Keane star's 'dark' days are over

Keane, with Tom Chaplin (centre), are releasing their third album Read the full Keane interview

Keane singer Tom Chaplin says his drink and drug demons have been well and truly buried after the "very dark period" when he was in rehab.

"I feel enthused and excited about making music again and being in Keane, and that was certainly not a situation we were in a couple of years ago.

"Although it was a very dark period, it was two years ago, and it seems very distant to me," he told BBC News.

The band's new album, Perfect Symmetry, is released in the UK in October.

Chaplin sought treatment in August 2006, saying the time had come "to get the professional help I need to sort myself out".

The group were playing festivals to promote their second album, Under the Iron Sea, at the time.

He has been helped by "getting back on the road and learning to enjoy ourselves again", he said.

'Another life'

Asked what caused his problems, he replied: "Listen to Under the Iron Sea - there are probably a lot of answers on there.

"In fact I feel so distant from it nowadays that it's hard to talk about it with any great authority because it was such a strange period of my life. I almost feel like it was someone else's life."

But he declined to say whether he had given up alcohol and drugs for good.

Chaplin said their new album was based on a "hippyish" idea that people could be better to each other than they are.

"It would be nice to feel that that sense of love and peace that was so heavily promoted by people like John Lennon, that those things haven't been forgotten," he said.

Read the full Keane interview