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Lyrical musings

Coldplay's Chris Martin talks about fatherhood (the Apple of his eye), celebrity (wife of Gwyneth Paltrow) and new frontiers (Rap? Country?).

By SEAN DALY
Published September 8, 2005

[Getty Images]

Coldplay performs at the Beacon Theatre in New York City in May. From left: Will Champion, Jon Buckland, Chris Martin and Guy Berryman.

	[Getty Images]
	Gwyneth Paltrow and daughter Apple watch Coldplay perform during July’s Live 8 London concert in Hyde Park.

Consider yourself warned, Coldplay fans: Someday soon, your beloved band of Brits might ditch all that lush loveliness in favor of some boot-scootin' and rhyme-bustin'. That's right: country and rap, from the U.K.'s reigning kings of pretty pop.

"Country is a very sleeping beast within us," says Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, 28, calling on his cell phone as he boards a plane for Columbus, Ohio, another stop on the band's world tour. "We have two things we're not allowed to do - that's country and rap - just because of where we're from. So I think they'll rear their heads at some point.

"I think the only future for music is if you bring together the most disparate worlds. That would be an album between Garth Brooks, Coldplay and Kanye (West), and produced by Timbaland."

Martin is just kidding . . . or not.

When Coldplay brings its hot-selling show to Tampa's Ford Amphitheatre Wednesday, rest assured that the quartet will gush all those tingly Brit-pop songs that make you weep, including Yellow, Clocks, and the new Speed of Sound, the hit from X&Y, the band's third album and third multiplatinum smash.

Coldplay's Tampa date has been one of the most buzzed-about locally - in a season that includes Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and U2 - mainly because of those soul-searching songs that have touched millions since the band's 2000 debut, Parachutes. As fellow Brit-pop bands such as Travis, Starsailor and Doves struggle to maintain a commercial audience, Coldplay keeps doing the same thing - chilling piano hooks, rousing crescendoes, sad-boy lyrics - and getting bigger in the process.

Still, 'Play fans should prepare for the possibility of an odd future. X&Y, released earlier this summer, features a hidden bonus track, Til Kingdom Come, that is a decidedly countryish tribute to Johnny Cash. Plus, Martin is feeling a lot of love for hip-hop these days, especially after appearing at Aug. 28's MTV Video Music Awards in Miami.

Coldplay's cable-ready performance of Speed of Sound was introduced by Neptunes and N.E.R.D. star Pharrell, a hip-hop producer-performer. The pasty blokes from London and the cool dude from Virginia Beach, Va., might seem a weird pairing, but the bizarre truth is that a growing number of hip-hoppers love Coldplay. Really.

Rapper and Island/Def Jam CEO Jay-Z has expressed interest in collaborating with Martin & Co.; Kanye West, yet another major star who's coming to the Tampa Bay area this fall (USF Sun Dome, Oct. 12), is also a Coldplay fan.

Sooner or later, all popular bands face backlash, and Coldplay, who some rock 'n' roll fans consider a bit too touchy-feely, is no exception.

"We're in a position now where a lot of people really hate what we're doing, and it's hard to come to terms with that," says Martin, who won't specify the haters out there. "So when people you really respect give you respect, it's a heartwarming thing. So I'm feeling really great after Miami, because I have so much respect for Kanye and (Missy Elliott's longtime producer) Timbaland in particular."

Martin reasons that the mutual lovefest stems from the fact that "neither party quite understands how the other person does what they're doing. For example, Timbaland, who's my hero - I do not understand how he's doing it. It just makes my jaw drop, you know? I think what he likes about Coldplay is a similar thing, although I don't think he has quite as much respect for me as I have for him.

"We come from different worlds. That's why I love things like the MTV Awards. I love it when all those worlds meet. That's the only way we're going to progress is by eventually trying to do stuff together."

As for all those rumored plans about quirky collaborations with Jay-Z and others, Martin won't reveal any details: "Nothing's ever concrete, man."

Now that he's become just as famous for whom he's married to (actor Gwyneth Paltrow) and who he's fathered (daughter Apple) as for his music, Martin is excited to be out touring again. Making X&Y was an arduous process; with pressure to top the success of 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head, an entire first draft of X&Y was scrapped. But now that there's a finished product out there, he and his bandmates - guitarist Jon Buckland, drummer Will Champion and bassist Guy Berryman - can start to enjoy what they made.

"Before (new songs) are released, you know how you felt when you initially wrote them and recorded them, you know? And then in that funky period before the record comes out, when you're starting to hear people's opinions, you become detached from the songs again." Now that he's playing them live, though, "I'm really feeling in the middle of those songs again. I love them, and they've become part of our back catalog. It's amazing."

Martin admits that he suffers from perfectionist tendencies, but, like a parent seeing his children off to school, he has learned to let go. "With a new song like Fix You or Talk or Square One, we're just enjoying playing them. They're doing what they're doing and they'll have any life they want to have."

Come on, Chris, wouldn't you like to tweak here and there?

"Always, always," he says with a laugh. "But if I start getting into that, it'll become a very boring interview."

As far as the band's plans - there have been rumors about a 2006 album - Martin isn't talking. "We're kind of closed for repair at the moment in terms of what we're telling people. What's cool about being on tour is that the public face of you is doing one thing and the private side is doing another."

Ah yes, Martin's private side. Gwyneth. Apple. The infamous virginity he managed to hold onto until he was 25. ("I heard we're a joke" in the movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Martin good-naturedly laughs.)

Those pesky questions are the reasons Coldplay stayed off the "white carpet" arrival site at the MTV to-do.

"We don't do red carpets. We always miss them. We haven't done one in a long time," he says, adding with a laugh: "There's only so many pictures you can have of a guy in a hooded top, you know?"

Martin is notoriously protective of his private life - in 2003, he was charged with criminal damage for smashing an Australian photographer's camera - but he does allow that the birth of Apple Blythe Alison Martin has altered him for the better.

"I've become far more fascinated with everything, and far more bemused by everything," he says. "And far more aggressive about things I don't like, you know what I mean? I think (fatherhood) just turned the volume up, turned everything up to 11 for me. What it does for me, it brings in a protectionist element. It makes me more fascinated about the big questions."

He sighs, as if he has said too much. X&Y seems more positive, I say, still introspective but, compared with relative brooder Rush of Blood to the Head, more confident about the future.

"I'm very bad at stepping back and analyzing," Martin says. "But it's unrealistic that people aren't going to change through their life. I wouldn't want to hear an artist saying the same things over and over."

Oh, yeah, that Coldplay rap-country album is definitely coming.

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or 727 893-8467. His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/popmusic

PREVIEW: Coldplay performs with Rilo Kiley, 8 p.m. Wednesday at Ford Amphitheatre, Interstate 4 at U.S. 301 N, Tampa. $35-$70. (813) 740-2446 or (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.

[Last modified September 7, 2005, 09:25:02]