Double Page Article (Task 13)

This is the first draft of my double page spread article, which is a biographical article about Keane.


As the world tour for their third album, 2008’s ‘Perfect Symmetry’, draws to a close, we at Pulse look back at the story of Keane to see how they made the journey from a teenage cover band to the first band ever to perform a live show in 3D.
The band we now know as them started life as ‘The Lotus Eaters’, the brainchild of composer, keyboardist and vocalist Tim Rice-Oxley. He and school friend Dominic Scott (who would play lead guitar in the band) formed the band in 1995 whilst studying at University College in London. They invited another friend of theirs, Richard Hughes, to play drums in the band, and they focused on covering songs by artists such as U2 and Oasis. During this time, Rice-Oxley was approached by Coldplay singer and pianist Chris Martin to play keyboards in the newly-formed Coldplay, but he turned the offer down as he wanted to focus on his own band. In 1997, despite the initial protests from Scott and Hughes, Rice-Oxley invited childhood friend Tom Chaplin to join the band. Chaplin took up the offer and replaced Rice-Oxley as vocalist in the band, and shortly after the band changed their name from ‘The Lotus Eaters’ to ‘Cherry Keane’, which was later changed again to just ‘Keane’. In the summer of 1997, Chaplin moved to South Africa to work as a volunteer during his gap year, and when he returned in 1998, the first thing he was told by Hughes was that they had their first gig in ten days, at the ‘Hope & Anchor’ pub in London In 1999, Keane recorded their first single, despite the fact that they did not yet have a record deal. The single, ‘Call Me What You Like’, was sold at live performances in early 2000. Later, in 2001, they released their second single titled ‘Wolf At The Door’, with only fifty hand-labelled copies ever being made. Shortly after the release of this track, disaster struck, and Dominic Scott decided to leave the band with the thought that Keane were simply not going anywhere. After Scott’s departure, Rice-Oxley and Chaplin both started to feel the same way about the band, and all live performances and recordings were put on hold. However in the December of 2002, Keane returned to playing live and one of these gigs was attended by Simon Williams of Fierce Panda Records, and he agreed to release their first proper single, ‘Everybody’s Changing’. The track went on to have huge commercial success and as a result of this they signed to Island Records in 2003.

2004 found Keane being earmarked as the band most likely to achieve success by the BBC’s Sound Of 2004 poll. The year also saw the band’s first release on Island Records, the single ‘Somewhere Only We Know’. The track reached number 4 in the UK singles chart. In May 2004, the band’s debut album ‘Hopes and Fears’ was released. It shot straight to number one and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. The album stayed in the top 75 for 72 weeks. Three months after the release of ‘Hopes and Fears’, Rice-Oxley received the Ivor Novello award for songwriter of the year. The album also received a BRIT award for ‘Best British Album’ and the band themselves won the ‘British Breakthrough Act’ award. The next year was jam-packed for Keane. They recorded two cover songs for the charity War Child and contributed vocals to the Band Aid 20 version of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The band also performed two tracks at Live 8 in London. It was during 2005 that Keane started recording their second album, ‘Under The Iron Sea’. The title of the album was revealed in March 2006 via a handwritten message posted on their website.

Prior to the second album’s launch, the single ‘Is It Any Wonder?” was released and reached number 3 in the UK singles chart. ‘Under The Iron Sea’ was then released in June 2006 and had sold a hefty 220,000 copies by May 2007. But their happiness was to be short-lived, and in August 2006, Chaplin announced that he had admitted himself to a clinic for alcohol and drug problems. As a result of this, the band had to cancel three gigs and postpone their tour of the United States. However the US tour was to eventually be cancelled to allow Chaplin’s treatment in the clinic to continue. But things started to look up for Keane when Chaplin left the clinic in October 2006 and the band embarked on their tour of South America. Considering that this was the band’s first time to counties such as Argentina and Chile, they received a huge welcome and were shocked at the positive reception they were met with, particularly in Mexico. 2007 saw Keane playing three tracks at the UK leg of the Live Earth concerts at the newly built Wembley Stadium. The tour for the second album ended at the Natural Music Festival in Spain and Keane decided to take a break for a couple of months before reconvening for album number three.

The next we heard from Keane was via a clock on their website, counting down to 4 August. This was to be the date of the release of their next single, ‘Spiralling’, which was released as a free download for two weeks. Keane’s third album, ‘Perfect Symmetry’, was released in October 2008 and reached number one in the UK album chart and number 7 in the US Billboard chart. November signalled the start of their world tour in support of their third album, and in December of that year, ‘Perfect Symmetry’ was voted as Album Of The Year by the readers and listeners of Q magazine and Q Radio. The fourth single from the album, also titled ‘Perfect Symmetry’, was voted Track Of The Year by the same magazine,.

2009 was to be an exciting year for Keane, as in April they became the first band ever to broadcast a live show in 3D. The show was filmed live at Abbey Road Studios and fans were encouraged to buy the most recent single, ‘Better Than This’, which came with a free pair of 3D glasses. The band’s website also had instructions on how to make your own glasses. The show was broadcast via a stream on the band’s website and was later available to view in high definition.

Now, at the end of 2009, a decade after the release of their very first single, Keane have announced that they will release an EP entitled ‘Night Train’. The EP is to be released in May 2010 which will be followed by a tour of UK forests, including a gig at the Bedgebury Pinetum, a forest near to the band’s hometown of Battle. Tickets for all six dates of this tour are now on sale and the speed at which these tickets are snapped up will be a sure indication of just how big this band have become.