More about: tom-chaplin

It’s been quite the year for former Keane frontman Tom Chaplin. With his debut solo album, The Wave, reaching number three in the charts this year, the singer has now released a second, Christmas-themed album.

Out now, Twelve Tales of Christmas is Chaplin’s alternative Christmas album, containing eight original songs as well as four inventive covers of some of our most well-loved Christmas songs.

“The four covers I chose are personal favourites and all very distinct from one another,” Chaplin explained. “I found Christmas a great source of inspiration for writing my own songs. There’s a bittersweet quality to this time of year that made me want to explore the themes of love, lost love and remembering those we have lost.”

With the first single, ‘Under a Million Lights’ already receiving much attention, anticipation is high for the album’s release tomorrow.

We caught up with Tom to ask him more about the album, the idea behind it and his thoughts on Christmas.

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What inspired you to make a Christmas album?

It was probably quite a complicated set of reasons, I think, so I’ll try and wrap it up in some kind of neat way [laughs]. Firstly, it feels to me like it’s an idea that’s been floating around for a really long time and somehow, I’ve always felt like I might have a voice that could be synonymous with Christmas. It felt like it could be a good fit.

But then it’s more about whether you feel it’s something you can actually make work or not. I think the way that Christmas albums are generally perceived is often as a kind of ‘take the money and run, do a load of covers and just knock something out’ affair. I didn’t want to do something that was going to be like that or anything that was a bit half-hearted.

In springtime this year, I sort of knew that the work around the first solo album was going to be coming to an end, but I still felt this kind of real buzz and enthusiasm and energy for writing and making music and I didn’t want to stand still. I think I just thought, ‘Well, maybe if I get my skates on I can write and record and slot in a Christmas record.’

Back in the springtime I basically started writing it. At the outset I thought, ‘Well, I’ll do a handful of originals and the rest will be covers.’ But as the writing process went on, I was writing [original songs] that I felt really positive about and I was getting good reactions from people.

Suddenly, I had a bit more of a monster – eight original songs – and I thought, ‘I can make a full LP now,’ and so that’s how it transpired. Then it was a case of, ‘Right, how the hell do we fit in recording a record in the space of about three weeks?!’ but we managed it in the end [laughs].

Have you enjoyed the freedom of solo songwriting since leaving Keane?

I think one of the reasons why I felt like Keane was a difficult place for me at times (I mean obviously, I should also say I had many wonderful times with Keane) was that Tim was the one that really drove the whole thing forward as the primary songwriter and I felt at times, particularly as the years went on, that it was a place where creatively I was being stifled or stifling myself at the very least.

Only by kind of freeing myself of it and saying, ‘Right, well, I’m just going to do it off my own back and try and write a solo album and see if it works’ did I [get anywhere]. I didn’t really know until I did that whether I could do it. And, actually, as it turned out, it’s been an amazing new chapter of my life. I never expected it to have gone as well as it has.

But mostly, underneath all of that, it’s given me such pleasure and joy. I really feel so fulfilled creatively. In terms of my energy levels towards making music, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so driven and excited by it: it’s been a very positive time in my life.

You’re struggles with addiction were documented in The Wave. How does it feel now to have come back from that dark time?

The thing is, it’s amazing…I remember in a [particularly] dark time I would often go into narcotics anonymous meetings or AA meetings or rehab (places like that), and people who got themselves well would say - when you get yourself sober and you start living your life in the right way, good things start to happen. I think that has been proven to me.

When I was in the midst of my addiction, I was such a kind of isolated and lonely person: creatively I was just numb. It was a very difficult place to escape from because I thought, ‘There’s no point in trying, there’s no point in doing anything differently.’ And the drugs, you know, they were an easy way of feeling okay. But, of course, that ran its course and my life became completely unmanageable.

When I did get myself well, all these good things started to happen and the positive changes sort of snowballed. Suddenly, your life goes from feeling like it’s in a kind of downward trajectory, heading into an abyss, to a place where everything you’re doing is bringing you fulfilment and a positive energy. I never want to go back to those dark times.

