Here's the full article and scans from this month's Record Collector magazine

 

BLOOD BROTHERS

 

They've taken over Oasis' mantle as Britain's biggest band. Approaching their 10th Anniversary, Tim Jones charts the rise and rise of Coldplay, with a complete discography compiled by Sal Mohammed

 

Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin, has become part of a celebrated movie/rock star couple with his other half, Gwyneth Paltrow. Not bad for the leader of a band that few had heard of before the millennium, and who Alan McGee once panned as 'bed-wetters'. In reality, Coldplay - more than any other British group - caught the noughties zeitgeist. They've become the introspective, articulate favourites of the in crowd, their celeb fans including Hollywood A-listers Jack Nicholson and Minnie Driver. But they've also achieved eight-figure sales and latterly been compared to the likes of U2 and even Pink Floyd. So how did their irresistible rise come about?

 

The band - comprising Guy Berryman [bass], Jonny Buckland [guitar], Will Champion [percussion] and Chris Martin [vocals/keyboards/guitar[ - started life, briefly, as Stepney Green, then Starfish, in September 1996, when Buckland and Martin met as busking student at University College London's Ramsey Hall of residence. They were accosted in its bar at the end of fresher's week by Berryman, who demanded to join them, and after a couple of false starts with sundry tub-thumpers, Champion took on the drum role. They lifted the name Coldplay from a recently-defunct outfit formed by a fellow hallmate, who'd taken it from a book of poetry, but decided it was 'too depressing', and they started jamming STing and Simon & Garfunkel. Coldplay were born.

 

The band's teetotal elder statesman, Chris Martin - born in March 1977 in Devon - had played guitar in cover bands from 1992, including the Pet Shop Boys-styled Identity Crisis, soul-loving The Rockin' Honkies, The Red Rooster Boogie Band and boy band, Pectoralz. Influenced at Sherbourne public school by the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, The Flaming LIps, Sparklehorse and Tom Waits, his uni study of Ancient World History would inform his political outlook and add perspective to his songwriting.

 

Jonny Buckland - born in London, in September '77, but raised near Mold, north-east Wales - majored in maths and astronomy. He played piano, drums and violin, before taking up guitar in 1988 and getting into Muddy Waters, Clapton, Hendrix, The Stone Roses, Ride, U2 [whose own Welsh guitarist's sound echoes in Buckland's playing] and they odd bit of ska-metal. Buckland acknowledges that his hometown was 'not an area you associate with music. But Rhys Ifans [of both Super Furry Animals and Notting Hill fame [is from nearby,' and it was always a wellspring of rock, from Ten Years After to The Alarm and Mansun. As Martin acknowledges, his chum's shimmering signature guitar is as much the sound of Coldplay as his own trilling piano and yearning vocals.

 

Boosting the band's Celtic credential, Guy Berryman was born in Kirkcaldy, eastern Scotland, in April 1978, before moving to Canterbury, Kent in 1990. He learned the bass soon after, and the UoL drop-out [who enrolled in his dad's subject, engineering, before switching for a while to architecture[, was brought up on funk and soul, such as James Brown and Kool & The Gang. Openmindedly, however, he played with Time Out, specialising in 'terrible stuff. The best musician was really into Genesis, so we did horrible prog with ridiculous solos' - a penchant that would never be fully expunged!

 

Lastly, Will Champion was born in Southampton, in July 1978. An anthropology student born of archaeologist parents, his huge love of Christy Moore, The Beatles, The Beach Boys,The Verve and Mercury Rev led him to play guitar with Fat Hamster, before he did a Dave Grohl and took up the drums at university [where he met Martin in the hockey team].

 

After getting together as UCL in September 1996, and jamming together through 1997, the band recorded a three-song demo EP at London's Sync City Studios in Tottenham, taking their self-penned Bigger Stronger, No More Keeping My Feet On The Ground and Such A Rush. After playing their first gig in January '98, they were so chuffed with the results of their demo that they chipped in 50 quid each to press 500 copies of the Safety EP in May. Despite a dismal Manchester In The City showcase, where they were hamstrung by bad sound, in September, an impressed Deborah Wild of Universal Introduced them to music lawyer Gavin Maude. She passed a copy of Safety to BMG's Caroline Elleray, who played it to Parlophone's Dan Keeling and he ruminated on a move for the band. Soon after, December, Fierce Panda co=founded Simon Williams and BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamacq saw Coldplay at London's Camden Falcon. Lamacq immediately booked them for a session, and Williams proposed a one-off 7".

