When Chris Martin emerges from a boondocks car on a quiet West Village artery one afternoon in May, he's dressed like a stagehand – atramentous khakis, atramentous hooded top. You'd never apprehension him, which is apparently the idea. But afresh he starts singing Talking Heads' "Girlfriend Is Better" loud abundant to be heard from beyond the street. The guy can't advice it: He's a ham. The paparazzi annoy that came with marrying Gwyneth Paltrow and accepting two adorable albino accouchement with her has affected a assertive accessible guardedness on him, but it seems he can't accrue it up. As Martin sits down for what he calls "an ballsy interview" – seven hours over three sessions – his bandage is about to absolution its fourth flat album, Viva la Vida or Afterlife and All His Friends. "It feels terrifying," he says. Martin, 31, worships Woody Allen as abundant as he does Michael Stipe, and he has the quick wit of the picked-on kid he already was, according locations self-deprecation and self-protection. Martin's angel as a yoga-practicing, pescetarian abstinent is not inaccurate, but he does accept a brace of drinks (a Guinness, a whiskey) over the advance of two days, and is about affronted if I alternate to adjustment a hamburger in his presence. "I'm not a absolutist about it," he says. "I'm not traveling to address you to Chrissie Hynde!"
In adverse to the soothing, warm-blanket vibe of Coldplay's music, Martin is about unnervingly intense: He has an endearing, Hugh Grant-like stammer, but if he feels acerb about what he's saying, which is often, his eyes accord off little sparks, like he's a mad scientist account affairs for apple domination. That drive, forth with his band's ability for sincere, adorning bedrock in the U2 cast – accompanying adapted and gigantic – has fueled Coldplay's acceleration from a academy bandage to one of the bigger bedrock acts of the decade. But admitting it all, Martin can't stop activity like an underdog. "You've got to be hungry," he says. "If your wife went out with Brad Pitt, you'd wish to prove yourself, you apperceive what I mean?"
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What was the affection of the bandage traveling into your new record? On our endure album, we took a absolute assault from some people, and by the end we acquainted like no ambassador would absolutely wish to plan with us, basically. We were bigger than we were acceptable – we were actual athirst to advance on a basal level. So I asked Brian Eno, "Do you apperceive any producers who could advice us to get bigger as a band?" And he said, "Well, I don't beggarly to draft my own trumpet, but I ability be the man."
What was his appraisal of the hand? He goes, "Your songs are too long. And you're too repetitive, andyouuse the aforementioned tricks too much, and big things aren't necessarily acceptable things, and you use the aforementioned sounds too much, and your lyrics are not acceptable enough." He bankrupt it down.
How did you respond? You accord with it. You can either sit 'round, attending at your platinum discs and say, "Fuck you, you're all wrong," or you can go, "OK, he's apparently got a point." Brian and Markus [Dravs, the co-producer] bankrupt us down in a array of advancing boot-camp way. Within 20 minutes, we'd abandoned about any antecedent almanac sales.
X&Y got some alloyed reviews, but the harshest was from the New York Times, which alleged Coldplay the a lot of detestable bandage of the decade. How did you handle that? It was a big deal. It's the aboriginal absolute advance on your band, and from a advertisement we all respect. I agreed with a lot of the points. It was like, "Yeah, I do sometimes go for the obvious, and I do sometimes abatement aback on old tricks."So, in a way, it was liberating to see that anyone abroad accomplished that also. And there is something alluring to me in demography a bit of a assault and befitting on going. If you do something that some bodies don't like absolutely so much, afresh you are chargeless again. Your accomplished canvas is open. You don't accept to abatement aback on piano, we don't accept to abatement aback on falsetto, you don't accept to abatement aback on every song getting a admiring adulation song.
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There's a abandon in the new songs – it's not verse-chorus, verse-chorus anymore. Well, I'm still a big accepter in the chorus. But there was one day area Brian Eno came in and said, "I anticipate prog-rock is awfully underestimated and will one day be fashionable again. And I anticipate you should accede not necessarily accomplishing the aforementioned song structures that you accept done before." And anytime that he says he finds something exciting, you just affectionate of do it.
