Keane
On Yamaha
Julian Colbeck chats
to Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley about MIDI, music, and
the price of fish before the band's Berkeley gig, May 6th 2005.
Lean On Me: Tim Rice-Oxley at his trusty CP70B
ithout
wishing to be overly cynical, professional endorsements (of
musical instruments, toothpaste, you name it) tend to be
colored by the endorsee’s receipt of a lifetime's supply
of it for free or because they're being paid to say they
like the product.
Enter Keane, a young band from the South
of England who tore up the UK charts in 2004 and are poised
to do the same in USA in 2005. A Keane stage looks like a
revved up Yamaha showroom, but the difference with these
guys is that they've been using Yamaha gear long before they
even got a record contract and, to put it mildly, they love
it.
Front and center stage of Keane's sound,
on record and on stage, is a Yamaha CP70 Electric Grand piano.
It's not that Tim Rice-Oxley – keyboard player and
songwriter – occasionally slips into retro mode; this
is his main axe. To make things even more extraordinary the
CP70 doesn't just sit in behind a wall of guitars and production
flim-flammery, the entire Keane line-up comprises Tim on
keyboards (we'll come onto what else is in his rig in a minute),
Richard Hughes on drums (yes, Yamaha, since you ask), and
Tom Chaplin on vocals.
That's right, no guitarist, and no bass
player. And no, this is most definitely NOT a lounge act.
Tim plays what can only be described as power piano. If Angus
Young played piano this is how he'd tackle it. Literally.
I first heard a few bars of Keane's epic
debut single Somewhere Only We Know on a rainy
Spring day in London on a stopover to the Frankfurt Musik
Messe in 2004. The catchy internal chord movement and the
unmistakable clunk of a CP70 caught my attention and I asked
one of the ever-knowledgeable guys at the Virgin MegaStore
who was playing. ‘Keane,' he said, and I was disappointed
when, upon asking for the name of the CD the track came off,
to be told that they were still making it. Wouldn't be out
until the summer, most likely.
 |
Richard
Hughes plays, you guessed it, Yamaha Drums. |
Back in USA I finally picked up a copy
of Hopes And Fears (Interscope) a few months ago
and was impressed by track after track of succinct, hooky
songs, raw emotion, and enough dynamics enough to shut down
a Drawmer for good. Add a starkly original ear for melody
and arrangement, throw in the ‘emo' factor of Coldplay
and U2 and these guys were clearly onto something, CP70 and
all.
A chance conversation with Yamaha-Kemble
in the UK after this year's Musik Messe elicited the information
that not only did Tim play CP70, he also played an S90. In
fact might an interview with the band be of interest to Sninety.com?
Keane's 2005 Spring Tour has moved up a
notch from the predominantly club-based venues of 2004's
outings to medium sized theaters, and indeed even this move
seems but a stepping stone since the 3500 capacity Berkeley
Community Theater was impressively and comprehensively sold
out.
Tall, dark, and thoughtful-looking, Tim
Rice-Oxley greeted me with a “Hi, I'm Tim. Cuppa tea?” as
he ushered me into an elemental (as opposed to remotely lavish)
dressing room for the interview. An S90 blinked at us on
one side of the room. A couple of tables-worth of basic food
groups on the other. Tim poked around for a tea bag produced
in this century and drizzled some lukewarm water into a Styrofoam
cup. “Americans haven't quite got the tea thing down
yet, have they?” he apologized.
‘You obviously have a real affinity
with classic synths.' I begin. ‘And yet you seem very
at home with modern technology. What are your feelings about
real vintage instruments versus vintage instrument plug-ins?
“I'm sort of a jack of all trades” says
Tim. “Well, certainly I'd describe myself as a master
of none. When I first got into music I was really into
the Pet Shop Boys for some reason, and so I got interested
in the Fairlight, and the DX7, and the whole late eighties
thing. I really got into MIDI. I always had half an eye
on digital things. But I was living at home and I got a
QY10 when they first came out. I thought that was one of
the most amazing things I'd ever heard. I programmed a
whole bunch of basslines and backing tracks for some sort
imaginary concert I was going to play - even though I wasn't
even in a band. In fact I was about 12.
