Jayne rice oxley biography of martin

Pop combo Keane - featuring UCL's Tim Rice-Oxley (Greek & Latin 1998) - took home two prizes at the Brits Awards on 9 February 2005: British Breakthrough Act and Best Album, for Hopes and Fears.

In an interview with the university's alumni magazine UCL People - to be published in March 2005 - Tim reflected on the band's eventful year following the release of its debut album.

Keane's songwriter and keyboardist said: "I wouldn't say it has been easy, but because we are very self-critical and very balanced people, we can kind of step back from it and not believe our own hype or believe what other people say about us whether it's good or bad. All we ever focus on is how to get better at writing songs, making music and doing gigs…Generally everyone has been really good to us and I think people are refreshed at the idea of a band that is more about songs with guts and meaning than about silly haircuts and rock'n'roll anecdotes."

The interview - held just before a sell-out gig at Brixton Academy - details Tim's experiences of an intensive touring schedule and the band's contribution to Live Aid 20, as well as his time at UCL. Coldplay's Chris Martin (Greek & Latin 1999) and Tim were in the same classes and used to hang out together listening to demos, in what Tim calls: "the tiny Department of Greek & Latin".

He continues: "Now for us to be in two English bands that are doing quite well globally, to come from the same little place in the universe, is just really weird. … I think the fact that UCL's in London for a start is a good thing. It's not on a nice cosy campus somewhere out in the lush countryside, It's a load of buildings spread around one of the world's greatest cities, so you're living and breathing real life from the moment you get there. Another thing I love about UCL is the non-religious ethos it has, which is something I completely agree with. Also it has a very arty atmosphere what with th

They were one of the biggest bands of the Noughties, with a reputation for being public-school choirboys, so when Keane fell apart five years ago amid drug, alcohol and divorce issues, they even managed to shock themselves.

Now they are back with a new album, Cause And Effect, and when I meet lead singer Tom Chaplin and keyboardist and songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley, they are ready to reflect on the lowest points in a career that includes the hits Somewhere Only We Know and Everything’s Changing.

Chaplin, 40, leans back in his chair and looks at the more visibly shy and sensitive Rice-Oxley, 43. He says he had a revelation in 2015 after discovering his old band mate was in a police cell, having been found in a ditch in Sussex after crashing his car while drunk. ‘We hadn’t really spoken properly since we split up a year earlier and I always felt I was the one who had all the problems,’ says Chaplin. ‘To me, Tim was always the sensible one. All I thought was, how has this happened? ’

Rice-Oxley winces at the memory. ‘There I was,’ he says, ‘hung over in a police cell and I felt I’d just lost everything. I was pretty proud of the boxes I’d ticked over the past ten years – four No 1 albums, lovely wife, house in the country, kids. But I’d made a classic mistake of thinking the marriage, the children, the house would all just be there for me. I put all the effort into the success of the band and not into my family. And then the band split [in 2014], my marriage ended and I realised that everything that made sense had gone.’

His sadness is reflected in the orchestral melancholy of the new album. One song, Stupid Things, lists all the lies and excuses he would make to his wife, Jayne, to stay away from home as his seven-year marriage deteriorated. It is both personal and uni