On the aboriginal single, "Violet Hill," you sing about a fox acceptable a god and a "carnival of idiots on show." Was the song advancing by Fox News? No one's got that before, no one in the band, no one. The aboriginal bandage in that song is the aboriginal bandage of any song we anytime wrote. Years ago, if Guy [Berryman, bassist] heard that aboriginal bandage and that aboriginal little melody – "It was a continued and aphotic December" – he said, "OK, I'll accompany the band." But we just didn't accept the added 49 curve until endure year. And afresh one day I was watching Bill O'Reilly, and I was like, "I apperceive how to accomplishment that song."
My best friend, Tim, he's a artist in a bandage alleged the Top Wire, but he aswell has to plan in a bar. He was accepting agitation with his boss, and it fabricated me anticipate that so abounding bodies absorb their lives getting told what to do by bodies that they just don't like. So it was that idea, and watching Bill O'Reilly, and all these words just came out.
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On "Death and All His Friends," there's this abundant contemporary line: "I don't wish a aeon of recycled revenge." That's Brian Eno's line. I had this bare atom in the lyrics: "I don't wish to activity from alpha to end. Something, something, something. I don't wish to chase afterlife and all of his friends." So we were all accepting a sandwich, and it's like. "I don't wish to watch too abounding episodes of Friends? No, that will not do. I don't wish to accept to Radiohead's The Bends? No. I don't wish to eat any Jerry and Ben's? No." And afresh Brian came out with the line, and he was like, "I absolutely like that. You should use that."
It does allege to the accompaniment of the world. And it's fucking true, man. You can see it everywhere. It's like, if are we traveling to learn? We're never traveling to learn, is the answer. It's an ultimate bummer, and the endure bodies on Earth will absolutely blast themselves. You and I are active in the time if animus is the a lot of alarming thing, because the stakes are so top and the ammunition is so advanced.
Do you see any acumen for hope? As anon as Barack Obama becomes president, bodies will be a bit added optimistic. If Obama was to be president, it would anon change the accomplished alfresco world's assessment of America overnight. America's accessible angel at the moment is absolutely bad. And it's a bummer, because over bisected of Americans are the coolest bodies on the planet. But they've been so misrepresented.
Do you anticipate he can win? I do. But I anticipate that, really, the fair affair would be, in electing the American president, to let anybody in the apple vote, because it affects all of us. If there was a apple vote, there's no catechism who would win. No question. Of course, Barack Obama is animal like the blow of us. He's traveling to fuck up. But I'm just aggravating to attending on the ablaze side. What's the point of getting negative? Area does that get us? It gets you your own radio babble show, but it doesn't absolutely do annihilation for the world.
You've taken calefaction for accomplishing things like autograph a attribute for fair barter on your hands. One of our big conversations that we consistently accept in this bandage is, we don't see bedrock & cycle as getting about coke-taking, leather-trouser-wearing rebellion, because that to us is not apostasy anymore. The spirit of bedrock & cycle is freedom. It's about afterwards what you accept in and not caring what anyone abroad says. And if that agency autograph something on your hand, afresh you've got to address something on your hand. It doesn't bulk if you don't attending as air-conditioned as the Ramones – you're never traveling to, anyway. So I apperceive that we'll be ridiculed for this and attending brainless for that. But as continued as we accept in what we're doing, we can't apologize for it.
***
You grew up in a rural allotment of southwest England, in a appealing religious environment. How did that affect you? I grew up with the anticipation of heaven and hell looming anytime large. What I grew up with was, if you even anticipate about boobs, you're traveling to hell. It was accomplished in: These things are wrong. It was atramentous and white, the way it still is for millions of bourgeois Christians in the average of America. I spent a year cerebration I would be punished if I sang "Sympathy for the Devil," by the Rolling Stones.
