And the Welcome everyone to episode 148 of soda jerker on songwriting. This is Simon here with Brian and joining us today

is an Ivan novella winning songwriter, keyboardist and co-founder and creative force behind

one of the most successful British bands of the 21st century thus far,

a band which to date has sold over 13 million records worldwide.

A few weeks ago they released their fifth studio album, The Excellent Caus and Effect.

It's their first full-length effort in seven years and a triumphant returners is to,

a strong collection of typically well-crafted, intensely personal, vulnerable yet uplifting songs.

We're delighted to welcome their author, Keans Tim Rice Oxley, to the show.

We met with Tim back in July of this year at Universal's offices in London's King's Cross

and found him to be a very pleasant and unassuming chap

with some really interesting things to say about his craft. He was born in Oxford, England in

1976 and grew up in the small Sussex town of battle. He took piano lessons as a teenager but soon

abandoned them, finding a boring learning classical pieces. However, he took up the instruments of

his own accord later, inspired largely by the Beatles.

As a youngster, his parents would take him to the concerts of pianist, recording artist,

and later at Man of the Cloth, Peter Skellian, and it was via this unlikely source that Tim

discovered the sophisticated songwriting of the legs of Cole Porter, Gershwin and Irving Berlin.

He also heard a lot of Buddy Holly as a child and later discovered Depeche Mode, You Two, The Smith's Simple Minds and Blondie.

Tim and Future Keen vocalist Tom Chaplin were friends from childhood

and attended the same school in Kent,

where they also met Future Keen co-founder drummer Richard Hughes

and guitarist Dominic Scott. In 1995 Tim

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