Written for Kurrent Music
Published August 16th 2016
Tom Chaplin blog
There’s a story going around among musicians that one night Chris Martin and his band, unknown at the time, went to see a another band perform called Coldplay. They thought the band was OK, but loved the name so much, they ended up talking this band into giving up the name. Coldplay (as we know them) went on to be massive, but later on, this other band also made a name for itself, using the name Keane.
I’ve never managed to find anything to confirm this story, but it’s one of those lovely stories that keeps floating around. The bands were linked at some point, if you were interested, by the fact that Chris Martin asked Keane member Tim Rice-Oxley to join Coldplay in their early days. One offer he declined. The name Keane, however, is the last name of a deceased friend of lead singer Tom Chaplin’s mother, who very much believed in his band.