Punished as in go to hell? Yeah. If I was about 14, the aboriginal bandage I was in capital to play "Black Magic Woman." And I was like, "I can't sing that, because I will get bad karma." As a kid, you don't apperceive any better. But afresh as you go on, the cracks activate to arise and you're like, "I'm not abiding about this hell thing. And I'm not abiding whether it's absolutely amiss to be gay, and I'm not abiding whether we're appropriate and they're wrong."
Did you anytime anticipate you ability be gay? It was added like, "Oh, shit, what if?" Because I was brought up to anticipate that was absolutely wrong. But afresh it addled me: Who gives a shit? And afresh it wasn't a problem. It sounds asinine to say it now, but if you're a kid you think, "I'm traveling to bake in hell for aeon if I like added guys or if I ally anyone Jewish."
I assumption something assertive you assuredly that you were, in fact, straight. Well, I was affected by boobs. Let's face it. They're fantastic.
What was the aboriginal music you responded to as a kid? Probably Bad, by Michael Jackson, and "Take on Me," by A-ha. And afresh we'd consistently be in church, so the affair I heard a lot of was hymns. That's apparently area all the life-and-death getting in our music comes from.
When did you alpha singing? The aboriginal time I anytime sang in accessible was in a academy concert if I was 11. I sang a song I had accounting about newspapers. Some bodies absolutely dug it. And others didn't. I bethink these two girls came up to me afterwards and said, "We heard you singing," and afresh they both giggled and ran off, as if to say, "It was shit." And my accomplished activity has been that day repeating anytime since.
Then why did you continue? I forgot about singing for a while, afresh some accompany capital to play "Sweet Child o' Mine" in a concert at school. I said, "Wow, let me sing it." At the end, this guy Tom said to me, "Chris, could you sing it a little beneath like Tina Turner?" And I was like, "I wasn't! I was aggravating to complete like Axl Rose!"
There's not that abundant difference, appear to anticipate of it. But it was too abundant for those guys. So I said, "I've got this song I wrote, we could do that instead." I anticipate a lot of musicians who address their own stuff, it comes from the actuality that they're not actual acceptable at accomplishing covers. From that point on, I was in a agglomeration of bands. Identity Crisis, addition one alleged Floating Insomnia. And afresh I was in a bandage alleged the Rocking Honkies, which was like a white dejection band.
Being in that dejection bandage was the best educator. Generally the best songs have, like, one ambit in them. So I got to be the piano amateur for "Mustang Sally" and songs like that.
In Coldplay's aboriginal music, there was a lot of body singing in your voice. That was apparently soul, but through Jeff Buckley's filter, to be atrociously honest. Afore that, I spent three years aggravating to complete like Eddie Vedder.
When you were 13, your parents beatific you to boarding school. What was that like? I don't anticipate getting 13 to 15 is an simple time for any boy. It's like a big boyhood race, and if you're advancing in last, it's not such a abundant chase to be in. I was a hyperreligious, absolutely aboveboard and actual judgmental kid. I was abhorred for three years, and afresh it all affectionate of switched if I was 16. But I had already been credible with the "I'm traveling to fucking get out of actuality and appearance you bastards what's what" tag. So I'm actual beholden for that aeon of claiming amid 13 and 16, adverse the blinkeredness of that affectionate of buck mentality of, like, "You're gay, you're bad at sports, you're this, you're that."
Because it did accomplish me think, "I don't wish to end up in some bank, area I'm traveling to accept to yield this affectionate of $.25 off these aforementioned bodies for the blow of my life. I charge to get out of this fucking treadmill – accessible school, into university, into a bank, into a summer abode in France." It acquainted like there accept to be added to activity than rugby and bargain cider on the weekends.
You're on almanac as adage that you didn't lose your virginity until you were 22. Which record? I anticipate I'm on all our annal adage that [laughs].
But why the wait? Well, there were religious issues and $.25 like that. Aswell confidence. I had a catchy time with girls until I was, like, 21. I'm abiding it's consistently tricky, but I didn't absolutely accept it down. I've consistently had a lot of changeable friends.
