Tim answers 50 fans' questions: pt 6

BEKAH SAYS, "AS SOMEONE WHO'S INTERESTED IN MUSIC AND SONGWRITING, I WAS WONDERING IF
THERE'S A SPECIFIC PROCESS THAT YOU GO THROUGH TO GET AN IDEA DOWN".
To get an idea down. I wonder what that means. Well I guess the actual writing part of it
I tend to either think of ideas as I'm going about my day and I find myself singing something
and I occasionally get something that feels good enough to actually run over to make a
note of. Or I'll sit at the piano for ages and keep pushing myself for hours and hours
until something good comes out, hopefully. But then yeah when it comes to actually making
that into something audible or recordable, I always record all the demos just on a Dictaphone,
with a cassette tape, to start with, so I always have that on my piano or wherever I
am in my bag. So I know that I've got it and then once I've got something that I feel is
like a complete song, or near enough, then I'll start a demo on my laptop normally, or
if I'm at home here in the studio.
DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR CASSETTE TAPES OF ALL YOUR DICTAPHONE MOMENTS?
I do.
WOW. SO YOU START A NEW TAPE EACH TIME? Yeah, absolutely. All the way back to 2002.
NEXT QUESTION IS FROM JARON IN SEATTLE WHO ASKS, 'WHAT WAS THE SHORTEST AMOUNT OF TIME
IT TOOK TO WRITE A SONG AND WHAT SONG WAS IT?"
Ah that's a very good question. I think in terms of a complete song it probably would've
been something of the first album cos ever since then I haven't had enough time to…
I always feel like I've been trying to write between gigs or tours or whatever. And also
I probably spend more time working on the lyrics on the later albums, but I think Somewhere
Only We Know. I think all of those ones were pretty quick.
WHAT'S QUICK? DAYS OR MONTHS? No, probably quicker than that generally.
Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody's Changing were
both pretty fast. It's very hard to tell because I'll work on an idea for a couple of hours
or less, y'know get it down in ten minutes and then go back to it the next day and the
next day, or maybe the lyrics will take a week for something to slot into place. It's
not like I'll be sitting there for weeks on end only working on that song, never eating.
But, yeah, I find generally on average it can certainly take days, weeks, months to
bring a song from starting it to actually finishing it. And just sort of dipping in
and out of it. I've got songs that have been around for years that I still cling onto with
the hope that just one day the perfect lyric or phrase will slot into that.
DRA_HOUSE ASKS WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FOOD? Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.
VERY NICE. HOME-MADE CHOCOLATE SAUCE? Has to be home-made chocolate sauce.
TRACY FROM TEXAS ASKS, "WHEN YOU WRITE A SONG OR WRITE A LYRICS FOR KEANE, DO YOU HAVE TOM'S
VOICE IN YOUR HEAD OR YOUR OWN?" Er, I think Tom's really. With lyrics, I definitely write
very much from the heart and try and… I'm not very good at telling stories or writing
about things that I think people will want to hear about, I have to try and do something
that feels very potent to me, so yeah I definitely try to dig that of somewhere, but then from
that point onwards, I definitely hear Tom's voice. But also I have the great benefit of
having known Tom for so long, that I feel I probably am instinctively also, when I write
stuff that I feel is important to me, I think I instinctively am writing stuff that I feel
is important to both of us, or even all of us as a band. Because I think we spend so
much time together and so much time talking about the world, lightheartedly or more seriously
or whatever, and I think you kind of develop over such a long friendship a worldview - I
mean we all have different opinions on things - but I feel that my role is to try and represent
that in the kind of raw song.
HYE FROM SOUTH KOREA SAYS, "WHEN YOU'RE PLAYING PIANO YOU LOOK VERY PASSIONATE AND IT SEEMS
A LITTLE DANGEROUS. HAVE YOU EVER INJURED YOURSELF DURING A PERFORMANCE". Yeah, only
minor injuries generally. I cut my fingers quite frequently, which can be quite dramatic
cos the white piano keyboards can be quite sharp on the edge, or if you've got a broken
key, and then there's blood all over the keyboard which looks very gory even though it's a tiny
little cut. But I did a good one… I got through the whole of the Perfect Symmetry
tour without sustaining any injuries at all, I think, and then the very last gig, in fact
I think it was the second last song, we were playing Under Pressure in Spain and I was
sort of rocking out and I misjudged the mic stand and just completely headbutted my mic
stand and then almost blacked out a for a minute, didn't know what I'd done, cos I had
my eyes shut and then suddenly felt this massive thud in the middle of my face. So that was
slightly uncomfortable for a few days.
SHERRY W FROM MICHIGAN IN THE USA ASKS HOW IT FELT DOING YOUR OWN ROADIE WORK ON THE
MT. DESOLATION TOUR. It's great. I loved it. I mean I don't really,
even though it's great to be in such a luxurious position that we have lots of people working
with us when we're on the road, I do feel, I have a sort of instinctive reaction against
molly-coddling and I certainly don't have a problem with setting up my own gear and
carrying stuff. I quite enjoy it really. In a way I feel more comfortable doing things
that way. But no it was great. Of course it's very simple when you're only playing tiny
venues and you've just got a piano and a microphone to set up. It's not quite the same as setting
up a massive lighting rig or something. Probably best not to unleash me on that.
DRIVER PC SAYS THAT YOU SAID YOUR BEST WEBSITE OF 2010 WAS YOUTUBE, DO YOU EVER LOOK AT COVERS
OF YOUR SONGS ON THERE UPLOADED BY FANS? DO YOU EVER CHECK OUT OTHER VERSIONS OF KEANE
SONGS. I do, I do check them out. I saw a lovely
version of, actually it was a Mt. Desolation song, Mart McDonald who has his own Keane
gear had done a lovely version of that. But my favourite Keane one ever was by a group
of Swedish girls - obviously! - I think they'd done a couple of songs and it was all lovely
harmonies. It was brilliant. I can't remember if it was posted on keanemusic.com or something
that was just sent around, but that was fantastic. But it's amazing how many people do that and
I sort of did my little cover of These Days for example and the pleasure you get from
recording a cover like that I think it's great. I really empathise with that, I suppose.
WELL FEEL FREE TO DO MORE. WE RATHER LIKED IT.
BRIAN55 ASKS WHICH RADIO STATION YOU LISTEN TO AT BREAKFAST.
I don't listen to the radio at breakfast. My daughter listens to Destiny's Child over
and over again. She calls them the Fairy Band. And she likes Bootylicious, even though she's
only 3. And Independent Women. What's that album? Survivor is it? Anyway so we listen
to that album quite a lot. But, yeah, I listen to the radio quite a lot in the car, I listen
to Radio One basically.
MOLLYRCK ASKS, "WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE KEANE LYRIC AND WHICH ONE IS THE MOST MEANINGFUL
TO YOU?" Um, I think, I mean they're all meaningful
to me. I think the lyrics to Hamburg Song I really love, from the emotional point of
view, I still find them quite sort of heart-renching. And the one I love is the "when we fall in
love we're just falling in love with ourselves", which is, the only thing I don't like about
it is that it's quite a bleak outlook on that sort of characteristic of humanity, but I
think there's a lot of truth in it. But you know you could write a book about that subject.
But there are lots of lyrics that I'm proud of and I guess I'm proud also of the fact
that I've actually written some lyrics that I'm proud of, if that makes sense. Cos I put
so much effort into the lyrics and I don't find it easy at all, and I'm glad that there
are lots of good ones and not too many stinkers.