“We're Not Afraid of Anyone”

Two years ago, when Coldplay released their debut album, Parachutes, their only concern was whether anyone would like it. But Parachutes sold 4.7 million copies worldwide, the band collected an armful of awards — and now things are rather more complicated. Hence the hot topic for today’s band meeting: how to keep their sophomore effort, A Rush of Blood to the Head, off the Internet.

“I should ring up everyone who’s got a copy and say ‘Please don’t sell it,’ ” suggests singer Chris Martin. “ ‘Or we’ll fuck you up.’ I could add that part on the end.”

“Let’s take out the whole Internet,” deadpans bassist Guy Berryman. “There must be a cable we can cut.”

Martin looks comically exasperated once the band has aired its options. “We should never let anyone hear it, ever,” he says. “We should just release the artwork and a CD with ‘Yellow’ on it.”

“Yellow,” of course, was the huge hit off Parachutes. The song’s chiming, bittersweet beauty and its compellingly minimalist video, which featured Martin strolling along a rain-lashed English beach, ensured that the London-based four-piece became one of the few British bands in recent years whose charms made it across the Atlantic intact.

What Coldplay lack, however, is the self-mythologizing bravado of their countrymen Oasis, so their public persona so far has depended on a trio of well-worn facts: 1) They like Radiohead (whom they beat out for the 2002 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album); 2) They’re middle-class (Oasis’s former label boss, Alan McGee, infamously dismissed them as “bed-wetters”); and 3) They’re really nice. All three are true, but fall well short of the full story.

Today, Martin, Berryman, guitarist Jonny Buckland and drummer Will Champion, each still in his early twenties, are settling down to lunch in the restaurant of North London’s House Hotel — all chandeliers, tapestries and wine-red walls. It’s not a typical choice for a group unflashily clad in jeans, but Martin stayed here for a while when Coldplay were wrapping A Rush of Blood at Air Studios across the road. Now that it’s finished, they seem shell-shocked.

“It’s a weird time,” Martin frets. “If no one likes this, we really are fucked, because we can’t think of anything else we can do.”

For lunch, they’re joined by their equally youthful manager, Phil Harvey, a friend of Martin’s since their school days, and by Palli, an Icelandic photographer the singer met on tour and has just introduced to his parents. “They’ve taken care of me,” Palli confirms.

Over wine and cigarettes (only Martin partakes of neither), Coldplay are relaxing company. While Buckland radiates a benign, Zen-like calm and Berryman barely says an audible word, Champion is a bottomless repository of jokes and pop-culture trivia. Martin, with wide eyes and a wide grin, is a fascinating cocktail of sincerity, neurosis and pin-sharp wit, one minute discussing his fear of death, the next impersonating Marlon Brando or pop diva Anastacia. The foursome often finish one another’s thoughts, and they’ve emerged from the hothouse of recording the follow-up to Parachutes with their brotherly love fully intact.

“We’re lucky we’ve got each other,” Martin says, nodding at his bandmates. “Whoever we come into contact with, we’re all protected by the other three, so there’s no danger.”

He searches for the right simile. “We’re like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” he decides. “They’re all pretty good individually, but together they make a Mighty Morpher.”

The Mighty Morphers first came together in 1996 at University College in London — first as friends, then as bandmates. “Our first musical incarnation was probably Chris and me busking and getting moved on by the police,” Champion says. “We did ‘Bare Necessities’ and ‘Norwegian Wood.’ ”

Inheriting their name from a friend’s band, they released a self-financed EP, 1998’s Safety, and were quickly snapped up by Parlophone, home of the Beatles and Radiohead. Recording Parachutes was a frantic process, due to their dual insistence on perfectionism and democracy — but it was a breeze compared to coping with the somewhat premature backlash in Britain that followed its release.

“The concept of someone not liking us hadn’t really hit us,” says Martin, polishing off his tuna steak in the time it takes most people to butter a slice of bread. “Suddenly it was like, ‘We all hate you.’ It knocked us back for a bit.”

Reeling from the attention, Coldplay took to looking stern in photographs and apologizing on stage, particularly before playing the hits “Yellow” and “Trouble.” They’ve since kicked both habits.

“If I told you what I think about our band, you’d think of me as the most arrogant man in the world,” says Martin. “Because the three people I love most in the world, I’m with them. I’m not going to apologize for anything. We had a period when we thought, ‘Shit, we’re not going to carry on. This is terrible.’ And then we thought, ‘No, bollocks to that.’ ”

The turning point came during their inaugural American tour in February 2001. During a radio-show event in Washington, D.C., they shared the bill with several nü-metal stalwarts and were pelted with bottles by the unimpressed crowd. A few days later, though, they were headlining in Atlanta, wearing matching shirts as a show of solidarity and enjoying themselves more than they had in months. There’s been no serious talk of splitting up since.