“Although I've always been into
that side of it I'm certainly not an expert. The same applies
to analog stuff. If you put me in front of a big modular
synth I wouldn't know where to start. But I do like a good
simple old synth where you can change the sound with a
few knobs and where you can hear the sound reacting to
what you're doing. I'm just a songwriter; someone who likes
making music rather than being a real tech head .
So as long I can get what I want out of a synth, be it
an old analog one or a modern digital one, then I'm happy,
and I've just about got enough knowledge to do that.”
‘What appeals to you most: the actual
sound, or instant controllability?' Do plug-ins really cut
it for you?
“There are some that I've used that
are great fun. It's great being able to zip through 500
presets that all sound fantastic. But I don't know, it
can take some of the fun out of it. The fact that I'm ignorant
when it comes to those old synths means that I can come
up with lots of weird noises, or get some sort of arpeggiator
pattern going out of a Juno 6… all of that's quite
exciting for me.
“When it comes to an actual vintage
synth versus a plug-in, for me, personally, there is definitely
a difference in the sound. It's the imperfections that
makes analog sounds so good; you know, the tuning wobbles
a bit… Maybe it's all in the mind but there's a
warmth that comes from those synths.”
‘Any particular favorites?'
“Rhodes, Wurlitzer Electric piano,
Solina String Synth, but the best one for me personally
is the ARP Pro DGX, which is generally not considered to
be a very good synth but one that I find absolutely beautiful.”
Testament to this unusual statement is
Tim's haunting, portamento-imbued solo on the track She
Has No Time , which is an ARP Pro DGX.
 |
For breakfast
Tim likes Nord Lead, over easy.
|
‘Piano seems to be your main instrument.
But you also use sequencers (Logic). How do you balance playing an
instrument and using a sequencer and loops when it comes
to songwriting?
“I'm more inclined towards the classic
way of songwriting where I write something on a piano and
then play stuff to the band. I do all my demos in Logic
and that's quite loopy of course. It's not loop based in
the sense of having a lot of breakbeats. It's not like
sort of Nightmares On Wax (somewhat MIDI-focused British
R&B outfit – Ed.) or whatever. It's more
about getting a good drum track to sing along to.
“Having said that Untitled 1 is
a track that grew out of a little riff on the piano that
I started fiddling around with on top of a drum loop that
I liked. The song came out of that groove. I do like that.
I'd actually like to do more of in the future.”
‘Do you use sequencers to flesh out
your arrangements, or are the arrangements more premeditated?'
“It's a blend. We're quite new to
this. When I'm doing a demo, if I've got a song I'm excited
about I want to present it to the band in the best possible
light. I remember Sting saying it's really important to
have a demo sounding great to get your comrades excited
about it.
“On a demo I'll often have one or
two great parts which I can see in the finished recording.
There will always be bits of orchestration; some parts
that suggest themselves to your ear. Of course when you
play it to the band then they'll say it needs something
else here… You end up with a load of different ideas
that all sound great. Then you have to start subtracting,
and just choose the best ones.”
I'd meant to ask what formal training Tim
had received but we ran out of time during the interview.
A subsequent email elicited the following reply, however:
 |
| Lights,
Action, Music! |
“I had lessons when I was about 10
years old. I didn't like practicing, I didn't like the theory,
and I didn't like playing Bach and all that classical stuff.
I was much happier when I gave up lessons and started teaching
myself from guitar tab books of the Beatles and U2. Once
I made the connection between the tedious arpeggios they
make you play in lessons and the chords in a tab book it
became easy to play lots of pop songs. They never tell you
that!”
‘One of the most impressive features
of Hopes And Fears are the dynamics. Songs like She
Has No Time , and We Might As Well Be Strangers seem
to go from a whisper to a scream over the course of a bar
of music… and back again.
