U.S. label is keen on Keane

Can 200,000 British rock fans be wrong?

That’s how many bought “Hopes and Fears,� the debut album by the band Keane, in its first week of release, shooting it to No. 1 on the U.K. sales chart. And nearly as many bought it the second week, keeping it at No. 1 currently.

That’s impressive, certainly. But for every Spice Girls that successfully matched U.K. mania with U.S. success, there are a dozen Atomic Kittens who didn’t. For every Coldplay, there are a handful of Robbie Williamses.

Keane, a piano-based trio that at least superficially bears comparisons to Coldplay, does have one big fan in the U.S. -- and luckily for the band it’s Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Records and one of the most powerful figures in the music business.

“I think it’s the best record we have in the house,� says Iovine, whose label released the album in the U.S. last week. “I’m really going for it here. That means we’ll stay with the game as long as it takes.�

That’s gratifying to Tim Rice-Oxley, the band’s songwriter and pianist.

“It’s brilliant for us,� says the musician, who formed the band seven years ago with two Sussex friends, singer Tom Chaplin and drummer Richard Hughes. “We’re just this tiny band from the U.K. and a few months ago no one even in Britain knew who we were.�

Rice-Oxley, 27, is well aware that even with Iovine’s support there’s no guarantee that any success will come in the U.S., let alone something on the scale of the current U.K. popularity.

“As far as I can gather there are many, many more British bands who haven’t had any success over here than have,� he says. “I get the impression that a lot of British bands don’t realize the amount of work that goes into even getting heard in America. Even for bands bigger than us, you might be playing reasonably big places in the U.K. and you come here and play for two men and a dog in the middle of someplace a long way from home. But for us, that’s a challenge, something we love doing.�

That’s exactly what the Interscope folks are counting on.

“What’s great about the band is they’re going to approach the U.S. the same way they approached the U.K.,� says Martin Kierszenbaum, Interscope’s senior executive of A&R;, who signed the band last year. “They’re celebrating their second week at No. 1, but it’s taken over a year to get there.�

The band’s first break came with a single that came out a year ago through the tiny London label Fierce Panda. “Somewhere Only We Know� was embraced by influential BBC Radio 1 DJ Steve Lemacq, who made it his record of the week. Interscope envisions a similarly slow and steady march in the U.S.

The band has done a handful of U.S. shows in the past few months and will start a monthlong club tour Tuesday with a show at the Troubadour. Exposure on Santa Monica public radio station KCRW-FM (89.9) has also given it a small foothold.

“It’s very incumbent on the band to do a hand-to-hand approach,� Kierszenbaum says.

“That’s different from other bands that come and try to replicate the same success overnight. I’m really confident in the caliber of the music and uniqueness of the sound, and if we have the patience, we’ll get there.�

Charles Aaron, music editor of Spin magazine, which featured the band in a recent “next big things� issue, thinks that given Keane’s ballad-heavy orientation, the key is not just touring.

“With music like this I don’t know if touring will make a difference,� he says. “If a radio programmer says, ‘I’ve been singing that song in the shower every day,’ and they put it on in heavy rotation, it might catch on and people might care who they are.�

Hefty’s album is a demo derby

In the ‘80s, the name John Hughes was associated with a champion of the underdog, both in the characters the generation of actors playing them in such films as “Sixteen Candles� and “The Breakfast Club.�

Now there’s an effort to associate the name John Hughes with championing a new generation of music underdogs.

But this is John Hughes III, the son of the director. The younger Hughes has been earning his own reputation in recent years both as a musician, leading an electronic-soul collective called Slicker, and as the proprietor of an independent label, Hefty Records. Having had moderate success by indie standards with the duo Telefon Tel Aviv’s recent “Map of What Is Effortless� album, the Chicago-based label Hughes started in his Ohio University dorm room nine years ago is now readying an album for the fall culled entirely from demo recordings sent to Hughes.

The album is an outgrowth of Immediate Action, a series of demo singles Hefty has released over the last few years.

“The idea is that with the amount of lead time you need to get something out, the music’s stale by then,� Hughes, 28, says of the conventional release paths. “This album won’t be the best of the demos we’ve had. The majority of what we do is from demos anyway. This is something new, something quick to get things out.�

Slicker’s third album, “We Have a Plan,� is actually a victim of delay itself. Due Tuesday, the collection was held a few months to allow Hefty to focus on the Telefon Tel Aviv album.

“I volunteered to push mine back but am excited to get it out there,� he says.

Alt-rock plus alt-energy

Lollapalooza is taking itself off the grid. The New York stop of the festival will be powered without any conventional energy source. All shows on the tour will have a solar-powered stage showcasing smaller acts, but the Aug. 16 and 17 shows at Randalls Island will also see the main stage powered by a combination of solar and biodiesel fuel, while the second stage will showcase the use of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

In related news, Toby Keith is considering powering his concert stages with NASCAR-approved 358-cubic-inch V8 engines, while the Rolling Stones are pondering fueling shows with Keith Richards’ recycled blood. Don’t ask what Courtney Love will be running her shows on, though she swears she has a valid prescription.