Get your 'aural therapy' from Departure Lounge

Tim Keegan, Departure Lounge's lead singer and songwriter
	CLIPS FROM   "OUT OF THERE"
"Disconnected" [145k MPEG-3] or [195k WAV] "The New You" [190k MPEG-3] or [260k WAV] "Music for Pleasure" [190k MPEG-3] or [255k WAV] (Courtesy Meek Giant Records)
	MORE FROM SxSW
-Select a band - Backyard Babies Departure Lounge Incredible Moses Leroy Sugarcult

March 22, 2000
Web posted at: 4:52 p.m. EST (2152 GMT)

AUSTIN, Texas (CNN) -- The British band Departure Lounge has played at the South By Southwest music conference before, but this year's appearance was unique in one very important way:

People in the audience were singing all the words to their songs.

The moment was not lost on Tim Keegan, the band's lead singer and songwriter.

"I felt kind of dumbstruck," he says. "It's really amazing. We're flattered."

Perhaps those singing along with Departure Lounge had gotten a copy of the band's European release, "Out of Here."

That CD, with new remixes by Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins and Kid Loco, along with new instrumental tracks, will bow in May in the United States -- under a new name. Flydaddy Records will release it under the title "Out of There." It will be an opportunity for most Americans to sample Departure Lounge's unimposing, ever-evolving sounds.

"I think it's all music from the heart," Keegan says. "It's aural therapy, if you like. It's music to soothe your soul. It comes from inside us. It's not contrived, it's not calculated. It's gentle, soothing, melodic, beautiful, warm music -- I hope."

Departure Lounge represents an end of a journey for Keegan and fellow members Chris Anderson (keyboards, piano, guitar, recorder, oboe, stylophone, vocals) Jake Kyle (bass, trumpet, vocals), and Lindsay Jamieson (percussion, keyboard, vocals).

For years, they played in various bands around London. The 33-year-old Keegan, in particular, who started singing in a high school band before picking up a guitar at 18, played for several groups, including Robyn Hitchcock's. He also experimented, apparently unsuccessfully, with louder sounds. That led to a softening of his musical philosophy.

"It started off with me saying to my friends, 'Look, I've had enough with playing loud guitar, screaming, trying to hear myself sing,'" Keegan says. "I was finding myself going home after seeing a band and putting on gentle music. I (said), 'Hang on a minute. Why aren't I playing this music? This is the music I want to be making.'"

His future bandmates liked the idea, and they all started hanging out -- lounging about, you might say.

"That's where 'Departure Lounge' comes from," Keegan says. "We would end up sitting around in each other's lounge, just playing acoustic guitar, singing harmonies, and the band came out of that."

'We don't deal with that anymore'

The result is apparent on "Out of Here." Its blend of melodies, guitars notes and languid sounds brings Keegan's often melancholy-yet-uplifting lyrics to the fore.

On the track "Music for Pleasure," he sings, "I'm not another broken fairground ride/ if your heart is empty, open wide." On another, he implores, "I can't even pretend I'm depressed/ Save me from happiness."

Clearly, Keegan is not aiming for the Britney Spears generation with his music. The band, he says, isn't motivated solely to make it big on the charts.

"We've all done all that and we know what that's like and we know that that's bull," he says. "We don't deal with that anymore. We refuse to.

"I know that sounds cocky," he continues. "But it's about the music. It's all about bringing people into our music rather than banging them over the head with it."

'A whole new ballgame'

That soft approach appears to be working. After the release of "Out of There" in the U.S., Departure Lounge will begin recording its next album, with production help from Kid Loco.

Keegan finds himself in a satisfying moment -- his wild 20s behind him, his future before him. He can settle down with music that's true to his life.

"It's a whole new ballgame," he says. "My 20s were fun in some ways but I wouldn't do that again. When I was growing up, the older people always said, 'Enjoy this because it's the best years of your life.'

"And I was always determined that they wouldn't be the best years of my life," he says. "That's the driving force that keeps me going." » Next: The Incredible Moses Leroy

Music! Film! Interactive! SXSW 2000 brings it together
March 14, 2000

Flydaddy Records
Departure Lounge

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.