[2017-04-08] Will and Guy interviewed by Dudesweet

[Captain Crieff]

Massive thanks to @ColdplayerTH on Twitter for the translation!

 

Link to the original interview in Thai: http://www.dudesweet.org/thirdworld/coldplayinterview/

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Rajamangala Stadium…

 

Not very far but hard as hell to get to. What kind of city is this where there’s no BTS or MRT to get to the place where half a hundred thousand people get to….? The result is— when I get out of that place after the interview at 6 O’clock, The traffic on the road on the side that gets to the stadium is horribly jammed. When I reach the Airport Link train staMon, seeing how long the queue of people waiting for taxis and shuttle bus is, they’ll never reach the stadium in time. I wonder where Coldplay and their team with almost 200 lives stays at to be able to reach the stadium without their heart burst into pieces due to the horrible traffic jam, maybe they rent hotels around the stadium? Maybe Chris Martin gets the more luxurious room because people may recognize him and the other three members can stay anyway, no one would recognize them anyway. I’m not trying to diss them, the drummer and the bassist that I went to interview told me themselves.

 

“Do you travel by the tube in London?” I asked the drummer when he told me that he still take his kids to places with buses and underground train.

 

“Absolutely, Yeah!” Will Champion replied.

 

“And no one recognizes you?”

 

“This is the privilege of being a drummer, In the concert I get to drum at the back and the next morning I can walk around by the street, no one would remember, this is an awesome thing”

 

“I’m not famous, only Chris is famous” Guy Berryman, Bassist said “Chris can’t walk around in Bangkok, He’ll get mobbed! But I can walk anywhere and no one would give a shit” Guy laughed for himself “But I like it this way, I don’t want any attention in that kind of way, I like to stay home and being able to go anywhere, can go shopping anywhere, something like that. Well, I’m in a really famous band but I’m just not famous, you know what I mean? And I think that’s perfect.”

 

 

It’s a rare occasion that a massive band like Coldplay still do interviews even though they’re as famous as Madonna or Radiohead or U2 that don’t need to do any interviews because people would still fight for their tickets anyway, but the band sMll do with a great mood. The interview had a really great atmosphere for both us and them. At the end, everyone in the room including news reporter and people from other rooms were all happy without any bitchy events happening from the band or the team.

 

The interview was divided into two rooms, two groups, and each rooms has 15 minutes. The big room is for television group and our small room has only four person who comes from magazines (both paper and online magazines). Our group did not get to interview Chris Martin which we already know, because they would always keep the frontman for big television or newspaper companies, but actually I do want to interview other members of the band more because Coldplay is a band that not many people know the name of other members, Even I had to open my phone to read and remember their names on the airport link on my way to the stadium so I wouldn’t make a mistake.

 

And what’s more strange than Coldplay still do interviews is that the 4 music news reporter in my small room (except for a girl) 3 of the rest is sMll the same people from 15 years ago when Dudesweet still do Supersweet magazine and fight to get to interview international bands, also everyone here had interviewed Coldplay before 13 years ago…. 15 years ago! And why are we still here not moving anywhere?! We made jokes about maybe we’re the last generation of the ones with quality but in our heart was like “Fuck….we can’t do anything else that’s why we’re still doing music news lol, who the heck still read music reviews when you can download a whole album to listen to in just 5 minutes”

 

When Guy Berryman, Bassist walked into our little room that had the four of us and we started the interview, maybe I was sMll thinking about it so I slipped out some words. I told him that us, in this room had interviewed you once before when you came to Thailand the last time, at the time you were still an average leveled band and we just started out career.

 

“But now your band had became one of the tops of the world” I said “but why are we still poor? Do you have anything to recommend us, music reporter?”

 

“Hmmm…” Guy stroked his chin “I have no idea about how to get rich, but personally I think that our band is lucky to have fanbase since the music industry was blooming. We sold many CDs and there were lots of money in the business. As for now, with many new bands, I think it’s very hard for us, hard for musicians, even harder for music reporter because the band knows if they’ll get money if they do a show but a music reporter won’t get money anyways even if they do the news.

