After a turbulent 18 months that saw singer Tom Chaplin admitted to rehab for drink and drugs problems, the subsequent cancellation of tours and an alarming nosedive in morale, Keane have finally remembered how to have fun.

“We were so buoyed up by touring at the end of 2006” enthuses Chaplin. “We’re in much better shape, mentally. And we are ready to throw cautlon to the wind”. This new found enthusiasm is feeding into the trio’s third album, currently being written in a converted barn in Sussex.
The approach this time is far looser, with keyboard player and chief songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley affirming the benefits of “throwing things down quickly”.

“Our instinct has always been to fill up the space,” says Rice-Oxley, “but there’s something to be said for having a minimalist approach: just drums, bass and voice”. Rice-Oxley started writing for the still untitled new album in April 2007, and the so called “Chart of Doom” on their studio wall is filled with more than 20 new songs for potential inclusion, among them Black Burning Heart, Playing Away and Perfect Symmetry. Chaplin has literally been road-testing the new material, listening to demos as he drives around London and Sussex. “Some of them have a very classical feel,” he says. “It’s spine-tingling to sit there, driving around thinking. These could have come off a Talking Heads album. Or a U2 record from the ‘80s. Or a classic Bowie record. Perfect Symmetry sounds like something off [Bowie’s 1973 album] Aladdin Sane”.

Rice-Oxley cites Motown, Gorillaz and Pharrel Williams as unlikely influences, though he knows where to draw the line. “It would be fairly ridiculous for us to try and make a flat-out hip-hop record,” he says. “It’s all about getting out of our comfort zone, but still trusting our instincts. And it’s possible to that without sounding like UB40.”

The rejuvenated trio aim to finish recording in late summer, with a view to a September release. There’s even talk of releasing it as four EPs, like “chapters of a book” as Rice-Oxley puts it. But despite the upswing in their fortunes, there’s still a degree of wariness about the future.
“We’re not interested in fame or money,” says the keyboard player. “We had a mouthful of that and, as much as some aspects are fun, there’s a lot that isn’t. All that matters now is that we make an artistically dazzling record”.

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