 

Lamacqs session featured tracks from the Brothers and Sisters EP, which was issued in April 1999. It made the Top 10 and NME tipped Coldplay to become one of the bands of the year. By that summer, Parlophone were ready to pursue its interest and signed the band in London's Trafalgar Square, followed by a publishing deal concluded in a rowing boat on Hyde Park's Sepentine lake!

 

Coldplay supported Catatonia and Muse, and performed at various festivals, while album sessions undertaken with a view to a Christmas release dragged on for several months, with Martin feeling the pressure during a blistering London summer and turning on Champion for missing his drum beats. After being berated as 'shit', Champion left and had to be persuaded to return a week later, when Martin admitted to being a 'fucking twat', getting drunk-until-sick on vodka to prove his remorse! Indeed, despite Martin's pivotal creative role, following the spat, the foursome agreed to split their credits and royalties equally, ensuring that no one would be able to monopolize things and so jeopardise the band in the future.

 

In October '99, the five-song The Blue Room EP appeared, featuring two Safety numbers and three fresh cuts. Don't Panic, High Speed and See You Soon. The EP gained Coldplay exposure, not to say some flak as Radiohead clones. But, in March 2000, a follow-up single, Shiver, made No.35, and featured the band's collector-friendly tendencies [which continue to this day[. The band's on-off album sessions in London's Highgate, at Dave Edmunds' Rockfield Studios in south Wales, and Echo & The Bunnymen's hometown, Liverpool - in sight of Jonny's home - continued through spring with producer Ken Nelson [Gomez, Badly Drawn Boy[, And their anthemic, defining, Yellow 45 - inspired by a Welsh sunset [and the Yellow Pages] - hit No.4 that summer. As pundits and popstars alike queued up to praise Coldplay, their stature rose further thanks to a show-stealing performance at Glastonbury, and their instant celebrity was ruefully reflected on by Martin, who noted that their wispy signature lament 'started out as a joke. I came up with a melody and just started trying to sing like Neil Young'. Nonetheless, it laid the ground for a stellar album launch in July, Martin rightly averring that the No.1 Parachutes had 'soul, passion and melody'.

 

The achingly captivating Trouble single encapsulated that spring in October, and Sylvester Stallone even met the band with a view to using it in a movie - which they refused. Indeed, they've blocked all corporate advertising use of their songs [through they relented on the movie front for films, such as Peter Pan]. Martin earnestly noted. 'we just want the songs to reflect reality - quality songwriting is all we care about'. Then exhibiting what would become his trademark self-doubt, he added, 'there are some nights I love playing parachutes, some I hate it'. But who could complain, when it won a Best Alternative Album Grammy and Coldplay went on to win Best British Group and Best British Album at the 2001 Brit Awards?

 

A US tour consolidated their To 10 success Stateside, and Martin used the growing media interest in them, and his own apparently mixed-up, evangelistic personality, to promote campaigns close to the band's heart, such as Oxoccupanciesfams' Make Trade Fair. Future Forest and Amnesty International. Taking on a hectic touring and charity fact--finding global schedule, in February 2001 he lost his voice and the band were sidelined by flu, leading to several US concert cancellations. But appearances on the likes of The David Letterman show and the issue of the prescientily-title Don't Panic, saw the band's star continue to rise.

 

Paradoxically, the growing adulation destabilised the Coldplay ship, with Martin and chums feeling unnerved as some critics questioned their overnight plinty-inhabiting status. Convincing themselves that they were in fact 'rubbish', Coldplay contemplated recording a swansong single and then retreating back into the real world. But, after meeting U2 backstage at a concert, Martin looked inwards and realised that, ultra-cool as U2 are, he'd prefer to remain in Coldplay. when Buckland came up with a hauntingly beautiful hook to Martin's remaining Parachutes offcut. In My Place, nodding to mellotronic - nay, progressive - musical vistas, the quartet's self-belief and desire was renewed. After 18 months of on-off touring, they decamped to the studio, re-energised, with Martin - the principal songwriter - determined to produce an epic sophomore set.

