Talk:Keane (band)

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Tim Rice-Oxley

• I often break strings, which on a piano is quite an achievement!
• I hate it when people refuse to acknowledge their own feelings and reactions to something, because they see it as being a weakness to say that they’re scared, or upset about something, or whatever.
• It can happen to anyone, people judge you too quickly rather than actually bothering to find out what’s below the surface.
• I like trying to write about confusion and grey areas because life is not normally very clear-cut and simple, especially when it comes to the way people interact.
• I don’t think it’s possible to be a good artist without being a bit of a freak. If you were happy and contended and normal then you wouldn’t be able to work.
  • DVD Strangers (2005)
• I think the reason we're all in this band it's because it's a good way for us to express our feelings. We're much better at doing it through our music than we are in, kind of normal ways. I'm comfortable playing to 40,000 people, but if I have to speak to a group of four people, I'd probably go a deep read and start dribbling. I normally feel, whatever I've got to say, I've said it in the songs.
  • DVD Strangers (2005)
• Lennon was such a great writer and exactingly honest. That was the thing that was defining about his songwriting and is weirdly absent from so much songwriting today, and I don't understand why.
• Life is not normally very clear-cut and simple, especially when it comes to the way people interacts.
  • Keane Official Forum.
• We like to have things like organic beer, rather than the usual chemical filled crap. But you can’t always get that. We’re pretty normal. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about keeping your feet on the ground – as soon as you start demanding things like M&Ms with the blue ones taken out then you’ve probably entered a mad fairy world and you need a slap in the face!
• "Our image, if we have one, has been shaped only by me, Tom and Richard and the songs we write".
• "Some people won't like that we're not hard rock. We're not like Coldplay".
• "I'm like a child genius, without being a child or a genius".
• "I want an 11 out of 10, because I'm soooo sexy".
  • DVD Strangers (2005)
• "Tom sleepwalks in a very amusing way occasionally. He's been known to wake up in hotel lobbies in his pajamas".
• "I like cows very much. I like their big eyes and they moo a lot and they don't do any harm"
• "Sometimes I feel like my brain’s going to come out of my ears, and occasionally I get really dizzy (especially after 'Is It Any Wonder?' and 'Again And Again') and I can't hardly stand up straight on stage! Probably not that good for me in the long run, but you just get caught up in the moment".
  • When asked "Do you ever get a sore neck after a gig?"
• It got to the point where I was afraid that I would have to wake up the following morning and think about what I was going to do next. To suddenly realize that everything was disappearing was incredibly frightening. We all loved the music we were making so much, but when you're dealing with things that were really personal to all of us, when you immerse yourself in the emotions we were writing about, it can't help but bring up bad things.
  • On the making of "Under the iron sea"
• "I think we are just in a tradition of bands that are not excited by super-macho guitar music. To me it goes back to the Beatles."
• "If you don’t make a great record that really touches people, what is the point?”
• "Too many bands are scared to show emotions these days. They seem to think it’ll stop them being cool or something. We’ve never been cool. We’ve always been into emotionally charged music."

