When you’re a band known largely for your lack of guitars, you don’t take rumors that you busted out the axe on your new album lightly.
Keane have addressed rumors that they used guitars to fill out their signature piano-driven sound, for their new album, Under the Iron Sea. Instead, the band insists they managed to make they keyboards sound like guitars.
“Using guitars wasn’t ruled out, because Tom’s quite good at the guitar,” keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley told NME.com. “We were definitely envisaging the possibility of using a bit of guitar early on but we never got around to it.”
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Rice-Oxley said he picked up some “vintage cassette units” and other assorted “gadgets” during his travels and found a way to make them sound like guitars. He added that once they were able to make guitar sounds without the use of an actual six-string, the band permanently ruled out their usage.
“We probably didn’t even consider becoming a guitar band again,” Rice-Oxley said. “We used to be a guitar band when we started out and we’ve been there. The sounds on this record are really exciting and expressive of the lyrics and the music.”
For their next trick, Richard Hughes plans to turn his drum set into a harp.
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