I doubt it is the end of Keane, says frontman Tom Chaplin

Keane frontman Tom Chaplin said solo music has allowed him to meet new and interesting people but the band are like “brothers”, adding: “I doubt it is the end of Keane.”

The indie rock singer, who releases his third solo album on Friday, said it was “lovely” to perform pandemic-delayed shows with Keane over the summer.

The 43-year-old told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “The thing about Keane is we all grew up in the same town, we have known each other all our lives, we are basically like a family. We are brothers really, or as close to it as you can get, but that means you are a bit like a little island.

“You are your own thing. When you make music it is just the three or four of you, and the great thing about doing solo records is the opportunity to step off that island and meet loads of new and interesting people.

“I think at this point in my life I find that a really interesting diversion to take.

“I doubt it is the end of Keane. Keane is a big machine and it requires four of us to sort of be on the same page to kind of get that up and running again.

“We did some shows over the summer that had sort of been pushed back because of Covid and it was lovely, we have got such a great fan base and a big catalogue of songs now, 20 years of writing.”

Keane formed in 1995 and their hits include songs like Somewhere Only We Know and Everybody’s Changing.

Their 2004 debut studio album, Hopes And Fears, won them a Brit Award not long after its release, and in 2019 they released their fifth studio album titled Cause And Effect.

Chaplin has also released music as a solo artist, including debut solo album The Wave in 2016, following up with a Christmas record titled Twelve Tales Of Christmas.

The singer-songwriter’s new album, Midpoint, is released on Friday.

He said: “The silver lining of the pandemic for me was it gave me the time to get in my writing room and start working on music that I had been itching to get out of me for a while, so in that sense it came at the right time.

“It is a record that is about this stage of life that I suddenly find myself in, getting a bit older, and I think that brings a lot of challenges that you kind of are not expecting when you are young, thrusting and going in a certain direction.

“Suddenly the brakes are on and it is a time of reflection and real change, but also on the other side of it is something really hopeful and really beautiful if you can learn to weather those storms, so it felt like a really interesting subject to write about.”

In 2006, following the release of Keane’s smash-hit debut, Chaplin was treated for drug and alcohol addiction.

The band were forced to cancel their North American tour while he recovered.

Chaplin said: “It has been eight years since I last used. In a way… it made me who I am… it forced me to look myself in a much deeper way than I ever would have done otherwise.

“My using got so bad at a certain point that she (his wife) was threatening to leave home, looking at places to move to, and I had a one-year-old daughter at the time.

“I was tired mentally and physically. I just thought ‘I have got a choice here – either I go on a path to complete self-destruction or I try and save it’.”

In January, Chaplin was unmasked as Poodle on ITV’s The Masked Singer after he performed Natasha Bedingfield’s hit Unwritten.

At the time, he said he had chosen to sing Unwritten because Keane had beaten Bedingfield to the 2005 Brit Award for best breakthrough act.