 

“So you’re trying to say that we should quit?” I teased him

 

“No…no…not to quit!” Guy smiled....that was the moment I realized he looks like Michael Fassbender “Let’s say it this way, personally I think the most important thing in life is to be passionate, like myself, I have passion in music so I have layers in life to be determined to do something and it makes me wake up every morning feeling excited…and if I have to lose all those feelings, it’d be the greatest loss! Even worst than losing all your money, it’s losing the feeling of waking up and feel excited with what you love”

 

For now let’s get into the interview.

 

Guy Berryman - Bass

I’m trying to play the guitar, which Coldplay song is suited for a beginner?

 

-Yellow

 

But everyone plays Yellow, now I’m trying to play Don’t Panic

 

-Well Don’t Panic isn’t hard either….why are you asking me? I’m a bassist! Even though the instrument do look similar but they’re totally different types, you know?

 

At what age do you start picking up instruments and who were your inspiration?

 

-I started when I was 12 years old, from the songs of Motown, James Brown and some funk, soul or anything that the bassline is really accentuated.

 

 

Do you guys think of going back to do music that sounds like Parachutes again? Like going back to the original root of the band

 

-That’s a great question, but for now we’re trying many new thing with the pop sound, having project manager or collaborating with people from pop music. Actually we’re interested in making music that has an acoustic sound to it and can be used for playing live, it might not sound like Paracutes because they might sound more simple and it won’t have pop sounding to it, It sounds really interesting so maybe we’ll be trying something like this soon.

 

Talking about Parachutes, when the album was out and I listened in Thailand, I thought “Why is there such a gloomy and depressful sound to it?” and a year later I went to England for the first Mme, I met the weather there whlist listening to the album and thought “Ahh…Now I understand why Coldplay make these sounds” so, do you think weather has a role in the process of making music?

 

-Maybe? I don’t really know. In England there are lots of music sounding depressful but English people are equally depressed so I’m not sure whether it’s because of the weather. Sometimes the gloomy sounding music is actually cool! Have you listen to Nick Drake? His songs are as gloomy as ever but they’re wonderful!

 

 

New songs of yours have a lot of dancing tunes to them, do you guys still do parties?

 

-Not really anymore (laugh) We’re getting quite too old to party! I like waking up comfortably more, but in the early years we partied quite hard.

 

What is the process in choosing music for the setlist?

 

-Mainly we just choose the songs that the crowd wants to hear, sometimes we choose more obscure songs because they’re fun to play, but doing so we felt too selfish because we already know that most people don’t know the song. It’s true that there are definitely people who knows our songs that weren’t the singles but it’s our job to make the show enjoyable as much as possible, So the more people can sing along, the better it is and that’s what we choose. We don’t depend on ourselves, we depend on the crowd.

 

In the song writing process, do you know which songs are gonna be a hit?

 

-Yeah, we do. I don’t know how to explain but we really do. Sometimes we just hear a few seconds of the structures of the song and we immediately know that this is it. As for some songs we have to work on for months or years to make it sound good even though we knew from the start that it wouldn’t go far.

 

What is the next goal for Coldplay?

 

-I don’t know, as a musician, we have done everything we have ever dreamed of. When we started the band we needed a drummer, we got Will. We wanted our own song, our own little shows ,we got them eventually and we got to sign a contract, make albums and got to play at the Glastonbury, big stadiums…we’ve accomplished every goals already, Now we don’t really know what we’re gonna do next.. the next questions we have are : Should we get any bigger? Should we try to be better musicians? Should we just fade away? Or is it time to say “Everything we’ve been through have been an amazing journey, Thank you.”…All of these we don’t know yet but, we know that we still enjoy doing music together so I think we need to decide what kind of music to do next and how to represent those songs, to do a massive album along with doing plenty promo on televisions or just make something strange and release.

 

How big of a role does the band have on the Album cover and music videos?

 

-For the album cover, we have a big, big role. We do a lot of the artworks on our own, as for the music videos, the job goes to the directors, sometimes they just send in ideas and we’ll choose one. We don’t really mess with MV but for the album cover it has to be from us.

 

Will Champion – Drums

 

How do you compare the latest album to the previous ones? Because I listened to them and they sounded a lot different?

