Tom Chaplin: 'I wanted to make something that felt very honest'

“Becalmed is a good description,” he says of both the mood of the album and his current lifestyle in rural Kent. “I wanted this to be a much softer, more reflective record – that is definitely where I find myself at this point in life,” he explains.

“I wanted to make something that felt very honest, both in terms of the writing and the way it’s presented. There’s not loads of extraneous production and bombast, it’s not that kind of album, and I think it explores a part of life that is full of nuance, full of interesting questions and interesting challenges, so I think the sound of the record probably reflects all of that too.”

He says he’s been texted by friends who have been listening to the album while travelling on the train who have told him that it is “so beautiful”. “I think there’s something about where and when it’s listened to that’s probably quite important about this album too,” he notes.

Finding himself relatively settled, the challenge is finding new ways to spark creativity, he admits. “It’s a question that concerns me: where is the next lot of music going to come from, because I absolutely hold to that idea that great art only comes out of turmoil,” he says. “I do think this part of life has definitely supplied enough of it. It’s a peculiar type of turmoil, I’ve not had my heart broken or left my family to move to a small island off the Scottish coast, or anything like that, but the questions that have come up are very existential.

“Obviously everything is framed by getting older and realising your own mortality, but I think deeper than that is then what’s the context that sets everything in, which is, ‘am I OK with the life that I’ve built?’ and the answer to that is if you’re not happy with it then you’ve got to tear it all down and start again. The notion of that, indulging that idea is very scary. I’ve definitely been through all of that and had to try and process it in a healthy way. It is like weathering a series of mini storms but on the other side of it, at least for the time being, is a calm sea.”

At the height of Keane’s fame in 2006, Chaplin went into rehab for drug addiction. He relapsed in 2014 but has remained clean ever since. He says the realisation that he had “a duty and a responsibility to be there” for his then 18-month-old daughter finally convinced him to stop using drugs. “Also at the time my wife was looking for other places to live,” he says. “Basically I was going to lose those things that are fundamental to me as a person and it was the fear of losing that. But also there was just an exhaustion, physically and mentally…

“Now I look back and I’m glad that addiction was part of my life because actually as it turns out it enriched me as a human being, it made me look at myself in way more detail than I would have done otherwise. It feels like a long time in the past now, and it’s not that I think I’m cured, it’s just that it’s not really an issue any more. But the result of it is it’s made me a much softer, more reflective human being with an experience of the peaks and troughs that other people might not necessarily have had. So I’m actually grateful in a way for that part of my life. I’ve come through it and survived it.”

Chaplin says he has “real plans” for his October shows “in terms of how I want to pitch them and what I want to achieve on the night”. “The new record is a softer and more reflective kind of a piece so I want the show itself to start in that place,” he says. “To go from a sense of feeling very intimate, very downplayed, very reflective and gradually grow the show in all regards with the lighting and production and instrumentation. Hopefully by the end of it it will have a very celebratory feel. Taking people on that journey is I think going to be very interesting.

"Also when I was younger needing that degree of adoration. I don’t want to do a show that has that posturing and sort of lording it over the audience. I want to ear down the fourth wall and make it an interactive, conversational type of an evening, so I want questions from the audience. I’m going to put a social media tag up for questions from people so we can actually get chatting during the show or for people to send in strange ideas for Keane songs that they haven’t heard for years, paying a bit of homage to Keane as well.”

As for the prospect of new music from Keane, it seems we may have to wait a while yet. “I honestly don’t know,” he says. “I think I would rather go where the energy is, and I’m not sure where that is at the moment. Part of me is eager to do some more writing but I’m not sure what shape that will take.

“There’s always a desire from the Keane fans for more stuff, I know Tim (Rice-Oxley) is always writing, but I don’t want to do anything unless it feels like the right thing to do. To me it’s more important at this time in life to do things that have got the right kind of energy to them. But beyond the tour I’ve actually got no idea of what I’m going to do next. If you live in that state something always presents itself.”

Tom Chaplin plays at York Barbican on October 11. https://www.tomchaplinmusic.com/