Tom Chaplin - Tim Rice-Oxley interview to keane.fr

How was it to come back to a European tour after being away for a while?
Tim : It feels very good, it’s a pretty good tour, very fun. The crowd has been good and the new songs have been going down really well judging from last night, working that out.
Tom : It’s been fun trying to find out a kind of setlist that really flows, I think by the last few days on the main part of the tour, it was just last week, I think we really felt we got something really great.. so yeah it’s great, it's really exciting to get to play from 3 records now.
Talking about anniversary date your first proper gig was 4 years ago almost day for day (27/11/04)...
Tom : Whereabouts was that, I can't even remember?
Tim : The Batofar
Tom : The Batofar! I seem to remember this ship was kinda rocking slowly.
Tim : The Elysée Montmartre was different though. It was something nice, it was a good one i remember that, it was great it was quite an exciting adventure!
Tom : It’s pretty amazing we’re now playing such a huge place.
Yeah le Batofar is like the tiniest venue in Paris and that's the second biggest
Tom : France is one of the first places that we came, or maybe Germany
Tim : Probably
Tom : I suppose we made our music... we had these expectations of how popular it might be in Britain but you just never know how it’s gonna be like abroad so it’s great. It’s kinda growing from that point and cos so many people who don't have english as their first language who sort of know the songs inside out and the songs really kinda mean a huge amount to them, we got I suppose... we never take that for granted so it's a pretty inspiring thing to see that.
The album Perfect symmetry was only out on Monday here in France, like a month after the release, do you think the gig will be any different from what you did in Europe?
Tom : Ah it’ll be more special (laughs) I would imagine?
Tim : well it's the same, when we started the tour it was nearly a month ago, just after the album came out really, so people were still getting to know the album when we were in (where did we start ?)... Holland
Tom : Antwerp
Tim : Antwerp! And Germany... I think it always takes a few months for people to l ike consider that, it'll be a while before people know "You haven’t told me anything" as well as they know "Everybody’s changing" or whatever but actually I think that the new songs are very accessible, a lot of them and also very danceable, it's all about tempo. I genuinely found on the tour that people responded really well to the new ones especially, i guess they're more energetic. That would be really good, it would be a really good gig here last time I thought so hopefully... it'll be good
Tom : They'll be booing us off (laughs)
With Jesse joining in, how did it change your dynamic as a band whether it was recording in the studios or live on stage now ?
Tom : I think it helped in every part of what we do, when he first came to play with us it was just liberating to not have to have the bass part... well in fact the very first time he was just with us for the Mencap thing, then the Warchild gig. And I think we all felt great to have someone there providing that support as opposed to the computer and again the same thing has applied as soon as we started rehearsing the songs back in January we felt great having him there, it was much easier to run through stuff, have another creative person in the room, and he's become a good friend as well so I think this very aspect of what he’s done has been a really great contribution to it and he made it, he rocks live so it’s cool. We're just very happy. And the bass part on the record is fantastic so I guess it's just another, a new element to Keane.
Everything about making this album was just not worrying about whatever we might consider to be constrain in the past. We talked many times about whether we should get a bass player and it’s kind of a long earliest discussions about it and eventually we sort of said no and then actually we did record with Jesse, it was just worth trying and it worked. And the same could be said about pretty much everything else, an idea then that we did, we just thought well if it is an idea there it's worth trying it out I suppose as opposed to thinking about it and then not trying it in the end, and so the best ideas came out about this sense of just feeling free about it so yeah it's been good.
Why did you choose to add some french in Black Burning Heart? Why French and why these verses?
Tim : Well we recorded that song here at the...
Grande Armée studios
Tim : We spent a long time working on that song when we were in Paris, I guess it just absorbed a lot of the influences being here and we have this part of the song where nothing was happening.... I think it was a good idea
Tom : I think the song is quite ...well, i don't know, maybe it's just thinking about all the time, there's something close to the French about the song, it’s very dark, and quite passionate - very passionate
Tim : and poetic
Tom : and very poetic exactly... And it kind of lend itself... French is such a beautiful sounding language!
Tim : I love the idea I think we knew that it was a really uncool idea... I’m sure there must have been some songs in the 80s that people do like that are totally unfashionable basically and so many people have said to us, well lots of people love it but quite a few people said “I hate the bit with the French words”, the more people said it the more I thought it was a great idea to make it. I just love the fact that no one else would dare to do it, and I think it just sounds great, sounds like Tom said it sounds ... mysterious ... it fits with the song

To read the whole interview go to: http://www.keane.fr/media.php?page_aff=itw/itw200811_en

November, 20th 2008 - Paris

Source: http://www.keane.fr/media.php?page_aff=itw/itw200811_en