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About Tim Rice-Oxley Timothy "Tim" James Rice-Oxley is the co-founder, pianist and composer of English piano rock and alternative rock band Keane. He plays piano, keyboards, bass, and provides backing vocals for the band. He was born in June 2, 1976 to Margaret and Charles Patrick Rice-Oxley. He went to Tonbridge school, Kent with his best friends at the time, Richard Hughes and Tom Chaplin. He had been close friends with Chaplin due to Chaplin having been born on the same day as Rice-Oxley's brother (also named Tom) – their mothers met in hospital as a result. He had piano lessons when he was a teenager but admitted to hating them and never practicing pieces because they were all classical music which he found boring. After his parents stopped his lessons, he developed a liking for piano and so taught himself how to play, mainly because of The Beatles. Later, Rice-Oxley would give Chaplin after-school piano lessons. In 1994, he began studying for a degree in Classics at University College London, where Hughes studied Geography. Friend and guitarist Dominic Scott suggested to Rice-Oxley that they form a band and he agreed. The two asked Hughes to join on drums. While there, he met Chris Martin, who was creating demos at the time with Coldplay. Rice-Oxley was invited by Martin to join after listening to his piano playing during a weekend at Virginia Falls in Surrey, but refused in order to concentrate on Keane with his friends. In an interview in 2004 he admitted to being jealous of Martin's success with Coldplay. In 1997, Rice-Oxley convinced Scott and Hughes to let Chaplin join the band. It was in this year that the band took the name "Keane." During their stint in London (since c.1998), Rice-Oxley shared a flat with Tom in Stoke Newington and they tried to get money for rehearsal time. When Scott played lead guitar, Rice-Oxley took on the role of bass guitarist and did fill-ups as bass was not really important in the songs they played. He composed the songs for the band along with Scott. On Strangers Keane comment Scott's style was "bluesy" and they didn't like that at all. Soon they started playing Rice-Oxley's compositions instead of Scott's composition. In 2004, he won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Composer of the year. In 2006, he contributed on the song, "Early Winter," on Gwen Stefani's second solo album, The Sweet Escape. Source: Wikipedia.org
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