In the Fountains of Wayne minidrama "Someone to Love," lovelorn corporate attorney Seth Shapiro "puts Coldplay on, pours a glass of wine/curls up with a book about organized crime." The implication is clear: Coldplay is the feel-good band of yuppies the world over, writes The Times-Picayune ahead of Coldplay's show in New Orleans.
In a decade, singer Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion have evolved from utter unknowns to cultural touchstones. They've sold tens of millions of albums, endorsed various charitable and political causes and, in the case of Martin, married Hollywood royalty without seeming insufferable.
Buckland called from his home in England during a recent break in Coldplay's tour, which stops at the New Orleans Arena on Tuesday, June 9... [discussion]
Coldplay has not performed in New Orleans since a 2003 show at the Saenger Theater. Should we take that personally?
I think we were supposed to come back just after Hurricane Katrina hit, but the gig was canceled. So I don't think you should take it personally.
You're over the career hump -- you've established who you are and what you do. I don't know if "relax" is the right word, but you've earned both credibility and success and can have some fun with it.
We've never enjoyed touring so much actually. We feel like we're playing better than we ever have and having more fun on stage than we ever have. The more we put into it, the more we get out of it. So it's the opposite of relaxing.
What element of the current show works best for you?
Where we go out and play in the audience. We try to get to the back of the crowd and pop up somewhere. It's kind of ramshackle, and we don't decide what songs we're going to do until we're there. In arenas, you can feel a long way away and disconnected. We try to make people feel like they've actually been to see a real band rather than watching them on the TV.
Do you use some sort of satellite stage?
"Stage" might be overstating it a bit. More like a satellite shelf.
You never set out to be a guitar hero -- your guitar work is in the service of the song. Is that a fair assessment?
I think so. I've never gone in much for the solos. I was always more interested in atmospherics. Listening to bands like Mercury Rev or My Bloody Valentine or even The Verve, the way those guitarists played.
Do you solo at all during the show?
No, not really. I maybe have one, but it's not really shredding or anything like that. There's no Van Halen in me. (laughs)
Drummer Will Champion was Coldplay's original guitarist. It probably worked out best that you played guitar and not Will.
Yeah, well, he was a better drummer than me. (laughs) He probably is a better guitarist -- he's a very good guitarist. He's pretty much good at everything he does. He can even play the tin whistle. He's sort of a multitalented, Swiss Army drummer.
Don't you just hate that?
It is a bit annoying.
I'm guessing you don't wear the colored bits of tape on your fingers like Chris Martin because that would make it hard to play guitar.
That's Chris' thing. We can't all be doing the same thing.
You'd look like Devo.
Or Kraftwerk. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, actually.
You put out the EP "Prospekt's March" in November with songs left over from the "Viva la Vida" sessions.
There were some songs that didn't really fit on the album. We didn't want to save them for another record. It felt silly to save them; they were already a couple of years old.
So it wasn't a qualitative decision to leave them off "Viva la Vida"?
We started writing a record, then we went to South America and scrapped the initial idea of what the record was about. We changed it to "Viva la Vida." So some of the songs just didn't fit with that at all, but we still really liked those songs. They told a different story.
Do any of those turn up in the set?
We play "Glass of Water" quite a bit and "Life in Technicolor II" as well. We love playing them live. We wanted to get them out there, so that we could be indulged.
Have you started writing for the next album?
We've written tons. We've got so much material, it's almost hard to know in which direction to go. It's quite a nice stage where you're bringing together all your ideas and picking which way to take them.
Any early indication of the mood?
There's a possibility of being a more acoustic record. But that still remains a possibility rather than a certainty.
You're not going to really work on it until after the tour?
We never really stop working on stuff. It's continuous. Touring only really takes up an hour and a half (a night). There's plenty of time to be writing music and playing. We won't finish anything this year, but we'll certainly get started.
Momentum feeds itself.
Being on tour, you're excited about playing live and you want to keep on going. You never want it to end, that adrenaline rush. It does feed into you writing more songs and getting excited about new ideas. We love playing music. It's the best job in the world. We want to work all the time. It's hard to make us take a holiday.
It's definitely in the Top 5 jobs.
For us, it's No. 1. There's nothing else we'd rather be.
You don't want to trade being a guitarist for being a dentist?
No, thank you.
One last thing: Have you taken down all your Joe Satriani posters?
(laughs) Honestly, I never had a single one. I promise!
One minor bump in the road: In December, guitar wizard Joe Satriani filed a lawsuit alleging that the title track of Coldplay's current "Viva la Vida" album plagiarized his 2004 instrumental "If I Could Fly." Nice chaps even when sued, the band responded, "If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him.... Joe Satriani is a great musician.... We wish him well with all future endeavors."
COLDPLAY
With: Opening acts Snow Patrol and Howling Bells
When: Tuesday, June 9, 7 p.m..
Where: New Orleans Arena, 1501 Girod St.
Tickets: $49.50, $79.50, $97.50 plus service charges through Ticketmaster.
Source: http://blog.nola.com
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