Richard Hughes, drummer for the piano-driven English pop band Keane [ tickets ], can't say enough about how much fun the recording process was for the act's latest album, "Perfect Symmetry."

"I hope you can hear that it was fun on the record," Hughes said during an interview with LiveDaily. "From [album opener] 'Spiraling,' with us going 'Woo' to the weird percussion loops, it was a lot of fun. We really did have the time of our lives making the record. Lyrically, it's pretty dark and depressing, but it definitely was a fun process, enormously fun."

"Perfect Symmetry" marks a return to guitars for the band, best known for its songs "Is It Any Wonder?" and "Somewhere Only We Know." Keane also relied heavily on synthesizers.

"Well, you know, we're trying to make departure ordinary," Hughes said with a laugh. "It's definitely something we've always wanted to do. We've always said we want to keep things fresh for ourselves and not just find a formula and stick to it. It's something we've looked up to--I guess from The Beatles to Bowie to Radiohead. It's something we've always wanted to do. So it's nice that people are almost expecting the unexpected.

"Plus, we've always said we'd use whatever instruments that sound best, and, on 'Spiraling,' there's a riff which is a lead guitar and it sounds better when you slide two of the notes. You can't do that on a keyboard. It sounds better on the guitar. A piano band using a guitar--shock/horror."

To stress the importance of adding guitars to the music, Keane--which also includes singer Tom Chaplin and keyboardist/songwriter/bassist Tim Rice-Oxley--named the album after a song that features the enhancement.

"I think naming the album 'Perfect Symmetry' was partly to point people in the direction of what we think is the best song we've ever recorded," he said. "That song has themes about the way the world is going. There's a lot about that on the album. It's pretty representative of the overall theme of the album, I think.

"The more we think about it--the more people come to us with meaning and how we've come back to where we've started as a guitar band--the more we think about it, the more appropriate it is."

Fans in the US can hear how appropriate it is when the band plays theaters nationwide this month, another thrill for Keane. (See the itinerary below.)

"It feels like forever since we were there," Hughes said. "I don't really understand why. We spend so much time in the States. I kind of miss it, to be honest. It's a great place. It's probably what British bands dream of doing the most--getting on a tour bus and driving from city to city in America. It's the best thing."