“I think that's where playing as
a band comes in, which is what we did with pretty well
all the songs on the first album. Sequenced demos can be
a bit too linear. Playing it live before you record it
is very important. You can't beat the sound a real drum
kit. and Tom's voice is so dynamic. It's an amazing skill.
Hopefully those are things we can continue to do as a band,
and that also makes us good as a live band. When you're
playing live the dynamics are much more important. It's
great to get a crowd going on something like We Might
As Well be Strangers where it gets louder and louder
and then completely cuts to nothing. Those moments in a
set are great. And it's great if you've got time to play
songs live before you record them.
“That's the way we did the first
record. Now we're starting the second one we've actually
gone in with a lot of demos and it's more of a ‘studio'
recording; adding ideas to the tracks in the studio. That's
fun, but it can be dangerous as well.”
 |
Tom Chaplin
- a star is born!
|
True to his word, and almost unheard-of
in these days of potential studio-quality piracy, Keane went
on to debut a new song at the show.
“One of the best things about being
in this band,” said singer Tom Chaplin “is
that you get to hear songs written by this guy before anyone
else.” Tom went on to explain – almost to apologize – that
Tim had only written the song a couple of weeks ago and
that although it was still kind of rough the band felt
it was one of the best Tim had written and so they just
had to play it. Refreshing honesty, or naiveté,
the classic Keane 8-beat piano chords of Try Again floored
the audience. Sadly it's hard not to see Keane's record
company reining in such moments of generosity, as they
get bigger.
On stage Tim uses his trusty Yamaha CP70B
facing into the stage, and an S90 with Nord lead atop facing
out to the audience. In the middle is a rack-full of modules
driven mainly by a Mac G4 running Logic.
“I use a Yamaha CP70B for most songs
at the moment. One channel of that goes to the desk clean,
and another channel goes through a Line 6 Pod with a distortion
setting. On the record we amped up the CP70 quite a lot
to make it crunchier, so we use the pod to give it that
same edge live where required. The S90 I use for the Rhodes
sounds and a Nord Lead 3 for more synthy sounds. On She
Has No Time I play the S90 throughout and then use
the Nord for the solo sound which I originally played on
my ARP ProDGX. The bass parts are played back from an Apple
G4 PowerBook using Logic. The Fender Twin Reverb is one
of the amps we use in the studio, so I'm into the idea
of using it live too. We're working on that as it means
a bit of an overhaul of the way we use the piano. At the
moment its main use is so the piano tuner can hear what
he's doing – the CP70 is tuned every day – and
to look nice! But I want to set up a new system where I
can run the CP70 through a bunch of pedals and into the
twin, just as you would a guitar.”
Tim used the CP70 extensively on the album.
Tim and producer Andy Green may have spent time tweaking
with and beefing up sundry aspects of the CP in order to
enhance the top end but the CP70 ‘sound' is still unmistakably
the predominant sonic force.
The CP70 is an electro-acoustic baby grand
piano. In other words it has actual strings (short ones,
too, hence the clunkiness of the bass) and pickups. Strings
can break, especially if the instrument is pounded. Tim ‘in
real life' is a very different animal to the one I saw later
on stage. From the opening bars of Can't Stop Now Tim
doesn't so much play the piano as attack it like a rodeo
bull rider: left hand whipping away from the keyboard like
he's being electrocuted, head swiveling like he's doing neck
isolations in a high impact workout class.
Not surprisingly, there are casualties.
And while you fear that the chiropractic art will feature
large in the mid-life of Tim Rice-Oxley for the moment the
casualties are principally piano strings. ‘Tell him
not to hit it so hard,' pleaded the PR liaison at Yamaha-Kemble.
No chance of that, it would seem…
“…I get annoyed if people
are standing there with their arms crossed so I try to
egg the crowd on. Also the three of us on stage need to
encourage each other with our body language – you
can't stop for a pep-talk in the middle of a show! So if
Tom's trying to get people dancing or clapping or whatever
by running around the stage, I'll try to support him by
doing the same kind of thing...”
