Keane's latest album - a radical departure from their trademark "Coldplay-lite" sound - has given the band a new lease of life. As they prepare for Irish shows in January, their still-cherubic frontman Tom Chaplin tells Tony Clayton-Leaabout fighting addiction, depression and fans' expectations

PONTIFICATING, piano-playing posh public school lads . . . we've been here before, of course, but Keane have taken it up a notch with their grasp of good melodies and the muscular voice of their - yes, the description is unavoidable - cherubic lead singer. The prerequisite for rock music to be created by the working class has been usurped time and again and, like Coldplay before them, Keane prove that nice boys can rock, write strong pop tunes and be put through a mincer and come out the other side reasonably intact.

Of late, however, it would seem that Keane have fallen foul of the "perception problem" that afflicts bands of their ilk. Hence, perhaps, a marked change of musical direction on their most recent album.

"We're going to be pigeonholed," says Chaplin, "but we haven't ever considered ourselves to be Coldplay-lite, or whatever it might be. We keep doing things for ourselves, shifting and changing, and we feel that artistically we are very much focused on doing our own thing. Eventually that will pay off, and I think it's actually starting to happen."

The new album, Perfect Symmetryis the starting point. It's a strange album, easy to like but too reference-heavy to respect. Keane obviously felt that their swooping, keyboard-oriented, anthemic pop was getting in the way of their inner 1980s dance moves, such is the influence of Talking Heads. They also unguardedly reference David Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, to the point where you're checking the songwriting credits.

Now, one can applaud a band for wanting to change the course of their creative directions. But when their influences are so obvious, you have to wonder about their modus operandi.

Chaplin (an inordinately nice bloke, it must be noted) is having none of it; the new album is mentioned in the same breath as the word "challenge".

"The beating heart of Keane," he says, "would be Tim Rice-Oxley's songs and my singing. Those things are never going to change, not so dramatically that they'd be unrecognisable. I suppose everything around that seems to us to be changeable. Certainly, we felt with this record that we were not to be held back, or that there were certain boundaries we couldn't cross over. There was, rather, a sense of reckless abandonment when we were making it, and that we could try and do anything we wanted.

"There is always going to be the heart of Keane, but we felt that we could really push things, and didn't necessarily have to make a record that sounded like what we had done before."

He admits that certain Bowie records were touchstones. Initially working with them on Perfect Symmetrywas the much admired producer Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, et al). Brion's primary premise, apparently, was to invest Keane with the sense that anything could and should happen.

"He told us that there aren't any limitations, that we don't have to be a certain thing or to worry about what certain people think. If we have an idea then we should run with it, however crazy or stupid it may seem. That really liberated us, and his words seeped into our mindset. The record didn't seem like a chore to make; we just enjoyed it and everything came with a sense of freedom.

"We went with anything that goes against the grain and happened to get flak for it. The Bowie records did just that. Also, U2 making The Joshua Treein the mid '80s - it was basically a big gospel record when everyone else was making pop music. Radiohead making Kid Ais probably the most recent example of a band really not caring what people's expectations were. They made that record and the ones that followed for themselves. Those bands take a big risk, but it often produces their greatest work."

And gives them a new lease of life, which might not have occurred if they hadn't ripped up the rulebook.

"I agree. I always think of Oasis, who are a great, consistent band, but I could never be in Oasis - for rather obvious reasons! - mainly because they have never gone anywhere with what they do. And that's fine. It's a comfort zone, and it's a sense of defining a niche and occupying it.

"I don't think we feel like that as a band, and I don't think we could ever cope with that, so our premise is to always innovate and move forward. Perhaps some people don't expect to hear that from us."

There could be another reason for the turnabout in musical ideas. In the lead up to the band's second album ( Under the Iron Sea), Chaplin, his already ruby cheeks even more flushed by the success of the band's debut ( Hopes and Fears), went walkabout. Was the arc of success over the space of just three albums too much to handle?

Chaplin hesitates for a few seconds. "I don't think such quick major success used to happen like that, but it seems these days you're suddenly thrust into all the hype and the crazy marketing that goes on. You can go from zero to hero very quickly."

"It's something we found very hard to deal with, I don't think we were prepared for it; indeed, I don't think you can ever be prepared for it, unless you've grown up in a celebrity-style family. We were suddenly thrust into that place, and it's taken us until recently to make some kind of sense of it. We're a bit more objective about it now, and probably enjoying it more. We feel very excited and enthused about the fact that people want to see us on the scale they do."

So much for the platitudes. How easy was it to fall into the lifestyle cliches? Was it inevitable that too much drink and too many drugs would be consumed on the uphill climb?

"We really did go from having an almost nine-to-five existence to being a major act," begins Chaplin, hesitantly recalling the early, good, fun days. "We used to go over to Tim's mum and dad's house and rehearse and then go home. Every now and then we'd send our demos off and generally not hear back from people. We led that life, had fuck-all money, no fans, and no sense of success or validation. And, suddenly, Hopes and Fearscame out and it changed us out of all recognition.

"When you get into that position, it's very hard to be objective - certainly not as objective as I feel now. And, yes, I think it's easy to fall into the traps of what it is to be in a band and to live out a lot of terrible cliches that you thought you'd never live out. But sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees.

"Looking back on it, I see it as a bizarre time. None of us were being ourselves; all of us - prominently me - were drifting further and further away from being who we really were. The past year or two has been about rediscovering ourselves. It's come to a good end, I think."

If there is any good to be taken out of those blurry, meltdown days (which included a bizarre "What if I killed Bono with a kitchen carving knife" scenario; a jibe from Kasabian's Serge Pizzorno that posh-boy Chaplin was not so much addicted to cocaine as to port; and being diagnosed with depression) it is that Keane are still together.

"And that we're making better and better music, an album that we feel was lurking inside us since we began. To come through all of that nonsense with this record and with our friendship intact is a great thing. We are now set up to hopefully have a less destructive career than we may have done, having got it out of our system."

And the most important thing you've learned about yourself in the past few years?

"I feel these days a desire to make known my opinions. Very often in the past I would dress things up or say the right thing just to make everybody happy. In fact, that created something of a pressure cooker inside of me that eventually would explode. And that's exactly what happened. I just didn't articulate my feelings as much as I should have done. These days I do, and that covers every aspect of my life - from friends and family to talking to journalists. I don't think I'd have been as forthcoming a few years ago. And that's the biggest thing I've learned: to be genuine to myself.

"A life in music can encourage you to develop a certain degree of charm and other easy escape methods, but sometimes you're just swept up into being someone you're not. Learning how to avoid that and just being myself has been a bit of a revelation, I reckon."

• Perfect Symmetryis released through Universal. Keane perform at Odyssey Arena, Belfast on January 23rd and O2 Dublin on January 25th