 

By Christmas 2001, an eight-song demo had been put down in Liverpool's Parr and London's Air Studios [Martin recording some songs in Echo's Ian McCulloch's coat for inspiration[/ Set for release in June 2002, it was delayed till mid-August, as the perfectionist Martin completed finishing his 'brain surgery' re-touches. In the interim, a limited-run 1000-copy Mince Spies [Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas] was distributed to friends and journalist, making for another instant collectable.

 

Presaged by the No.2 In My Place, the tour de force A Rush Of Blood To The Head hurtled straight to the top of the UK and 10 other worldwide charts, as well as US No.5. By 2005, it'd sold over 10 million copies worldwide, and won three Grammys, plus and Ivor Novello Award for Songwriters Of The Year, confirming Coldplay as Britain's premier band of the moment.

 

Blending power and fragility on cuts such as the post-9/11 lament of Politik, as well as Top 10 singles like the mesmeric, last-minute inclusion of Clocks, and the emotive George Harrison-inspired The Scientist, the ME rightly raved about a work of 'outstanding natural beauty'. A critical consensus affirmed Coldplay as new national treasure, and they were invited by David Bowie to play his London Meltdown Festival, which was attended by among others Kylie, and Martin's ex. Natalie Imbruglia. As Martin reflected 'you luck bastard'.

 

Two more Grammys followed, before the infectious God PUt A Smile On Your Face single emerged, and an autumn arena tour took in the UK, US and Europe. March 2003 saw a Teenage Cancer Trust show at London's Royal Albert Hall and, in July, Sydney's Hordern Pavillion gig was captured as the Live 2003 DVD-V/CD, issued that November in a limited run.

 

By the, Martin had hit the headlines, both for having affairs with Nelly Furtado and Gwyneth [whom he married in December 2003], run-ins with intrusive paprazzi, his cryptic daubed-hand messages, and in the following April, the birth of the exoticaly-christened Apple. Despite such distractions, 2004 saw the band focused once more on the studio, while Martin even found time to contribute/cover songs and/or vocals to Ian McCulloch [slidling, also feature Buckland], Embrace [Gravity], Jamelia [see It In A Boy's Eyes], The Streets [Dry Your Eyes] and Band Aid 20's re-recording of Do They Know It's Christmas?, with Martin's instinctive lead vocal to the fore.

 

However, after months recording their own new set - once more with Ken Nelson - Martin et al decided to scrap the X&Y sessions and begin again from scratch with Danton Supple [Morrissey, The Cure]. As the singer admitted. 'we've become obsessed with trying to deliver something amazing'. By the spring they could finally down tools, and the gripping Speed Of Sound single was unleashed on the charts, prior to the mother opus going No.1 in June. A more tempered affair than its predecessor, it nonetheless boasted the spartan splendours of singles Fix You and Talk and the band impressed at Live8 in July, offering a duet on Bittersweet Symphony with Richard Ashcroft, before rounding out the year with him on another massive arena tour.

 

Coldplay's ongoing multiple format releases - 7", CD, DVD singles - attest to their collectors' bent, and in '05 they were lauded by everyone from Bono to Oasis. Having stepped out of the Radiohead shadow, they have themselves spurred on a slew of acts like musical mind, from Keane to James Blunt to Daniel Powter, thereby becoming one of the more influential bands of the decade. As long as they keep producing such weighty material as their latest multi-million -seller, and honing their already superlative live craft, Coldplay are set to remain - rightly so - at the apex of the modern-bands' collectability tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Chris Mart In His Own Words

 

 

"Rock 'n' roll is about doing what the fuck you want - not huge amounts of drugs or hedonism. It's about not caring what anyone things of you and hanging around together."

 

"We don't really like to talk about charity because it could sound cheesy."

 

"Being a successful British band in America is great on a selfish level, but I don't think we're kidding ourselves we're better than The Beatles."

 

"Bands with causes are like cowboys with guns. Danger!"

 

"We got slightly stressed when we became successful because it was a big change. It was like The Terminator when Arnold Scharzenegger lands back in time with no clothes. Slightly confused? That was us."

 

"We haven't yet ever finished any piece of recording on time. Even way back when we were doing our first little EP, when my best friend Phil, our fifth member, was paying for it, he said, "I could probably afford two day", and then after the two days we'd be on the phone going, "Phil, could you sell another pair of trousers? 'Cause we could really use another day", And the more budget we have, the more it just seems: "Could you not just spare us another two million pounds, so that we could finish this clarinet part?"