“It was weird playing in a football stadium with Linkin Park, Blink-182 and Limp Bizkit,” Martin says of the D.C. show. “Completely out of place, but doing very well. It was like, ‘Hang on, let’s do it. Let’s try to win everyone over. Everyone.’ In America, we were a cool cult band. We never were [in England], and I think we quite relished being the outsiders. It did us a lot of good.”

Martin’s father, an accountant in the West English county of Devon, taught him to get along with everybody, and Coldplay’s fraternizing over the past two years must make him proud. They’ve bonded with everyone from the Flaming Lips (a major influence) and Kylie Minogue to Oasis and Rammstein’s Till Lindeman. “There was me, supposedly the nicest, most naive singer in the world, with supposedly the most Satan-like singer in the world, sharing throat remedies,” Martin recalls of Lindeman, laughing. “He sent me some candies. The note said ‘Enjoy these fucking candies.’ ”

Another recent Coldplay development is that after a long period of being dubbed “the new Radiohead,” the band now finds itself cited as the inspiration for a host of “new Coldplays” in England, such as Starsailor and Turin Brakes. Even this, Martin insists, can be problematic.

“They never write, ‘Brilliant, here’s another Coldplay!’ ” he says. “They always go, ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, not another Coldplay. One’s quite enough, thank you, as Mary Poppins would say.’ ”

“Let’s see . . . what’s the new album about?” Martin repeats, laughing, as coffee arrives and Marlboro Lights are ignited. “What every album’s about: Your fear of death, your love of girls and your anger at the shit that politicians talk.” He smiles, wary of sounding too earnest. “Mainly about girls, though.”

Recorded in London and Liverpool over nine months, A Rush of Blood is, despite Martin’s nonchalance, a considerably wiser and more sophisticated record than its predecessor, with an expansive grace redolent of U2 and, yes, Radiohead. Songs like the taut opener, “Politik,” written in the week after September 11, and lines like the title cut’s “I’m gonna buy a gun and start a war/If you can tell me something worth fighting for” suggest Coldplay have larger issues to tackle this time out.

Longtime U2 fans (they supported the Irishmen in Dublin last year), Coldplay have clearly taken a page from Bono’s guidebook to being rock stars who care. They’re relatively wealthy now, but have spurned several big-bucks offers to plug the Gap or Coca-Cola — instead donating songs to Red Cross ad campaigns. “The sad thing about American TV is you can’t escape consumerism,” Martin says. “America has so much amazing culture, and it’s buried in 15-minute segments between 10 minutes of ads.”

Martin missed February’s Grammy Awards because he had just returned from Haiti, where he was promoting fair trade for the charity Oxfam. “After that, the concept of an awards ceremony was the most farcical thing in the world,” he elaborates. “Because you see poverty, and no one gives a shit who J.Lo is. It’s like a big slap in the face: ‘Don’t get too pleased with yourself, idiot, because you’ve had a lot of opportunities other people haven’t had.’ It’s a reminder not to be a twat.”

Martin’s experience in Haiti intensified the feeling that fires both A Rush of Blood to the Head and Coldplay’s collective reaction to their rapid ascendance: It might all end tomorrow, so make every bit count.

“To me, this band is everything, and I don’t ever want to let it down,” Martin says firmly before Coldplay step out into the late-afternoon sunshine. “We’ve realized, ‘Shit, it’s down to us.’ And we’re not afraid of anyone.”


Help!
This April, for the first time since 1963, the Billboard Hot 100 didn’t feature a single U.K. act. How can Brit hopefuls increase their chance of U.S. success? Blender asked Leslie Fram of Atlanta’s modern-rock radio giant 99X for five useful tips for struggling limeys.

1 CHEER UP, MATE!
Our expert says: “It’s important to have a good attitude. When Coldplay came by the station last time, they had a great attitude. Oasis, on the other hand . . . ”
Blender says: Please remember, the correct phrase is “Have a nice day,” not “Sod off, you fucking wanker!”

2 DON’T BELIEVE YOUR OWN HYPE.
Our expert says: “Bands definitely get overhyped in Britain. And [Americans] have become quite cynical about that.”
Blender says: Just because New Musical Express says your band is “the bastard child of Nirvana and Guns N’ Roses — but better!” doesn’t mean a Limp Bizkit fan will give a hoot about your bony ass.

3 TOUR, TOUR, TOUR. AND THEN TOUR SOME MORE.
Our expert says: “British bands will come here, do 10 shows and rely on the press to take them to the next level. They really need to play in front of more people.”
Blender says: Buy a map — a big one — and get used to sleeping with the drummer’s stinky feet in your face.

4 ENOUGH WITH THE MOPE ROCK.
Our expert says: “Bands should remember that the British musical invasions have always been pop invasions.”
Blender says: Trade in those Nick Drake albums for some dancing lessons.

5 GET THOSE TEETH FIXED!
Our expert says: “Ha ha ha! I love British bands — I don’t want to say anything bad about their teeth. What I like is the hair. Most British rock stars have the same hair, that Oasis kind of thing. I dig that.”
Blender says: Really, get those teeth fixed.
– Clark Collis