD: You know – they did actually take over the entire backstage area, including the hotel that was backstage and the pub that was backstage. Apparently there's an entire truck that deals with the stuff they have backstage including a full size snooker table and a satellite TV thing so that Mick can watch the cricket wherever he is in the world. And you think that's ridiculous - you know it's ridiculous… but probably true!

ANDREW: You can quite imagine that if Tom was in a position like the Stones, he'd love to watch the cricket wherever he is!

RICHARD: I think he probably would! We've got Sky TV down at the Barn.

ANDREW: What else is great about the Barn?

RICHARD: It's in the middle of nowhere, we've got our own picnic table...

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Yeah, specially approved wood. No, the bloke who owns the place just knocked it up for us. What's great about it? It's got a drum kit set up – at home I've got an electronic kit, but here at the Barn I can go and play a real kit. And yeah, it's just really nice! You get sunlight, and fresh air, and you can go outside and chuck a tennis ball around, and there are deer in the forest behind it, and stuff like that. It's just really beautiful and really inspiring, and it feels comfortable. We've got all our flags up there now. We were given a Brazilian flag when we played in … I think it was Sao Paolo – someone chucked a Brazil flag on stage which had loads of stuff written on it, and I put it over the kick drum at the gig, and now I've got it hanging behind me on the wall in the Barn.

ANDREW: The fans are always over the moon whenever they see things like that hung up…

RICHARD: Oh, we were over the moon to get it! It's like 'Wow, we got given a flag!'. As soon as I got it, I was like 'Well, that's going in the Barn'. We've got a Mexican one hanging up on one bit of wall, and we've got an Argentinean one next to Tim's Rhodes. I've got all my snare drums on a big rack so I can just try another one out. I absolutely love it. That's another good thing about the Barn – we can experiment. All our gear stays there, so it's all permanently set up, and we're getting to experiment more. Tom's got some guitars down there, Tim's got all his keyboards down there and bass guitars and stuff – we've even got our Farfisa in there, which is a bit out of tune but still sounds good. It's just … fun, you know? It's like having your own rehearsal studio – well, it is your own rehearsal studio, without having to break everything down at the end of your 4 hours.

ANDREW: You can stay in there as much as you long, as long as you like.

RICHARD: Yeah. You can sleep there.

ANDREW: What do you think about the general state of the music scene at the moment?

RICHARD: I think there's always great people around. Findlay Brown is a friend of mine who I think is amazing. I love his first record, and I've seen him play live about five times. On his own, he's amazing; with his band, he's amazing. There are a lot of people like that. The new Tegan & Sara record is amazing, really really great. It's produced by Chris Walla from Death Cab for Cutie, and Jason, the drummer from Death Cab, is playing the drums on the record – he's one of my favourite drummers. The record itself is brilliant, and I like the new Feist record... there's music coming from all corners of the earth that I like, and I think that's always the way – you've just got to find it. You might not see Tegan & Sara on the front cover of NME, but you should do. It's a great record.

CHRIS: Do you still get to go to many live gigs?

RICHARD: Yes, I go to quite a lot, because I live in London, so it's a bit easier for me. In fact, it's easier because even if it's sold out, there's usually a way I can get in, because most of the venues in London, we've played at!

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...

RICHARD: Fortunately, I've never had to do that. But I do try to get to a reasonable amount of shows. I went down to the Wireless Festival the other week – to see Findlay [Brown] actually, and the Queens of the Stone Age, which was really good.

ANDREW: Do you find you can get down the front and be pretty much incognito?

RICHARD: Oh, absolutely. It's the best thing.

CHRIS: Do you think the young Tim, Tom and Richard would be listening to Keane?

RICHARD: That's a good question! I still feel quite young though! But, yeah, I would imagine, maybe. Because we always liked stuff with good melody that we thought was actually about something, so I dunno! It's difficult to know – maybe we'd all be into MCR and be wearing eyeliner, screaming a lot. I don't know. There's so much good music around – I went to see Muse at Wembley, and that was just amazing. But I feel like we do good melodies and I feel that's one of the reason it translates abroad, because if it's not your mother tongue, it's harder to listen to the lyrics - not impossible, but harder to - and I think the fact that there's a good catchy melody has helped us abroad. So yeah, I don't know if we'd be listening to us, but I think we might. Good question though.

ANDREW: Now that all the touring's done, do you find it hard to readjust back into normal life without someone telling you where to be?

RICHARD: Yeah, I think it is difficult. You do just get used to stuff. But no, I enjoy both aspects – I like being on tour, I like not being on tour, so I'm pretty happy either way. It was pretty weird playing the last show in Spain, just coming off stage knowing that you weren't going to do that again for quite a long time, and we have such a great crew that knowing that they're going to go and work for other bands - I feel very jealous of that! It's pretty weird finishing a tour, but you kind of look forward to spending a bit of time at home, and go on holiday. And if you're too used to having a schedule and people doing stuff for you, you just need people around you to tell you 'Do it yourself, you lazy bastard'!

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Thanks again to Richard for agreeing to be interviewed by Andrew and Chris - and to Andrew and Chris for doing so! Look out for their interview with Tom, coming soon.

I've worn myself out
Hoping that we'll always be together...