 

"To me, our albums might seem like The Godfather parts, one, two and three - some epic journey. But to others it might be like Stop, Or my Mom Will Shoot!. Sometimes you think you've made the Great Wall of China and then you haven't."

 

"I always dream that I'm at school doing exams and we have a record deal, and halfway through the dream I always say to the teacher, "Why am I doing this exam? We're already a famous band!" And they're saying, "You just should." Then I wake up sweating, and it's terrible."

 

"It sounds very cheesy, but they really are my closet friends. It's amazing to me how close we really are. We all split our money the same way between the four of us and our fifth member, our best friend Phil, who is really our advisor and guru. It means we never have to argue about money, and that's the thing that often comes between most bands."

 

"Without the band I would be like some terrible version of Sting and no one would want that! I like Sting... Well... he's alright, but The Police were better - you know what I'm saying? We did have one week where I basically destroyed the band 'cause I was a total loser. And I woke up the next morning and some voice just aid, "You idiot!" And then we managed to piece it back together".

 

" I don't want to change places with any person in history, ever. I mean that. I'm petrified of reincarnation because, you know, I like being me."

 

"The great joy of music is that one can present oneself as being some sort of romantic hero, whereas in fact, in real life, the song was written in one of my period of being a dickhead."

 

"I don't want to get morbid on you, but people keep dying. So do things while you can. Up until 23, the concept of death hadn't occurred to me, then someone asked me if I'd heard about Jonty, this friend from school. I said 'No, what?'. 'He's head.' I used to play football with him. That's amazing, isn't it? life is right now. It's not a morbid realisation, it's exciting. I find that feeling of time constraint very liberating. Nobody has an answer. We all die in the end. So come on. Let's do something now."

 

"I'd have a hard tie convincing you Coldplay are the direct descendants of The Sex Pistols, but Johnny Rotten said that he didn't do the things he did because he hated the British people, but because he loved them and thought they were being sold short. That's exactly why we do what we do! We want to make music with heart and soul because, culturally, people are sold short in this country. We just want to prove that you can be a massive group and have some meaning, some feeling. I don't want to be bland."

 

Record Collector magazine [uK] Issue 30 February 2006

LONG LIVE NETTIE!!!!!!! :D

 

bless you hun, you make this forum amazing

 

those are some great scans, thanks!!

amazing job! well done and thank you so much.

this'll give me something to read tonight before i go to sleep :)

Thank you, Nettie!!!

 

I have to go lie down... but I'll read this as soon as I wake up. :kiss:

Cheers Nettie

Oh my God, I SO have to buy this magazine! But I don't know where to get it here in Vienna :(

 

Anyway, thanks for the scans, Netti :) I'm already working on my scans I promised you ;)

Wow thanks alot for the scans Nettie!!! :D :D I'm reading them now with a big smile on my face :D

Thank you Nettie!! :)

 

Just a question...where did you buy it from and how much was it? thank youu :kiss:

Thank you soo much...I can't imagine how it did take to write down all the article...bless you :kiss: :kiss:

aweeesommee!

 

"Will Champion... did a Dave Grohl and took up the drums at university [where he met Martin in the hockey team]."

 

Chris played hockey? hehe

:cool:

good stuff Nettie, well played :cool3:

"Jonny Buckland - born in London, in September '77, but raised near Mold"

 

I cant stop laughing when I look at that sentence.

Thank you very, very much Nettie!! :kiss:

 

A.

you're the 1 for me.. .Nettie ! :)

Great, thanks very much Nettie :)

Thanks Luvvi! :kiss: :kiss: :kiss: :kiss: :kiss:

 

Where did ya buy it & how much was it?

 

AND OMMMMFFFGGGGG THE WIZARD IS ON THE FRONT COVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!! :D :juggle: :D :juggle: :D :juggle:

i think i need to go back to the store and buy that next week.. fucking hell! i'm gonna die :stunned:

ohyeah! thankyou btw :kiss: :kiss: :kiss:

:stunned: I cant believe the wizard is on the front cover!!! It's like they did it especially to help my campaign :D !!!!!!!!

 

 

 

:wacky: :lol:

Brilliant job nettie. Really!!! :) :)

Right, im off to the shops now to see if any of them have it in yet! Back in a bit! :D

^1.36 bling! Its a sign! :idea2:

 

 

:lol:

:lol: hope you find it! don't die in the store okey?! :sneaky:

oh thank you so so so so much for the article Nettie :)