Keane - Interview at Holmwood House - 18th September 2012

Dusk has fallen, the trees are rustling as they settle into the gathering darkness and from a nearby vegetable patch the dull thud of a spade shovelling dirt rings out. After a few scrapes and morbid scratchings, the wood on wood bang of a mallet can be heard as a wooden cross is thumped determinedly into damp soil. It’s marking a long, tapered mound of earth, raised just alongside a bed of sweet-pea and carrots. For those not in the know, it looks like the final resting place of a tall, oddly shaped human being. For those with a sense of humour, it looks as though someone just buried a giant parsnip. Luckily for the people who are gathering to watch the grim spectacle however, this grave is empty, the gravedigger is an actor and the whispering sounds from the gothic looking house behind them are not from the undead but from the very much alive band Keane. “Have you seen the grave out there?“ laughs Tom Chaplin, their vocalist. “One unlucky punter is going to get buried alive tonight. In fact, where’s our manager? We haven’t seen him in a while...“ Beside him, his bandmate Richard Hughes giggles like a naughty school boy: “We could just leave him here in Scotland.“ The lads are seated in antique chairs on an antique rug in front of an antique fireplace under the watchful, and extremely unnerving gaze of an antique rocking horse. “We’re at Holmwood house in Glasgow doing a bit of a haunted house event,“ explains Richard cheerfully. “It’s inspired by the video for our single Disconnected which was basically a six minute horror film set in a creepy house. “Tonight is a childhood nightmare come true - it’s pretty creepy. Some friends of ours have put together this pretty intricate story of family and murders and strange goings-on in this building. “Competition winners will show up and get taken round the house. It should creep them out a bit and then we’ll ’finish them off’ with some of our music.“ The two of them break out into unstoppable laughter, both clearly in their element that they get to creep around a National Trust property scaring people. The band have crossed the national border to launch their brand new single Disconnected from their fourth studio album Strangeland due to be released worldwide on October 8. “Tim wrote it (Disconnected) when he was on holiday after an argument with his wife,“ explains Tom. “So in a way it comes from a dark place.“ “I didn’t know that,“ chirps in Richard. “Yeah, it’s true, “ Tom laughs. “But the video idea for Disconnected was the brainchild of a guy call Juan Bayona. He did a film called The Orphanage which was very creepy that I’m sure people will remember. “We thought it would be nice to do something that would leave you psychologically scarred after you see it. “We shot it in a weird spooky house in Barcelona and it’s like nothing else we’ve ever been involved in.“ “Yeah,“ agrees Richard. “The cast were absolutely amazing, I mean they’re proper actors and it shows. It was really really fun. “I mean at one point we were on this balcony and looked out and there was someone digging a grave, and Tom was like ’That looks like a grave, umm’...“ Tom snorts: “I really thought it was some guy next door genuinely burying someone - but then they pointed out that it was actually part of the shoot.“