Glastonbury Festival has played host to countless ‘moments’ over its storied history. Earlier this year, the festival sprinkled its magic on Keane when thousands of people pitched up in front of the festival’s iconic Pyramid Stage to watch the Sussex band perform on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But even for a band as experienced as Keane — next year will mark 30 years since they first formed — the pre-show nerves still hit hard.
‘There are some great photos of us at the side of the stage waiting to go on. Tom’s [Chaplin, frontman] got his head buried in my neck, and I can remember him saying, “I don't want to do this, I want to go home!”’ laughs founding bandmember and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley, speaking to M from his home in Sussex. ‘We were absolutely bricking it, but that's because Glastonbury is so important to us. It was very emotional and very special.’
The ensuing performance demonstrated the timeless nature of Keane’s back catalogue, with clips of Tom 'conducting the Glastonbury choir’ as they sung the likes of Somewhere Only We Know subsequently spreading across the internet. That Glastonbury set has proven to be just one of several highlights of 2024 for the long-running band, during which they've marked the 20th anniversary of their debut album Hopes and Fears. That record, which has sold over 10 million copies worldwide, has been celebrated far and wide over the past year with a tour which has reached India, South Africa and South America.
A special reissue of Hopes and Fears arrived in May, and the band have continued their long trip down memory lane this week by publishing the commemorative book Hopes and Fears: Lyrics and History. The retrospective process behind the new tome had Tim, Tom and drummer Richard Hughes (the band added bassist Jesse Quin to their line-up in 2011) digging through past studio recordings, old notebooks and photos from that time.
‘It reminded me of how long we've been friends,’ Tim tells M. ‘The more we dug into it, the more we remembered that the journey to get to the day that the album was finished — or even to get a record deal to make the album! — was huge. It was years and years of our lives.’
'Our Glastonbury 2024 performance was very emotional and very special.’
The writing process for Hopes and Fears took place over ‘quite a few years’, with the initial brief being to create songs that'd ‘sound good in [venues like] the Barfly’ — the intention being to keep the punters locked into watching the band perform instead of heading to the bar. But when Keane penned a record deal with Island in the summer of 2003, that aim shifted towards creating a full body of work.
‘There was a phase when Tom was very much writing all the good songs in the band, all the songs that we would go out and play live,’ Tim recalls. ‘I was always trying to write, but I had a real slump where I couldn't write anything the other guys were excited about.’ Fortunately, he eventually hit a ‘purple patch’ with his writing: ‘I think it came from listening to The Smiths on never-ending rotation! I realised you could be thoughtful and melancholic, but also really melodic at the same time.’
This mindset spurred on the creative process behind tracks like She Has No Time and Bedshaped, with Tim writing on either his parent’s piano or a Yamaha PSR-48 keyboard he was gifted one Christmas. With the former, Tim felt too shy to be overheard playing his own creations, so he’d wait until the family home was empty before playing. It was at this very piano, however, that he first started writing two of Keane’s biggest hits: Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody's Changing.
Somewhat inspired by the driving, stately feel of David Bowie’s Heroes, Tim was keen to share Somewhere Only We Know: ‘I called Richard up, who lived nearby, and said, "I've written a new song, come and see what you think." I remember he wanted to hear it straight away again: he loved it.’
Built around Tim's initial piano part, the final product leaned on a mishmash of different influences: ‘A lot of The Smiths, Oasis, U2, The Beatles, Radiohead [and] Paul Simon,’ Tim reveals. Eventually released in February 2004 as the first official single from Hopes and Fears, it climbed to number three in the UK charts and went three-times platinum — the kind of success that characterised their debut album.
‘We didn’t know that it was going to be big,’ Tim says today. ‘We thought of it as this first step, building up [to get a] foot in the door. Then you do another album and you tour it, and then you do another album — you try to build it up, like R.E.M. did.’
An enduring pop hit, Somewhere Only We Know later experienced a resurgence in 2013 when it was selected for use in that year’s John Lewis Christmas advert. ‘It was one of those nice things where we didn't realise what a big deal it was,’ Tim reflects about the sync. ‘I thought, “Wow, it's never really going to come to fruition, is it? They want to use Somewhere Only We Know? They're probably talking to 20 other bands.”’
It all became more real when the re-recording began, with Lily Allen enlisted to sing the cover version. ‘I was involved in the process to start with,’ Tim explains. ‘David Kosten, who was one of the producers involved in it, came [to me] to play the piano part, and I thought: “This will be easy, obviously: I've played this song a million times." But I couldn't do it the way David wanted it at all, so I was quickly sacked from my own song! Lily was so perfect for [the vocals]; she did such a good job. The advert itself is so good.’
'With the John Lewis advert, I thought, “Wow, it's never really going to come to fruition, is it? They want to use Somewhere Only We Know? They're probably talking to 20 other bands.”’
In recent years, the song has reached a whole new generation through its popularity on TikTok, where it’s soundtracked over 200,000 videos. Further evidence of how Somewhere Only We Know continues to live multiple lives, the track is now regularly covered by users on the platform. ‘I love it, it’s just amazing,’ Tim says with a smile. ‘We've got such impostor syndrome, but I was gonna say it's actually like being in a proper band. For me the most flattering thing is when people cover your song, and now it happens a lot with Somewhere Only We Know.’
Released in May 2004, Hopes and Fears went on to become one of the UK's best-selling albums. ‘I think we've spent the last 20 years trying not to look back at it, because you're always thinking about the next thing. Looking backwards can feel like a sign that you've got nothing new to say,’ Tim explains. ‘But actually, it feels like someone grabbed us and forced us to look backwards and consider what we've done, and that's been really amazing. I think [the 20th anniversary] has been a very well-timed reminder of the depth of our creative bond and our friendship, and that's been very moving.’
It also reminded Keane of just how much work went into their debut record — the countless different versions of songs, years of writing and tweaking the tracks, and playing them live over and over again. It's an apt creative reminder, Tim says, as they head into 2025 and start work on a new album.
‘In a creative sense, it's been really helpful and meaningful to look back on that whole process,’ he says about Hopes and Fears. ‘But I'm really proud of it as well musically, and I'm proud of the songs. Most of all, I think I'm proud of our resilience just to get the thing made in the first place.’
Keane's Hopes and Fears: Lyrics and History is out now via Faber Music & Island Records.
