Keane: how we made Somewhere Only We Know

Tom Chaplin, singer

We grew up together in Battle and got together as a band in school. I was three years younger, so the other guys waited for my balls to drop before agreeing that I could be the singer. We moved to London in the late 90s and cut our teeth on the classic Camden circuit, towards the end of the Britpop scene, which felt very inspiring for young bands. We were a traditional indie band back then – our guitarist,, was Irish and adored U2, so there were a lot of big, delayed guitars. After several years we still weren’t getting anywhere, then Dominic told us he was leaving. So Tim [Rice-Oxley] switched from bass to piano. At the time it was unusual to have a piano as the lead instrument and no guitars – we put in the bass parts on a laptop – but suddenly everything fell into place.