Tom Chaplin

• I like to leave a trail of happiness wherever I go.
• I don't think we'll ever be cool, but I think we've been fearless.
• People often say that they wish they'd been around in the 60s, but we're happy just where we are. We love rock's back catalogue, and now we've got a chance to add to it. After all, tunes never go out of fashion.
• We've never wanted to be a small, cult band. We want to get our music heard by as many people as we possibly can, because that's why we're making it.
• When I was a kid I remember going with a microphone shouting "I am so cool!"
• I don't have a problem singing those words. Tim's being honest. And I think as a band, that's what people like about us. We expose real feelings.
• That would just be like a little mouse in the corner of my massive ego.
  • On singing Freddie Mercury and David Bowie's parts on "Under pressure" and having to deal with their massive egos.
• We've never thought of ourselves as big rock stars, doing the 'A' list thing with celebs hanging off us. That's exciting, but our music kind of demands we keep ourselves as normal as possible. The fact we don't have that superstar image helps people relate to us. People relate to rock 'n' roll stars because rock 'n' roll's exciting and there's a big story to it, but it's not us. We have normal problems. I'm the same person I was before, just a lot busier and a lot luckier.
• Believe it or not, I quite like reading poetry. I have Sylvia Plath's Ariel in my bathroom, which is one of my favourite books of all time. It's only got about 15 poems in it, but - and this is going to sound terrible - every time I go to the bog I read one. They never get boring and they're so inspiring: so angry and hard. Her take on the world was totally unique. And she probably keeps me regular
• I think one of the reasons why Paris Hilton mentioned us as one of her main influences is because we're the only band that she can actually pronounce
• Our self respect's gone out of the window!
  • After singing 'Dirtylicious'.
• The thought just came to me. I’ll kill Bono. Just like that. Like when you hear a Tube train approaching and get the urge to jump. It was an ego thing. I thought, I could just kill him now. Bono could die at my hands.
• Success can be very disorientating when you're so used to being a failure.
• Part of me is hoping that we end up going the wrong way and find ourselves in another unexpected place
• I think the gay community is responsible for so many great things, especially culturally – great musicians and great artists and great forward thinking I suppose. There’s a hot bed for creativity and imagination and so much good stuff comes out of it culturally that to be respected by the gay community is something that we’re very proud of.
  • On his support for his gay fans (Gay Times Magazine)
• I keep having this strange fantasy that maybe Barack Obama will pick up the album and it will help change the world. That somehow subtly it’s going to reach the most powerful man on the planet and help. That he gets what it’s saying and inspires him to make people change. We should make it our mission. Why not? It is probably a hopeless ambition but worth a try.
  • On 'Perfect Symmetry'
• People think going somewhere else will change the way they feel inside, but it won’t. External changes can’t do that for you, you have to do it for yourself.
• I hate the notion that rock and roll should be all about bluster and front and some kind of bullshit attitude. There has to be room for soul and heart. If it’s a pure expression of what you’re feeling, then that’s the opposite of being wet. It’s like opening your heart up and doing therapy in front of the world. Sod the rock and roll myth. The art form, for me, is about trying to combine beautiful noises and honest lyrics to create something emotionally profound, which is why you see big, bald men crying at Keane gigs.
  • On Rock & Roll.
• His songs are full of sympathy for the human condition, the fact that we are all frail, vulnerable, insecure and capable of making terrible mistakes. Singing them can be heart-wrenching, because they say everything about the way I feel about myself. The songs offer a glimmer of hope, because there is an understanding, someone else who can empathise with what you are going through.
  • On Tim Rice-Oxley's songwriting.
• I still have a battle between the person onstage, singing these emotional songs, and the person who wants to go home and hide.
• It's like a musical version of vodka.
  • On The Starting Line.

Richard Hughes

• To be honest, the whole, sort of, girlfriends part of my life is not something I want to talk about. Why? It's private, that's why. And anyway, I'm the drummer in Keane. Why would anyone give a sh*t?
  • In Q Magazine interview, January 2005.
• Is that supposed to be on fire?
  • DVD Strangers (2005), contemplating a wheel giving off smoke.
• Whoa! That's on fire!
  • DVD Strangeres (2005), warning about a burning paper 5mins later.
• Good looking drummers.
  • When asked about similarities between Keane and U2
• Science, being human enquiry, can hear no answer except an answer couched somehow in human tones. Primitive man stood in the mountains and shouted against a cliff; the echo brought back his own voice, and he believed in a disembodied spirit. The scientist of today stands counting out loud in the face of the unknown. Numbers come back to him - and he believes in the Great Mathematician.
• We are very easy to hate. People slag off our music, image, education, Tim's double-barrelled name - there's an entire menu of things to mock our band for. But, every time we play a gig, there's thousands of people singing our songs back to us with more passion than you could ever imagine when you write them. The connection to the audience is pretty staggering.
• I'll show the others your question and ask them when they stop laughing at me!
  • When asked about singing on Keane's new album.
• Giving the mic to the loudest person I knew wasn't something I was very keen on
  • DVD Strangers (2005), on Tom Chaplin joining Keane.
• Don't hit people, hit drums.
  • More than 650,000 people have already expressed their grave concerns about this case and we’re now down to just a few days to save Troy’s life. I promised him when I met him on death row that I wouldn’t stop fighting to prevent his execution and that’s what I’m going to do.
• On Troy Davis's case.
  • Maybe it’s just me, but you think life is going to get less complicated as you understand more about the world, and it feels like it does the opposite. The more you do, the less you know.

Jesse Quin

• I didn't join the band. They joined me.