You got trapped in the acquaintance zone. I got trapped in the accord tip many, abounding times. It was like, "I charge to be a bedrock star, because this is no good: getting the affectionate of guy that everybody brand but no one wants to accept sex with." I don't wish to be the getting that makes anybody beam afore they go off and bang. I wish to be the guy that everybody bangs. So all these little things accrue to just accord you little $.25 of drive.
You're a big fan of Woody Allen's movies. Was allotment of the allure seeing that a aberrant guy can get impossibly admirable women? Yeah, and he was right. Even I am affirmation of that.
Did you acquisition you were added adorable to girls if you were onstage arena music? Why the hell abroad would I decay my time accomplishing it? [Laughs]
You don't like talking about your marriage. Should I bother allurement you about your aboriginal affair with Gwyneth? Make up the a lot of absorbing affair you can anticipate of, and I'll say that I said it. Or how about this: We met in Madame Tussauds, and it was alone afterwards bisected an hour it became credible I was talking to a wax model. I had not in fact met the absolute thing. But it was acceptable convenance [laughs]. That's a funny abstraction for a blur scene, I think.
Have you had a lot of austere girlfriends in your life? I've alone been in one austere relationship.
Besides this one? No, this is the alone one. Is that weird? I don't anticipate it's that weird. It wouldn't be awe-inspiring 200 years ago.
No, it's not awe-inspiring that you would alone accept one austere relationship. But it is awe-inspiring that your alone accord is in the ambience of a bedrock ablaze dating a cine star. Well, I know. But that's love. Just go with it. Anticipate of Romeo and Juliet, or bodies with absolutely arduous marriages – cantankerous borders, cantankerous races, sometimes cousins. Abounding bodies accept arduous situations.
Did you apprehend how acute the acquaintance of getting with a cine ablaze would be? Yeah, I did, but I consistently acquainted it would be abundant to be with a actual able woman, because it would consistently accrue you in your abode and admonish you that you still weren't actual good. So I knew that there would be negatives to it, which are all accessible to state, but the positives outweigh them. And getting affiliated to anyone actual acknowledged and actual able basically keeps you athirst to improve.
You accrue application the chat "powerful." But you apperceive what I'm saying. However big you are as a musician, it's never the aforementioned accord as big Hollywood actors.
Does it bother you to watch your wife with, say, Robert Downey Jr. in a movie? Oh, no, no, no. I'm not a anxious person. I anticipate if you're anxious in this business, you're not gonna be actual happy. Even if your adherent or wife is at home while you're on tour, afresh you'd still just aberration out all the time, 'cause jealousy's so harder to control.
You're boyish to accept two kids. Did you consistently anticipate you'd achieve down so early? You've got to let activity happen. Otherwise, A, your activity is dull, and B, your autograph is addled because you're not absolution activity happen.
But if you're a bedrock star, you accept the advantage of extending your boyhood indefinitely. Yeah, but your music turns shit. Name one getting who is perpetually boyish who's fabricated a acceptable album.
You've taken some advancing activity adjoin paparazzi – there was an adventure with a photographer's car, and you wrestled a paparazzi to the arena this year. The acumen why we accrue clandestine as a family, and why I consistently accept a awning and bastard in and out of places, is because I don't wish to appointment a assertive blazon of getting because it brings out a affectionate of concrete acerbity that I can't absolutely control. You are accustomed to absorb taxpayers' money on war and killing civilians, but you can't go and accurately anyone who's agitated your bandmate or your babyish or something.
Getting arrested is no fun. It's terrifying. That's why I don't like to allocution about that ancillary of things, and I don't like to go down red carpets because it invites a assertive blazon of getting into my activity who I just don't like. So I accrue myself abroad from them, because you can't go about getting physically advancing to people. There was a point area I thought, "OK, I've got to get abroad from getting fingerprinted and captivated in a cell." I thought, "This is no good. This is acutely not animate as a tactic."
***
You and Jonny Buckland were the aboriginal associates of Coldplay. How did you meet? We were active in the aforementioned architecture at academy in London. I'm not a actual big sleeper. So I'd consistently be animate through the night anyway, animate or autograph stuff. Jonny was sitting at 3:00 in the morning arena some section on guitar in a allowance nearby. And I was like, "I didn't apperceive you played guitar." And he was like, "Well, I don't absolutely acquaint anybody." And something in my academician was like, "OK, let's accommodated tomorrow." And we did. And afresh we spent every day calm since.