I do feel there’s a certain miraculous element to it. Certainly, the people that know me really well in my life, I think they continue to be quite shocked at the change. I’m incredibly grateful: I know there are many addicts out there who never escape from it and it completely destroys them. I’m very lucky to have been given a second chance, and I feel resolved to make the most of it.

A lot of people have written about how your story of recovery has helped them personally. Is there a sense of catharsis in that?

Yeah, it’s very true. All the time when I was still an active drug user, I kept that part of my life – in fact, everything in my life – under wraps. I was a real bottler with my feelings and with telling people anything – even the people closest to me. I didn’t want to talk to them about what I was going through.

I think one of the biggest and most dramatic changes I’ve experienced is I realised that in order to get well I had to start opening up. And, obviously, initially what you do is open up to the people closest to you and professionals as well, which I think for me was the most helpful thing. Suddenly it just…that openness permeates everything that you do, and you think, ‘Why should I feel ashamed to talk about these things? It is just my story and I’m just a frail human being like anyone else. We all make mistakes.’

And what I’ve discovered is that in talking about that stuff – as you rightly pointed out – so many people then say, ‘It’s the same with my life,’ or, ‘I’ve been through that,’ or, ‘I know someone who’s going through that situation.’ And by talking about it you do remove the shame and the sort of sting from it, therefore removing its power. And I think the more openness we have in society in general, the happier people will be and the happier the world will be. If I can play some small part in that then I’m very proud. And, as you say, it is a cathartic.

Do you think attitudes are changing now compared to when your issues first began? The response to The Wave on social media was certainly very positive.

It’s funny, because I wouldn’t say I’m a massive fan of what social media has brought for the world [laughs]. There are two sides to that coin and some of that can be very negative. I do think the fact that it’s opened up channels of communication and people are able to give an un-vetted or uncensored view of who they are and what they’re up to, so long as that is authentic and honest, I think that can be very helpful.

The landscape has definitely changed in terms of the conversations on mental health. I mean, I remember, whenever it was – 10 or 11 years ago – when I first had my problems and they were very public, it was a kind of derision and there was a big, negative stigma attached to addiction and depression and those kinds of things. I think you were seen as either very selfish or a bit of a loon. But now I think the conversation has changed. And seeing these things as health problems has helped. I think the more that we do that, the more we can help to solve those problems, in society, the better it will be.

You spoke recently about how Christmas can be an inspiring time and how it can be an escape from the non-stop social media misery at present…

Yeah I found it really inspiring, actually, writing about Christmas. I didn’t really know whether I would or not. I think the mind-set I had when I started writing was to think, ‘Well, what does Christmas actually mean for us as human beings?’ It really, to me, strikes me is that it’s not actually technically a Christian festival, is it? It’s more of a kind of Pagan winter festival. It goes back to the dawn of time, really, and it’s an integral part of our lives in a way, and our history.

This idea of finding this short time of light and warmth in the midst of a kind of dark and cold and miserable time of year, I think that inspired me. And also the way that it brings us together as families with a sort of sense of optimism and hope about being together, and about looking into the new year and what that might bring.

What you say is very true about the kind of non-stop bad news – the awful sense that everywhere you look there’s bad news – with social media it’s 24-hour news. It just seems to be a kind of continuous stream of worrying and anxiety for so many people. And, of course, the way that it’s all set up is that the more you look into that, the more your social media or your web browsers will direct you to those places so of course you can end up feeling very depressed about the state of the world.

And actually, for me, I think there has to be a balance to that. With songs like ‘Under a Million Lights’, ‘Midnight Mass’, and ‘For the Lost,’ they’re songs that are really about saying, ‘Yes, the world is in a mess, but in a way, it’s always been like that.’ When I look around me and my life, and the people I know and love, they’re all just good people doing good things and trying to change the world in a positive way. And wouldn’t it be great if we could celebrate that a bit more? And maybe Christmas time is an occasion where we’re reminded of that.

You’ve chosen some excellent songs to cover. Was it hard narrowing down your choices to just four?

