Cherry Keane was a sweet little old lady who Tom Chaplin, Tim Rice-Oxley and Richard Hughes knew as grade-school chums growing up in the English countryside. The boys enjoyed a nice enough acquaintance with the woman, but it was her name they were after.
“Most band names are pretty awful,” Hughes said recently from the road. The drummer for the piano pop band Keane is a longtime fan of Oasis, The Beatles and U2, but “that’s a pretty dire name,” he added of the last group.
Keane headlines the Fillmore Auditorium tonight. The trio’s first major-label debut, “Hopes and Fears” is a thoughtful, piano-driven album that opens with a great song – “Somewhere Only We Know.” Chaplin croons with the sweet seduction of Queen’s Freddie Mercury and the mournful storytelling of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. Tie that to a sweeping melody, and the song lures its listener into youth and lost love. It demands repeated listens, and that was the goal.
“The bands that people play really dear are the ones that have written songs about something people can relate to, have lyrics (they) can understand and melodies that stick in the mind,” Hughes said from Vancouver, B.C. “A lot of bands in recent times have ignored … those things in favor in fashion or style. I’m not saying we’re not fashionable or stylish, but we don’t put that at the front of what we do.”
“Hopes and Fears” is packed with such innocent, pop-tweaked ballads. “We Might As Well Be Strangers” is a wistful tune about losing touch with someone special that again takes the listener on a journey into adolescent yearning. By the time the track builds to its symphonic crescendo and Chaplin sings, “We might as well be strangers for all I know of you now,” personal thought and reflection on the lyrics is a given.
But it was the coming-of-age song “Everybody’s Changing” that broke these Brits. According to their press materials, Keane morphed into its current drums-keyboard-luscious vocals incarnation almost by accident after its guitarist left. The trio toured small clubs in London at the time and got the attention of music executives by playing “Everybody’s Changing” during an opening gig for a larger act.
The same emotive sentiment that makes Keane appealing also makes the band an easy target. Most often Keane is lumped into a wishy-washy pop trend one British newspaper dubbed “glum rock,” a movement lead by Coldplay’s piano rapture and bolstered by Snow Patrol’s soothing rock. Keane fits so easily into the phenomenon that critics charge them with being a highly stylized group making safe, marketable music.
But people logging onto Keane’s website and coming to the band’s increasingly larger shows – last time through Denver, Keane played the Gothic Theatre – are simply looking for good tunes and strong storytelling, Hughes countered.
One more piece of band gossip, however, sticks in the drummer’s craw. The tidbit stems from an article in The Independent newspaper in London that charged Keane with hiring an image consultant to shape its public persona – something that might have helped the band procure a higher profile in England.
Hughes said he never read the story. However, after taking an audible, agitated drag from his cigarette, he couldn’t help but become miffed at its assertion.
“This company had basically hosted our website,” he said. “They turned that into a story about how they created some kind of brand name for us. … That was a very strange article,” and one reason Hughes stopped reading newspapers. For now.
Such is life for pop stars whose first album has enough staying power to generate interest roughly a year after its release. And tirelessly playing those songs on the road since early 2004 is what has kept Keane on track.
“We’re just three guys from the countryside,” Hughes said, “who follow our musical instincts.”
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-820-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
Keane
PIANO ROCK|Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson St.; 8 tonight|$26-$27.50|through Ticketmaster, 303-830-8497 or www.ticketmaster.com.
3more
ALAN JACKSON Marking the season’s first concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Jackson’s “What I Do Tour” stops in Colorado tonight. The show, featuring special guests Sara Evans and The Wrights, is a sure country crowd-pleaser as the headliner is having trouble fitting all of his hit songs into a single night’s show. The Wrights are an up-and-coming husband- and-wife group that includes Jackson’s nephew, Adam.
AARON CARTER Maybe it was because this teen pop idol proclaimed Journey as one of his musical influences. Or because Carter is the younger brother of an already-established Backstreet Boy (Nick). Whatever the reason, this young performer has trouble impressing music writers. See whether the singer deserves his high profile or is riding family coattails Saturday at the Paramount Theatre.
DANKO JONES The front man for this funky hard-rock band is a syndicated Toronto radio show host and spoken word artist. The group opens for The Comas and Swedish garage-rock phenoms Mando Diao Saturday at the Larimer Lounge.
– Elana Ashanti Jefferson