And he still doesn't like to acquaint bodies he plays guitar. Even on a stage, he tries to adumbrate as abundant as possible. My absolute activity is spent aggravating to annoyance him out of the shadows, because I apperceive that he's a guitar hero – to me, anyway. He's the alone getting that's anytime fabricated annihilation I've accounting complete any good.
So if you started autograph songs with him, how far abroad were they from the Coldplay we came to know? Probably not that far. If Guy joined, it got closer. Afresh if Will [Champion] joined, it got absolutely close. We accomplished every night for two years. There was a continued aeon area we had no drummer, because Will hadn't abutting the accumulation yet – and there was no StumpyJoe – no aboriginal drummer. So we didn't accept any gigs or anything. We were just autograph and autograph and writing. We were so into it that one affiliate of the bandage who shall abide nameless – affected to accept torn his abate and got a ages off sick. But if he went aback to work, he had to accrue a set of keys in his shoe to bethink that he was declared to limp. That's how committed we were.
What was the advance song for you? If did you become abiding that this wasn't just a academy band? Well, everybody is consistently active in abhorrence of their ambush getting discovered. So there's never a moment area I think, "Yep, that's it. We're a world-class bandage and no one can yield it abroad from us." But as anon as that song "Yellow" appeared, I was like, "OK, this sounds like a big hit individual to me. Let's go."
It's funny that you say "appeared." You wrote it. The bad songs appear from me and my ability of how to address songs, and the acceptable ones appear from about – I accept no abstraction where. And they tend to be array of aerial about at about 2:00 in the morning. You just accept to be there to bolt it. That's how I feel about the acceptable ones. So ability is absolutely capital to me. And that's why a lot of acceptable musicians apperceive a lot about added people's music – how it fits calm and how arrange plan and what comes in at the additional bisected of "Once in a Lifetime," by Talking Heads, to al of a sudden lift it.
But no one can acquaint me area the melody for "Strawberry Fields Forever" comes from, because it would accept just come. I bet John Lennon didn't architecture it. But he knew already he'd got it. Still, you can apprehend the audience of it [on The Beatles Anthology]. It's OK. It's an acoustic thing. Afresh it turns into "Strawberry Fields" somehow. That's area harder plan comes in.
What songs did you yield afar to apprentice your craft? I absolutely got into the Atramentous Crowes for a while – The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, And Dylan: Blood on the Tracks and Bringing It All Aback Home. A-ha. Oasis. We bankrupt down their aboriginal record. And OK Computer, obviously.
Do you anytime address songs in any affectionate of adapted state? Well, yeah, I'm actual sad to accept that I've got a bit of a sleeping-pill habit. I can't sleep, so I accept to yield a lot of sleeping pills. I don't absolutely like adage it, but it does yield the academician to a altered place.
You beggarly you yield a sleeping bolus and afresh break awake? Yeah, which I adulation because it's like a decree high, I suppose. My botheration is that I generally yield a sleeping bolus in adjustment to go to sleep, but afresh I get aflame about a song, so I go and play music, and afresh it affectionate of bliss in center through. I accept a little bend area cipher can apprehend me in the average of the night, and that's area I absorb a lot of of the nighttimes. I deathwatch up the next morning and acquisition these aberrant addendum to myself. I don't anticipate it's annihilation to be appreciative of. I'm a little bit abashed about it.
"Yellow" is still your a lot of acclaimed song. How did you address it? It's nice to try and address after animate what you're doing. So I had this guitar acquainted in some aberrant way to play addition song in fact alleged "Shiver," which was declared to be our big hit single. And we were in Wales, recording it. And what array of frightens me is, it was just a complete accident. I was cat-and-mouse around, and our producer. Ken, was talking about how admirable it was alfresco because of the stars. And afresh while I was cat-and-mouse to do a yield at the guitar, I was just messing around: [Sings] "Look at the stars/Look, they flash for you/They were all yellow."
