MARTIN. Comfortable in his own skin.
LOS ANGELES—It turns out that Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin, is also a funnyman. Asked in a recent interview if he’s a tough critic of his wife Gwyneth Paltrow’s singing, Chris joked, “Very! I’m a tyrant. I say, ‘No, that note was flat!’ And I have a ruler, and I smash it on her hands, like Mozart did—it’s awful! But, she’s very good, so it must be working.”
The English singer-songwriter, pianist and rhythm guitarist disclosed that he and Gwyneth, and their kids, Apple, 9, and Moses, 7, “just moved to Los Angeles. Our kids are at school here. I find it thrilling and refreshing for the band, because we meet here and there. It’s cool, because it shakes you. You get stale being in the same place the whole time. And naturally, because we have that bug of touring, we like moving around.”
Coldplay recently released “Atlas,” their first new track in nearly two years and the band’s first original song for a movie—it’s also the first single from “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” soundtrack.
“I really like the books,” Chris said of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy of novels upon which the franchise, starring Jennifer Lawrence, is based. “I don’t know if I’m too old to like them,” he quipped. “I was just waiting for the right film and song. One time, I tried to write a Bond theme, but it got rejected by the person below the person below the person. This was like 10 years ago.”
“This song came together over a weekend and it was nice, because I knew what the film was going to be about,” Chris added about “Atlas,” which has received positive reviews so far from music critics. “The song just came through in 10 minutes. Not to say that I didn’t put any effort in. It took a long time to record.”
Being Coldplay’s lead vocalist, Chris is the most visible member by default, but also for another reason: “We’re one of those bands where one of us is much more recognizable, because the other three are shy. They just won’t do it. So, it looks like it’s one person with three other random people—but, that couldn’t be further from the truth! Our bass player is very handsome, so a lot of people recognize him.”
Chris shared, “The first time we won a Grammy, I wasn’t there. People were asking them for more sandwiches, because they thought they were part of the catering team. I’m not joking—they like to blend in as much as possible.”
Brotherhood
“But, I would never ever go solo, because when you’re part of a brotherhood like that, when you are not a prodigy or virtuoso at music, the only thing you have in your favor is a unique chemistry,” he stressed. “We just got blessed with the fact that when the four of us sit down together, it makes something bigger than the sum of its parts. We all go off and do our own little things but it’s never quite as fulfilling. There’s something very uplifting about it (being a group). At this point, when we have been at it for nearly 18 years, it’s incredible.
“I remember when we were playing in rooms smaller than this. Now, we are playing in a stadium in Zurich—it’s awesome! And seeing the same people. There are only a few bands that manage that. So, we look up to the people who have done it for even longer. Some of the Stones have been together for a long time; U2, those four guys have been together since they were teenagers. So, it’s uplifting when you see them in a concert, because it’s like, wow, look at their journey together. The feeling of togetherness is very special.”
Reflecting on his growing up years, Chris said, “I didn’t think it was possible for somebody like me, from where I came from in Britain, to become a musician, because nobody from that area—it’s a farmland in the Southwest—ever made it as a musician. Everyone was from the North. But, there is Radiohead quite close by. That was the first time I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I am allowed to do this.’
“But, in terms of the music itself, a lot of it comes from the old hymns that we hear in church. I was playing some chords the other day, then I realized, ‘Oh, that’s a song I was singing in school assembly when I was 9!’ So, all that music, basically old school, religious music, combined with all the stuff I was listening to in pop, like A-ha or whoever it might be. There’s that rooting in very ancient chords.
“That’s why I think we stumbled upon something. I don’t know about unique, because everything comes from somewhere. Over time, we have become more comfortable in our own skin. It took us a while to become comfortable with being ourselves—that’s natural with any artist or writer.”
“I went to an all-boys school,” he recalled. “The only way to meet girls was to be in this choir. We were singing Bach and Mozart, but I wasn’t really consciously paying attention to that. I was more just looking at people—but, subconsciously, all that stuff seeped in from singing in big cathedrals.”
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