It was quite difficult. I sat down with David Kosten, who produced the record, he’s got a very, no-nonsense style but he’s quite picky, I suppose, so it was useful to sit down with him and go through a very long list and sort of pare it down and try and figure out what the best songs to cover were. Firstly, we wanted to find songs that we thought had some kind of magic. The other side of it was to try and find things that we felt would fit with the vibe of the original songs – so it felt like a cohesive record.

Something like ‘Walking in the Air’ is quite a bit of a gamble because you only associate that song with a small Welsh choir boy and The Snowman, and it really is a definitive version of it. Nobody has ever really ever attempted to do something that’s a different spin or reimagining of it.

So clearly with that one and ‘Stay Another Day,’ they felt like songs that hadn’t been given a reimagining. I thought they would be really good picks for that reason. And ‘Walking in the Air’, I mean, I always loved that song [laughs], but it was revealing to me, covering it, just how great a song it is. In a way, really, when I started singing, I thought, ‘Hang on, this is quite a kind of dreamy and almost quite sexy love song’– it’s a psychedelic love song, really. It was really great to get my teeth into that and realise that. We started with just guitar and voice then as soon as we had that, we thought, ‘Ah, we’re onto something really great here.’ I think, yeah, it’s the standout of the covers on the record.

It’s definitely a very different spin on the original – we went for a kind of Americana, Twin Peaks-style version of it. It’s obviously very recognisable as what it is, but I’m hoping that people will take it into their hearts. I know there are some people out there who can’t stand listening to ‘Walking in the Air’ just because it’s a little choir boy and they can’t cope with that kind of thing. So maybe this will give them a chance to enjoy what is a truly great song, just done in a different way.

What it your favourite thing about Christmas?

I’m pretty traditional about it. I think my parents really kind of hammed it up when I was a kid, and they went for the whole magical Christmas thing. There’s something about that that has never left me. I do think in a kind of cutthroat fast-paced world, if there’s any excuse to still kind of cling onto a bit of magic, that’s a really great thing.

It’s weird, thinking about it. When I was a kid, when I was sort of 4 or 5 or 6 – that golden zone when you still buy every trick that’s being played on you at Christmas – you actually do confuse the kind of romanticised fairy-tale elements of what you’re told, and what is—and real life. I remember it feeling like it was actually magical and otherworldly. There’s a part of me that still clings onto that.

I think because I’ve got a small child now, I want to kind of carry that on and bring as much kind of mischief and magic into her Christmases as I can. We go for the full stockings and the half-eaten carrot and mince pie the next morning next to the fireplace. Then it’s off to my kind of big extended family for turkey and all of that.

It sort of strikes me that – certainly from where I grew up – lots of people left home and then moved to other cities or even other countries. And families have sort of spread far and wide. And for me I find that quite a sad thing, really, that we don’t live as much in communities as we used to.

I sort of feel like at Christmas time there’s an excuse to get back together. It doesn’t always work – some families want to kill each other [laughs] – but I do think it is, for the most part, a lovely idea to keep going in this day and age.

Are you looking forward to playing the songs live in December?

I’m doing three dates in December. I feel like I wish I’d have done more, but it’s quite an operation to get 12 new songs into shape so quickly. And we’ll also be having choirs and string sections. It’s not something I’ve really ever done before so logistically it’s quite a hassle and quite expensive to actually make it work!

Currently there are three dates – Bath, Manchester and Festival Hall in London. So those are the dates, and that’ll be that.

But the one thing I’ve been thinking is even though, obviously, come the 25th of December, that’s it, the Christmas album is done. I’m kind of hopeful that it’s something that has some longevity in terms of maybe next Christmas or the following Christmas I can resurrect the project and take it to other places – whether that’s America or wherever. I certainly know there’s quite a lot of enthusiasm in Latin America for the Christmas record! It would be nice to feel like I can bring it back to life each year Christmas comes around.

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Tom will be playing the following shows in December. You can purchase tickets here: http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/

10/12/17: MANCHESTER, Palace
11/12/17: BATH, Forum
12/12/17: LONDON, Royal Festival Hall

You can buy Tom’s latest album, Twelve Tales of Christmas here: https://TomChaplin.lnk.to/TwelveTalesOfChristmasPR

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