WHAT'S NEXT: Under the Iron Sea, the follow-up to their multiplatinum debut, Hopes and Fears, is out June 20.
▪ THE DOWNSIDE OF SUCCESS
Though pals since growing up in Kent, England, drummer Richard Hughes, 30, lead singer Tom Chaplin, 27, and songwriter-keyboard player Tim Rice-Oxley, 30, almost split after nearly two years of grueling touring. "We were getting sick of each other," says Hughes. Adds Rice-Oxley: "I'd be in one bar, Tom would go off to bed, and Richard would watch a film. We weren't communicating at all—a typical male thing." They got past their "idiotic stubbornness," he says, making Under the Iron Sea—a "dark" expression of their personal "struggle."
▪ SPEAKING OF DARK ...
A few years ago, Chaplin wrote a second rock star obituary for himself (he was about 8 when he penned the first), which read, "He died sad and lonely without a friend in the world." Rice-Oxley once made fast money by testing a drug for schizophrenia. "My mum said, 'You'll become a freak,'" he says. "But so far, I'm just about okay."
▪ BONDING WITH BONO
While opening for U2 in New York City last year, says Hughes, "we asked Bono, 'Got any advice for making another record?' He emphasized the importance of [creating] atmosphere in the way you order songs."
▪ TOUR TIPS
To keep healthy on the road, they whip up smoothies. "We carry our blender in our equipment case so it doesn't get broken," says Hughes. And Rice-Oxley doesn't often take wife Jayne along, so they can preserve "our sense of being a gang, the three of us against the world."
▪ IT'S GOOD TO BE (A ROCK) KING
"I'm on the waiting list for an Aston Martin," says Hughes. "I've always loved them." Or is it? Says Rice-Oxley: "I'm slightly embarrassed by the idea of making money."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