 

-Oh, yes. Because the thing we’re trying to do in every album is to create a new world, whether it’s the sound, techniques in the song making process or the styles, so we’re trying to work with many different people, using many different equipments to make the sounds fresh and new, like for this album we worked with Stargate which were two Norwegians that make interesting music and they have their own unique way of working which is a new thing for us, that’s why it’s a smooth and enjoyable process. I think this is the most pop album we’ve ever done, we used so many the techniques we’ve never used before, it’s an interesting process that brought us to another new level and we’ve got to try new things.

 

In the future, is there anyone who you want to work with?

 

-That’s pretty hard to say, but you know what? It’s quite strange these days that you can work with other people without having to meet them! Like in the song we worked with Beyonce, we didn’t meet her, I mean we’ve met her before but the song we worked together, while we were recoding the music, she was recording the vocals somewhere else. You’d be surprised to know that something like this happens a lot nowdays, how musicians work together without meeting at all, well, there are hundreds of people I would love to work with but nothing is as pleasing as the four of us playing music together and something magical happens in the process. The thing that makes me happy for the past 20 years is that we have new projects together, it makes me happy to have this band and best friends like this…this is the most important thing for the past 20 years.

 

What is your favorite song to play at the concert?

 

-This is also hard to say, It’s like asking “Who’s your favorite child?” but these days I love to open the concert with The Scientist because the intro of the song is big, loud, and massive and it’s good for us to be able to let it all out. It’s also good for tonight because it’s super hot and I’ll get soaked wet, the song will help me let out energy.

 

Let’s talk about your kids, now you have three children (11 years old son and 9 years old twins) Do you talk to your kids about music?

 

-Of course! They love music! (when Will talks about his kids, he look so delightful and eyes filled with sparkles)

 

Who do they like? Do they like Coldplay?

 

-Yes they do! Lucky for us, it’s be terrible if they don’t. But they also like pop songs like Ed Sheeran, The Chainsmokers and who else….

 

Justin Bieber?

 

-Well, that also. And now they’re in the age of liking the dance music I collect.

 

And which bands do you currently like?

 

-I think it’s very hard to answer, in the age that you can put the whole music history in a phone and it’s hard to not care about what song is being a hit, like sometimes you look at the chart and think “Yeah, This song is a hit, let’s try it out” which doing so is the way to keep the song on the chart, that’s why I think that it’s hard to rely on charts…wait…now I’m trying to think who I like now…the other day I was just saying it in an interview….Oh! This person- James Blake and also Nick Cave. The new album “Skeleton Tree” Is amazing! Other than these are the songs my kids would make me listen to, they’ll be like “Dad, have you listen to this? Do you know this song?” and I’d be like “Who’s this? Where did you heard it from?” “Oh, mommy played this in the car the other day” That’s what it’s like, the kids remember these songs so well and I’m really blessed that they like listening to music and finding music to listen to.

 

Do you listen to your own band?

 

-No, but my kids love to! Which is great, sometimes when I get home from the studio I would take samples of new songs for them to hear and ask for their opinions.

 

Having a father being in a famous band, how do you talk to your kids about being busy all the time?

 

-My kids understand my work because I would take them along with me to places all the time, By tomorrow they’ll be here too which is good, but I also try to tell them that what I’m doing is not a normal thing, don’t get used to it…well, I think that we’re super duper lucky to have a life like this, to be able to travel around the world to play music for people, I’d always tell then that I’m lucky because I get to do the job I love and I would tell them to find what they’re passionate in and try to find a way to make a living our of it. Another thing I always tell them is that we’re lucky and how lucky we are to have a life like this, although I still try to be as down to earth as possible, we’re still using buses and underground trains.

 

 

What do you miss of when you were just poor musicians?

 

-Well, even though now is better than before….alot better but the feeling of excitement can only happen to you when you were teens like in the age of 19-20. Like when you get to go to other countries and play music there for the first time, when everything was new. Well, now we still get to play in new countries and have new experiences but yeah, some amazing feelings only happens to young men gejng to travel around the world, the excitement of not knowing in what we were doing. Now, we’re adults and are sophisticated, we know what we’re doing and we have responsibility with a big bunch of 200 people that works hard to make our show a success, we have to be responsible to them and the people who come to watch us. When we were young we didn’t have to think about any kind of responsibilities, we were just passionate and wanted to make a good show, wanted to be successful, but never thought that we’d have to be as responsible as we are now.

