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Whilst sitting in a plush meeting room of the Island Records office in NYC for this interview, two of the four members of London-based post-grunge band Keo sat rather silently on the opposite end of the couch. Jimmy Lanwern (lead guitar) and Oli Spackman (drums) provided statements when addressed, albeit were far more reticent than brothers Finn (vocals, guitar) and Conor Keogh (bass), whom have been immersed in the entertainment business for much of their lives having followed in the footsteps of their father, a traveling comedic folk act.

At the band’s gig in Zone One of Brooklyn’s multi-tiered venue Elsewhere the following evening, their first in the US, a contrasting story was told. Lanwern spent nearly the entirety of the 40-minute headline set thrashing around the compact stage, whipping his guitar and body as if possessed by the music, while Spackman exhibited authority even in his physical restraint behind the kit. In this instance, it is certainly true that the quiet ones are not to be underestimated. 

The Elsewhere set consisted of three tracks from the band’s 2025 EP Siren, recorded in rather rustic conditions, and additional material off their upcoming record, Put A Smile On For Me, out on September 25th.

 Despite being, in their eyes, somewhat mischaracterized as a maverick guitar band for Gen-Z, Keo’s music demonstrates multi-generational appeal. Their work utilizes distorted, uncompromising instrumentals as the wily backdrop for cathartic songs featuring anecdotal and forlorn lyricism, with heavy usage of guitars is seen as a primary focal point. Finn, as a vocalist, is sufficiently capable of reinforcing a multitude of emotions ranging from frenzied to dissociated. His bandmates match, if not surpass, his intensity, accentuating his storytelling with a sense of undaunting recklessness. 

 This reckless sound is derived from bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and others to come out of the transformative New York and Seattle scenes of the 90’s. They attempt to use their influence to put listeners and fans onto comparable music from previous eras, and, in this interview, cite a relevant ritualistic moment just before hitting the stage each night that is now canon amongst their fanbase as pertinent to the topic. 

Though they are willing to step back from Siren in favor of their upcoming record, several songs from the project, such ss “I Lied, Amber,” “Hands,” and “Thorn,” are undoubtedly catalysts for their power moves. The band was slightly dismissive of the assessment that “I Lied, Amber” accurately depicts contemporary grunge music, yet the intelligible structure, melodic cadence, and stylized dialect of the tune are easily comparable to previous breakthrough anthems of the genre. 

Now signed to Island Records, a dream of Finn’s since his primary school days, the band are equipped with the resources to make music that aligns with their interests. Grateful for the opportunities the music of Siren has afforded them, the band are unapologetically confident in the quality and appeal of Put A Smile On For Me.

OnesToWatch: How did the traveling comedic folk band work its way into the equation of what you do? 

Finn: Ok, so, my father is the traveling comedic folk MAN, and me and Conor became a bit of the duo that, if he were playing for an hour, we would play a half hour of traditional Irish folk songs. Then he’d play for another hour. Me and Conor grew up doing that, and the most relevant thing we’ve kept from that is the showmanship. I’ve watched my dad have people get up to try and punch him cause he said something too offensive, but by the time they get to him, they’re laughing. It’s about having the “the show must go on,” attitude and the wittiness. 

Conor: I would also say the mindset of it in terms of it being a trade. 

Finn: Not just something you can mess around with. For me and Conor, it’s been the only thing we were meant to do. 

And what age was this all going on? 

Finn: First time I ever sung onstage when I was three years old, and I sung a song called “Dirty Old Town” (originally by British folk singer Ewan MacColl) on my dad’s lap. He would have had the guitar, and I’d have been singing horrendously to a gritty pub of about 50 people. It’s been forever for us. You dip in and out, live a little bit, but music has always been an anchor for us.

I read in your guitar.com interview that you, Finn, had wanted to start a rock band “since the dawn of time,” …

[Collective band laughter]

… What were the things you knew you needed to have as part of that equation to start a band, even at an early age? 

Finn: The only thing we felt like we needed was taste. 

