Hailing from Bethesda, Maryland, Tommy Keene is a guitarist and singer-songwriter who plays and writes melodic guitar-based pop rock. As a child, Keane played classical piano before picking up guitar and drums. He spent his teenage years drumming in a rock trio called Blue Steel, whose original guitar player, Mike Lofgren, was the younger brother of Nils Lofgren. Consequently, Keane's first notable gig was when Blue Steel opened for Lofgren's band Grin. In 1977, while attending the University of Maryland, Keane switched to guitar and formed the short-lived band The Rage with songwriter Richard X. Heyman. During this period, Keane left The Rage to join a popular Washington, D.C. rock band called The Razz, who opened for such notable acts as Ramones, Devo, and Patti Smith. It was in The Razz that Keane met bass player Ted Nicely, who would work with him throughout the '80s.

After The Razz, Keane embarked on a European tour as a sideman for new wave singer Suzanne Fellini, before co-founding a band called Pieces in New York. Unhappy with the music, Keane decided to form his own group with Nicely and drummer Doug Tull (also from The Razz), plus a guitar player named Michael Colburn, who was soon replaced by Billy Connolly. Using Keane's name, they released "Strange Alliance" on their own Avenue label in 1982, before being picked up by the Dolphin label out of North Carolina. Keane recorded two EPs there before being signed to Geffen, which released two full albums, Songs From The Film and Based On Happy Times, as well as Boy You Better Run Now, a six-song EP of previously recorded material, before dropping Keane from its roster.

With a new backup band that included bassist/vocalist Brad Quinn and drummer John Richardson, Keane inked a deal with Matador in the early '90s, recording the EP Sleeping on a Roller Coaster and a full-length album entitled A Space In Time in 1996. In 1993, Alias released The Real Underground, a retrospective of Keane's career that included a wealth of unreleased tracks and out of print material from the '80s. In addition to recording and touring behind his records, Tommy Keene spent some of the '90s as a guitarist for hire, on the road with both Velvet Crush and Paul Westerberg. In 1998, Keane released a new studio album, Isolation Party. Four years later, Keane hooked up with his longtime rhythm section of John Richardson and Brad Quinn, Wilco's Jay Bennett, singer-songwriter Adam Schmitt, and ex-Gin Blossoms frontman Robin Wilson to issue The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down in June. In 2004, he switched lineups and released Sinner, and two years later, his tenth solo record, Crashing the Ether, came out on Eleven Thirty Records. "In the Late Bright" followed in 2009 on Second Motion. The following year saw the release of the double-disc, career-spanning compilation "Tommy Keene You Hear Me: A Retrospective 1983-2009". In 2011, Keane returned with the studio album "Behind the Parade". ~ Jack Leaver, Rovi