Des Moines Register interviews Jonny Buckland

The Des Moines Register blogs interviewed Jonny Buckland yesterday by phone. The full interview will be online prior to the June 12 show at Wells Fargo Arena. In the meantime, here is their online article with an extensive preview of topics discussed:

Yesterday, I interviewed Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland over the phone. He seemed like a cool guy, all laid back with his British accent, chilling at his home across the pond. We recorded the interview, but there was some sort of interference so we won’t be able to post it online.

Stay tuned for a print story coming out sometime before the June 12 Coldplay show in Datebook or IowaLife. We chatted about his family — He has a fiance and an 18-month old little girl named Violet. I asked if she’ll be a future rocker like him, and he said she’s showing some signs. She likes to dance around to “Viva la Vida!”

We also talked about Brian Eno — Coldplay teamed up with Eno for “Viva la Vida” and they worked on some new material in the studio in January. Buckland said that Eno gives the band a sort of musical freedom. Buckland likes U2’s new album a lot (Eno worked on it along with a bunch of other U2 albums) and asked me if I liked it. I said yes (of course) and said I liked Coldplay’s new album, too! We spoke a bit about similiarities between his playing and The Edge’s. He said they both like the delay pedal . (So do I!)

Buckland and the rest of the band seem very removed from anything other than making music:

I asked him if he used the Coldplay Twitter account and he told me he didn’t quite know what Twitter was, he didn’t use it, and he wasn’t sure who from the Coldplay management used it. He was impressed though that the band has more than 739,800 followers.

He said he wasn’t aware of the newest plagiarism accusation by Cat Stevens, so I told him a bit about that.

More feedback on this (forthcoming) interview is at the Coldplay forum here onwards.