 

 

What more goals do you want to accomplish now?

 

What we want is we want to do best with every good opportunities we receive. Now we are happy as a band and as friends, I’m very happy to be on this tour and we’re having a lot of fun. Another thing we want to accomplish is that we want this tour to complete with no problems with good health and happiness, This is the most important thing, someMmes people overwork, doing too many things ‘til they lost the fun, if it’s like that then I’d have to take a break and come back later, So the most important thing is to be happy with friends, health and have fun with music.

 

Touring around the world like this, have you got any trouble with getting into countries?

 

-Not yet, our team is really good at these things, I really appreciate that.

 

 

Also the interviewer said “Guy berryman is not photogenic, He’s handsome as fuck in person.”

[I ran away]

Thanks for posting this insightful interview that refreshingly had some different questions compared to what 90& of interviewers seem to ask.

 

A few interesting snippets:

Actually we’re interested in making music that has an acoustic sound to it and can be used for playing live, it might not sound like Paracutes because they might sound more simple and it won’t have pop sounding to it, It sounds really interesting so maybe we’ll be trying something like this soon.

Interesting...

 

sometimes we choose more obscure songs because they’re fun to play, but doing so we felt too selfish because we already know that most people don’t know the song. It’s true that there are definitely people who knows our songs that weren’t the singles but it’s our job to make the show enjoyable as much as possible,

:confused:

 

but these days I love to open the concert with The Scientist because the intro of the song is big, loud, and massive and it’s good for us to be able to let it all out. It’s also good for tonight because it’s super hot and I’ll get soaked wet, the song will help me let out energy.

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the intro to The Scientist "big, loud and massive" ? It also takes a while until the drums set in. The description sounds more like a song such as Politik imho.

 

But they also like pop songs like Ed Sheeran, The Chainsmokers and who else….

sometimes when I get home from the studio I would take samples of new songs for them to hear and ask for their opinions.

Lol, mystery solved as to why Coldplay's latest music sounds the way it does (besides Chris's tastes) :p

[Nie]

Will collects dance music?!

[Captain Crieff]

Maybe I'm missing something, but where is the intro to The Scientist "big, loud and massive" ? It also takes a while until the drums set in. The description sounds more like a song such as Politik imho.

 

Lol, mystery solved as to why Coldplay's latest music sounds the way it does (besides Chris's tastes) :p

Hmmm yeah I think something got lost in translation there. It says The Scientist in the Thai version too but he probably said A Head Full Of Dreams.

 

Haha, who'd have thought Will would have something to do with it after all? Also damn Will, if my children would like The Chainsmokers I would feel like I failed somewhere :|||

[Captain Crieff]

Also the interviewer said “Guy berryman is not photogenic, He’s handsome as fuck in person.”

lol @ this bit

[coldplayisawesome]

"Actually we’re interested in making music that has an acoustic sound to it and can be used for playing live, it might not sound like Paracutes because they might sound more simple and it won’t have pop sounding to it, It sounds really interesting so maybe we’ll be trying something like this soon."

 

:wideeyed:

 

 

thank you for posting this! i love reading interviews with non-Chris members for a change :P

[AMDB9]

Love it!

[alisbe]

This was such an interesting interview. Thanks for sharing

[Norys]

Great interview! Thanks for sharing.

Was funny the part about Guy not being photogenic, but I disagree.

[iamsue]

Yes thanks! I found it funny that the interviewer said they'd all been around a while, doing the same thing. Sounds like he thought they weren't successful. I find that hard to believe with this being one of the best interviews I've read with the band.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[I ran away]

Also damn Will, if my children would like The Chainsmokers I would feel like I failed somewhere :|||

haha, that's what I thought as well :joy:

[Coeurli]

Guy smiled....that was the moment I realized he looks like Michael Fassbender

:joy::joy::joy::joy:

 

Quite odd but also interesting interview! Thank you for posting and thanks to the translator!

[Gideon_Mx]

It's a great interview !