Conor: Yeah. And members.

Finn: Other musicians. The hardest part about being a band is finding the right people, and that took us a long time to end up with Jimmy and Oli. Conor was very into the Seattle scene in the 90’s and that rubbed off on me, thankfully. I was very into folk music, and there is part of me that could have gone down a folk route. I became obsessed with that Seattle sound around when I was 17, so, some of the songs are, in a way, folk songs, and the vehicle is, as the band that we are.

You talk about the four-month period where things were really surging. What were the things you needed to hear as a band that this lovely team here offered? 

Finn: We met most major labels, but Island Records seems to understand culture, and how you have to support a band and give it time to grow. They don’t seem to be as fickle. 

Conor: Also, on a spiritual level, I remember you loving Van Halen growing up…

Finn: Yeah! The first record label I ever found out about was Island Records in a secondary school lesson. We had this computing lesson, and instead of doing the work, I’d just look up, “Who is Ben Howard signed to?” “Who is Nick Drake signed to?” All these folk guys. They were ALL signed to Island Records, so I just kind of became obsessed with the idea. 

You’ve been labeled as ‘Gen-Z’s TikTok guitar band’… 

Finn: Oof… 

[Collective murmuring from the band] 

… Do you think that your fans generally know the history of bands like Radiohead and Nirvana, and the history of the rock scenes of New York and Seattle? 

Finn: That’s a great question, because it’s one of the things that has caught me off guard the most. This is no shade, but it’s quite shocking how little some of the people who listen to us are aware of the roots. We get comparisons drawn to a band called Wunderhorse, who we are influenced by, especially in our early days. They proved to us that there’s a way of doing that sound without being pastiche. But it is interesting how it feels like no one is aware of where Wunderhorse is drawing influence from. Like Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hendrix… the legends. I’m sure there is a lot of fans that do know, but…

Conor: With our gigs as well, not just in our performance, we take a lot of pride in the playlist we make around the gigs. 

Finn: It’s a moment to be like, “This is where WE’RE getting it from.” 

Conor: Now, we have kids who are quite young who know “Rooster.” 

Finn: Yeah! We play that just before we walk on. Through playing it, we’ve built this thing where everyone in the crowd knows “Rooster” by Alice In Chains. Some of them probably didn’t before, but it really sets the tone for the ride. 

What is one act all four of you want to put onto your listeners: 

Finn: Sun Kill Moon feels like a hidden gem, but I don’t know if he, uh, deserves to be heard cause he’s a terrible person. 

Conor: Sun Kill Moon

Jimmy: slowthai 

Oli: Sun Kill Moon as well. 

Finn: I know he’s Bob Dylan… like, it’s BOB DYLAN, but I feel like not enough people listen to him. Everything he says is so relevant now. More people could dive into his records.

Do you think the setting is still as important for this kind of music as it used to be? 

Finn: It has crossed my mind to whether it belongs in arenas, but I guess we’ll find out. 

Jimmy: In the UK, it’s definitely picking up 

Finn: When the tide comes in, all the ships rise. All the bands in the same scene are relatively, in comparison to each other, the same size, but all of us have gotten bigger. 

Conor: There’s almost a renaissance in rock and guitar music at the moment. I don’t feel like it’s fully broken through, but it’s a matter of time. 

Finn: From where we are, it feels pretty special. It’s nowhere near as special as Seattle in the 90’s, but really great things seem to come from these blips of times and scenes, and we feel like there’s definitely a “scene” now. 

Do you find that the songs were not made in “the shed” aren’t as wayward as those that were made in it? 

Finn: I think the experience with Pete Robinson in his carriage was us testing the waters of the stereotypical route that bands go down. It took us a while to build the confidence to say that we knew how to produce, and we’ve got the right gut instincts. Not to say I don’t like the EP, but I think this album is… 

Conor: It’s much more to our integrity. The EP was almost taken out of our hands. 

