Born in Nuneaton, England of Irish and Thai descent, Keely grew up in Bedworth, England before he and his mother moved to the U.S. state of Hawaii when he was five years old. Keely and family returned to Bedworth when he was eight for three years before returning to the United States. In 1988, while in high school in Oahu, Keely met Jason Reece, with whom he would later form …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Keely then moved with his mother to Olympia, Washington in 1989 where he attended The Evergreen State College. Reece joined Keely in Washington a short time later, and the two tried forming bands in Olympia’s underground music scene. Finding little success, in 1994 Keely and Reece moved to Austin, Texas to form bands. Before signing a contract to Interscope Records with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Keely primarily worked clerical office jobs in Austin for a regular job while playing with the band at night.
Keely relocated from Austin to Brooklyn, New York in 2008, and then moved to Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2012 after being “fed up with American life.” Keely visited the country while travelling with his father after an …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead Australian tour and decided to stay. Keely expressed being tired with America and moving overseas as early as 2003. Since moving to Cambodia, he has travelled around the country, performing as part of a cultural exchange. Although Keely does not speak Cambodian, he says the country is “a noisy place full of weird sounds – temples, monks chanting, loud speakers blaring, egg sellers and vendors. I need that chaos, and I think it helps that it’s in a language I don’t understand.” While Keely predominantly grew up in the United States, he holds and uses an Irish passport and is not an American citizen.
Formed in late 1994 by singers/guitarists/drummers Conrad Keely and Jason Reece, Trail of Dead has evolved over the years expanding their line-up while still being creatively driven by the core founding members. Friends since childhood, Keely and Reece started playing music in the indie rock town of Olympia, WA and eventually relocated to Austin, TX where they started …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.
The band played their first show in 1995, the same year they released a live rendition of the darkly dissonant “Isis” as a demo on a mixtape via Golden Hour, an underground cassette-only label. They swiftly became as well known for trashing their instruments as for the giddy thrill of their wide-eyed noise-rock, culminating in the majestic sprawl of their self-titled debut album two years later.
They have kept up a rather nice work ethic… Never giving in to whatever is en vogue at the moment.
With a new line-up having recently toured the 20th anniversary of Madonna, they’ve also reverted to the live format of their earlier years, with Reece and Keely alternating between drums and frontman duties – a musical partnership that dates back to their high school days. Appropriately, it all feels fresh, even with the band’s 25th anniversary looming in 2020.
“When Conrad moved to Cambodia, we both had time to live our lives and do different things,” Reece explains. “Coming back to the band, there was a new vigor to it. It all feels exciting still.”