Interview The frontman of the Mercury Music Prize nominated group explains why they certainly aren’t just another Travis or Coldplay…
TC: How did you all get together?
Tim Rice-Oxley: We all met years ago and became friends straight away. We were at school together and used to hang out at the weekends. When we were about 14 we started getting into music in a big way and eventually decided to form our own band.
TC: Why the name Keane?
Tim Rice-Oxley: We were sitting in this pub in Dublin waiting to play a gig and were told that we needed a name. We hadn’t actually gotten round to choosing one at that point, it was just one of those things we kept putting off.
Anyway, we were all reminiscing about this old lady who used to look after us when we were younger, her name was Cherry Keane. So in the end we decided to name ourselves after her. Later on we decided to drop the ‘Cherry’ part and just be known as Keane. We thought it was a magical name, we really liked it.
TC: So it has some significance then?
Tim Rice-Oxley:Yeah definitely. She was one of those people who really encouraged us to follow our dreams and do the musical stuff we loved rather than worrying about whether we were going to get ‘proper’ jobs. She was always really nice to us – even when we sounded completely awful! She has a special place in our hearts.