So you had just that line, that melody. Yeah, afresh I ran – if I accept a botheration with a chorus, I like to go into the men's room, 'cause the answer is nice. Doesn't that appears to smell so great, so you charge to address it quickly, get out of there. I wrote the chorus, afresh I showed it to Jonny. He started advancing up with all this bendy guitar getting – and afresh I thought, "OK, that's that, then."
The lyrics of that song accurate something that seems actual axial to you, a array of faculty of awe about the adorableness of the world. Well, it is axial to me, 'cause otherwise, after hope, what is there? After wonder, after awe?
You've covered "What a Wonderful World," which expresses a agnate sentiment. It's not just cerebration about the pyramids or the Amazon River. It's aswell Beyoncé. Or that amber block we had yesterday. It's like that arena in Manhattan area Woody Allen is advertisement the things that accomplish activity so brilliant. And I accept a long, long, long, continued account of that. And you do as well, I'm sure.
Yeah, you got to authority on to that list. Yeah, contrarily you would annihilate yourself.
How did you feel about the Coldplay antic in The 40-Year-Old Virgin? ["You apperceive how I apperceive you're gay? You like Coldplay!"] I was sitting on an aeroplane and I watched it. It's something about getting gay, right? Getting gay because you like Coldplay? Yeah. Well, great, man. I would be afraid if we alone appealed to actual beeline bourgeois white men.
You've never been the affectionate of bandage that would badger bodies with animal guitar force or whatever. Well, on a actual basal akin if you're onstage on tour, the complete of all boys applauding and shouting is not as nice as the complete of lots of boys and lots of girls all at the aforementioned time. And if you're searching out from the date and there's lots of girls there, that's the greatest affair in the world.
Some bedrock bands acquisition it difficult to get changeable fans. Yeah. I anticipate that's why a lot of bodies would say we don't accomplish bedrock music. I'm not so into that accomplished category. I accept we apparently fit into soft-rock music. I don't apperceive area you'd book us in almanac stores. There aren't any almanac food anymore, so we don't accept to anguish about it.
But was it bright from the alpha that women were responding to this music? This sounds like such a Spinal Tap catechism now.
They're all Spinal Tap questions, man.
[Laughs] I anticipate they were abashed by what we've got in our trousers. Armadillos. We've got armadillos in our trousers. No, we never carefully aimed it at one affair or another. We never acquainted like, "Oh, that's too feminine to put in."
Everyone picks up a assertive affecting vulnerability in your music. Yeah, but I don't anticipate that's just a feminine thing. All men are bendable and vulnerable, as well. All the women I adhere out with are far beneath accessible and far stronger. Maybe that's just the women I adhere out with. I anticipate we boys, we men, are in fact abundant weaker and softer than we like to think.
Overall, do you like your job? Are you joking? I fucking die for it. I just can't accept I've got it. And so as continued as I've got it, we're traveling to try and be the best possible. For all the crisis and everything, there's an amazing bulk of drive, you know? We just don't wish to stop until we've done something that's absolutely good. You've got to be driven. Otherwise, what's the point of getting alive?
When they accomplish the Coldplay biopic, what should the aperture arena be? Probably the assassination and consecutive accolade concert.
No, really. What? We would accessible with Barbra Streisand singing "Yellow" at Madison Square Garden and abutting by Mariah Carey, with a abundant big account of us in the background, and a big catechism mark of how that bear we were on in fact got sunk. That's how I would accessible it.
How would you end it? I would end it with a massive orgy, because I anticipate audiences would dig that.
And what would your obituary say?
There's an adventure of Curb Your Enthusiasm area they get the argument of an obituary wrong, and instead of adage "beloved aunt," it says "beloved cunt." And I consistently anticipate that would affectionate of sum up the two abandon of my life, the two abandon of the coin. I'd like that.
This adventure is from the June 26th, 2008 affair of Rolling Stone.
From The Archives Affair 1055: June 26, 2008
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