Coldplay’s Chris Martin spoke to Absolute Radio’s Pete Donaldson before the station broadcast the bands entire gig live from the Royal Albert Hall, to celebrate the release of new album Ghost Stories.
“I’m going through such a Pulp phase. I just love em. I listen to Jarvis and there’s part of me that thinks wow I just can’t do that. But I can do what I do and I’m very grateful that I can do that. I love ‘Different Class’ but then I like bits and bobs from all over the place. I love a song called Trees. But just recently I’ve been driving listening to ‘Assorted Reason’ just thinking this is the best thing I’ve ever heard.
“I’ve never done a Pulp cover in public but in Karaoke I’ve done a few. Jarvis is very cool, you’ve got to get that hand twist that he does.”
On working with Rhianna:
“She’s a very fascinating, interesting person. She’s very mysterious. When Rihanna’s making an album she’s talented enough that lots of cool people want to work on it. So it’s not like I’m the only one. When we were working together it was inspiring because you’re around a lot of other people. It’s sort of like some kind of holiday camp for producers and musicians.”
Remembering the Black Crowes at RAH:
“I have a big connection to the Albert Hall because when I first moved to London, the first concert I ever got in to see was the Black Crows and I bought tickets off a tout. It just seemed like the hugest place in the world. I’m a huge Black Crows fan and the singer Chris, I think smiled at me which sort of made life at the time.”
Touring:
“It’s calmed down a little bit yeah. We’re one of those bands that don’t really talk that much about all that stuff. But most rock and roll clichés we’ve been through. Because and because we’re not touring we’re really relishing these few shows that we are doing.”
On begging band members to help write songs:
“I’m begging them to write songs. I think that we have such a nice system where god gave me the gift of songs coming into my brain or the start of a song and then I take it Johnny and Will and Guy and they add their bits. It’s like a production line and it’s great and we love working like that. But I’ve just recently been asking, does anyone else have any starting points? Because you know it might be good.”
“Well I wouldn’t say we’ve got a good system but like Guy, our base player is writing music all the time but he never shows it. For the first time on Magic he said so sweetly and shyly, he was like: ‘oh we did this jam yesterday, you might want to listen to it and I did and then Magic, the lyrics came out immediately.”
Band friendship:
“Yeah and we’re best of friends so it’s just like hanging out in the football changing rooms. You know we’re all between 35 and 37 so we’ve all had a lot more going on in our lives and we’ve been a band long enough to really appreciate the fact that we’re still the same group of people and friends. It’s something that we just don’t take for granted in the way that we might have done ten years ago.”
Lookig up to other bands:
“We look up to U2 of course a lot and Radiohead have it. Not many bands have that experience of being teenagers together and becoming adults. So it’s just such a joyful feeling. Anytime any of us goes a bit off, the others just say come on man.”
