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Timothy ‘Tim’ James Rice-Oxley plays piano, keyboards, bass, and provides backing vocals for the British band Keane. He was born on 2nd June, 1976 in Oxford to Patrick and Margaret Rice-Oxley.

He went to Tonbridge school with his best friends at the time, Richard Hughes and Dominic Scott. He had been close friends with Tom Chaplin since birth, Chaplin having been born at the same time as Tim’s brother (also called Tom), and Tim would give him after school piano lessons.

In 1994, he began studying for a degree in Classics at University College London, along with bandmate Richard. While there, he met Chris Martin, who was creating demos at the time with Coldplay. Tim was invited by Chris to join, but refused in order to concentrate on Keane. In an interview in 2004 he admitted of being jealous of Chris Martin’s success with Coldplay.

During their stint in London, Tim shared a flat with Tom in Stoke Newington and they tried to get money for rehearsal time.

When Dominic Scott played lead guitar, Tim took on the role of bass guitarist and did fill-ups as bass was not really important in the songs they played. When Scott left the band in July of 2001, he started playing the piano, and ditched his ‘filling-up’ image to become the driving force of all Keane songs. He continues to play bass; however now the parts are pre-recorded and are sampled in live gigs through an Apple Powerbook.

Wikipedia