Finn: The song “Hands” was a self-produced song, but working with producers is interesting because they sometimes improve your vision, and sometimes worsen the vision. On the EP, it was one or the other. “Stolen Cars” and that acoustic journey stuff is great. 

Jimmy: The biggest sounding songs translate better…

Finn: You can hear the ambition and how serious it is to us. Most of the songs on the record are spontaneously written and recorded within the same day. It’s a collection of us being there for three months and the magic moments. We’ve trimmed the fat of all the magic moments that didn’t work out. Sometimes, you have to go to it instead of it coming to you. 

Conor: There’s a lot of experimentation that didn’t make it… 

Finn: And it’s those moments of experimentation that weren’t failures. 

How do you feel you explore the relationship between vocals and guitar?

Finn: It’s a really interesting question, because I think everything we do is trying to lean in further and serve the song, and the vocal, essentially, because that’s what we’re trying to communicate. There’s a great example of taking a slightly more unusual route to that on a song called “Spent On You,” the 11th and final song on the record. We tried for a long time to write this Neil Young melodic part, but it made more sense for Jimmy to just play a solo tremolo part. It’s almost more like percussion.

Jimmy: I was trying to replicate an organ sound on the guitar. 

Finn: We nearly scrapped it, what I think is one of our best songs. 

Jimmy: It’s my favorite song on the record. 

Finn: We nearly dropped it. Oli has always had an ear… he’d be quite a good A&R. But yeah, it’s just this tremolo sound effect. It isn’t necessarily melodically pleasing, I just like to imagine a plane taking off when you play it.

This album is coming out soon, then. 

Finn: We just announced it… Put A Smile On For Me, the 25th of September. 

Is “Fly” on it?

Finn: “Fly” IS on it! 

Cool! Excited about that one! 

[More collective band murmuring] 

Finn: A lot of fans really like that one. That was the only A&R input actually… “Go and fucking record ‘Fly’ now!” We didn’t want to record it, but we wouldn’t put it on the record if we didn’t love it, so that was a positive A&R experience. I think it’s actually the best SOUNDING song on the record. The drums… 

Conor: It was the last song we did as well, so I think we finally got it… 

Jimmy: Then we did a retake last week

Finn: We actually did two version of “Fly”. The one thing I liked about being with a producer is that if we didn’t like something, we could just keep doing it and the producer wasn’t like, “No, you’re going crazy, just live with it.” We were like, “Nah, fuck it, let’s just do it seven more times.” 

As the listener, especially coming out of the 2010’s radio rock era and ushering in new bands like Been Stellar and Telescreens, “I Lied, Amber” is the answer to x + y = contemporary rock song… 

[Collective dissenting murmuring]

… As the artist, how different is that equation?

Finn: None of the guys here were particularly keen on that song while we were writing it. I loved it, I thought it was great, and the producer said, “Ten out of ten.” I’m really proud of the song, but it is one of the most emotionally light things I’ve ever written. I didn’t feel like “Oh fucking hell, I need to bleed onto this page.” Sometimes, you call yourself out on your own bullshit after playing a song for a few years. I don’t feel like that with this song. It’s had its moment with our fans, but we’re not thrilled compared to some of the others.

Conor: A lot more excited with the stuff coming out. 

What’s the intentions behind the fragmented words like “remember” and “familiar” on that song? 

Finn: Essentially, the song is about trust, and losing trust from an experience in a first relationship, then implementing the habits you learned from that lack of trust into that new relationship. How it’s not fair. It’s basically me catching myself out a bit. A lot of my music is very self-deprecatory. It’s an analysis of how I shouldn’t treat someone with a lack of trust when they haven’t earned that yet. So, the familiarity is this false thing that isn’t actually there, but I feel it. 

What are your favorite musical or sensory aspects of a rock ballad? 

Finn: I’ve always songs that dynamically take you up a mountain, like how “Black” by Pearl Jam uses the same melody the whole time, but just changes the bass notes and goes off on a tangent. Fuckin loads of yearning, and some bloke seeming really sad. Believable, slightly strange.