Tim: Via our reader, Matt, this is Tom Chaplin, who until I looked him up I didn’t realise was the lead singer of a not-too-distant fairly prominent UK band. So let’s play…Guess The Band The Singer Was The Lead Singer Of From The Solo Output! Or something with a catchier title, I don’t know.
Tim: Any guesses?
Tom: I didn’t know him from the voice. But I knew him from the face.
Tim: My first guess, or at least what I first thought the song sounded like, was Hurts trying a slightly less electro sound – the vocal in the chorus sounds very close indeed, and that backing choir at the end wouldn’t be remotely out of place. The answer, though: ‘Everybody’s Changing’ and ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ hitmakers, KEANE!
Tom: I actually thought the lead singer of Keane was called Tim Rice-Oxley — turns out that’s their other singer. I have no explanation for how my brain remembered that name in the decade or so since the last time I heard it, given that I forget most people’s names in about three seconds.
Tim: Maybe just a particular talent of yours – way back when in a quiz I did, I recall you being the only person in a room of forty knowing the lead singer of Wet Wet Wet.
Tom: But yes, okay, it’s one of the blokes off Keane.
Tim: And I’d never have guessed that, because this is quite the different sound – out with guitars, in with big strings, presenting a much more aggressive, powerful and all round dramatic output than the band’s used to be. And I love it for that.
Tom: For once, I actually agree: I was too busy searching ‘Tim Rice-Oxley’ for the first half of the song, and then I slowly realised that the music in the background was actually quite lovely. This’ll do nicely.