The only glimmer of a solution comes from
Tim's other rig, which is based upon the Yamaha S90.
‘What specifically attracted you
to the S90,' I ask the pre-gig, ‘quiet' version of
Tim.
“The two things I like best are
the keyboard action, and the electric piano sounds; in
particular the Rhodes patches.
“You often come across high end
pianos that have actions that are nowhere near like a real
piano. The S90 feels fantastic. As for the sounds the things
I love most about it are the Rhodes's and the Wurlis. On
record I used my real Fender Rhodes (Suitcase 73) on She
Has No Time but sometimes on a real Rhodes the notes
just don't ring out. I remember tearing my hair out over
that at times. But when it comes to playing live, the S90
Rhodes sounds are phenomenal and we've already started
using them a bit on the new recordings. It's the same with
the Wurlitzer sounds. Some of the things that I do are
not very orthodox ways of playing and frankly the S90 seems
to work even better than the real thing. That's why I use
it live: for the consistency of it.”
 |
Close
Encounters of the Keane Kind
|
The Keane line-up is nothing if not brave:
no guitarist at all, and bass plus whatever else is needed
to complete textures used on record, supplied by a laptop.
Even with today's relative computer stability this has got
to have thrown up the odd scary moment.
“Yes, it has. We actually have dual
system that my genius tech Geoff set up for me two months
ago, but when we started off there was just three of us
driving around in a van. I had a drive on the floor and
then I got a picnic table and few bits of sponge for the
computer to sit on. We had a few hilarious moments when
the song would suddenly go back to the beginning and we'd
have to start it all over again.. Even now we certainly
try not to rely on it.”
‘Do you think you'll ever use a live
bass player?'
“I don't know. Some days I am tempted.
I think that it would be really nice and not have to worry
about that. But at the same time I think the most important
thing about a band is the chemistry we have between the
three of us. We have fairly unique chemistry since we've
known each other all our lives and we want to preserve
that.”
A final question I'd wanted to ask Tim
was about the impressive lack of ‘left hand' muddying
up the recorded songs. This is a perennial problem for piano-based
rock tracks. Again, Tim kindly responded subsequently by
email with following piece of sound advice:
“I'm always aware of the relationship
between the piano and the bass because I play both on record.
I worked out pretty quickly that lots of bassy piano plus
lots of fiddly bass guitar equals a big, muddy mess. It's
even more important live. What's important is the groove
and the overall effect, not a lot of fancy playing. I love
the bit in that film Amadeus where the emperor tells Mozart
that there were “too many notes” in his opera....
and Mozart's furious because he knows it's true.”
The Berkeley show later that evening was
a triumph not only of chemistry between three accomplished
musicians and performers but also of original, risk-taking
song writing and arranging. Tonight was the first date with
the band's full light show and production and they were as
visibly excited by that as the across-the-map audience (teenage
girls to trendy University types to forty-somethings) were
by the band.
The Beatles had that same rare, broad appeal
back in the sixties. At the end of the day what huge numbers
of people want to hear are good songs, arranged and sung
well. Tom Chaplin has much of the same boy-next-door charm,
as well as the pipes, of a Young McCartney, Richard Hughes
has got to be the most accomplished slow-song drummer in
the game right now, and Tim Rice-Oxley is simply a very special
talent who's ultimate destination is – who knows – film
composer, certainly the Grammies as a songwriter.
For now, though, we'll just hope that this
chemistry will produce several more albums the quality of Hopes
And Fears. And with Yamaha gear clearly supporting
both their recording and touring work hopefully we'll look
forward to exploring this rare talent again in the coming
months and years.
 |
 |
 |
| |
Tim's shopping
list for the next album |
|
Text ©2005 Keyfax NewMedia Inc.
Pics ©2005 Annie Colbeck Photography
[top] |
