Tom Chaplin has claimed he has overcome his drug abuse problem and is "prepared" for the dangers of the music business as he gets ready to release his first solo record.
In 2006, two years after Keane released their debut album and the same year their second LP ‘Under the Iron Sea’ came out, the singer was admitted to rehab after he had become "a raging drug addict". Then, in 2013, the baby faced singer broke away from Keane in order to pursue a solo career, but anxiety about his future caused him to slip back into addiction.
He is now preparing to release his first solo LP ‘The Wave’ but is confident he has the coping mechanisms to stay sober.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph newspaper, the ‘Everybody’s Changing’ singer said: "I’d wake up and think ‘I’m going to be OK today,’ but somehow I’d find myself dragged into this unstoppable desire to go and get high. In that final moment, I could hear my daughter saying, ‘Just hang on one more moment, see if you can do it.’ I don’t want to say I suffered with addiction – I hate that. I did this to myself … Music is fraught with danger and I have thought about that very deeply. I am savvy enough to realise you are never out of the woods. But this time I feel prepared."
The musician also claimed that his reliance on drugs came from trying to suppress what he called a "real darkness" in his soul that he felt he couldn’t express with his "angelic" singing voice.
He said: "The environment is intoxicating: the money, the adoration, the sense of people around you singing your praises all the time.
"One the one hand, [my voice] is a beautiful instrument and I am in sole charge of it. But it seems to suggest a kind of pure and angelic quality in me as a person. And there is a real darkness in my soul. Crushing that part of myself, it came out in peculiar ways: panic attacks, anxiety and depression. It ended in addiction."
The 37-year-old singer deals with the dark side of his personality on his album ‘The Wave’ and is struggle to get over drugs.
He said: "I feel a lot of the tension and the resolution, the conflict, the darker emotional stuff that is required to be inspired, I lived that. And then I was able to write the album from a point of view of reflection.
"It kind of reflects the therapeutic process I went through."
Tom Chaplin is ready for pitfalls of music business
