The two-year old London-based outfit Coldplay have just scored a top four hit with their single 'Yellow.’ Now their debut album 'Parachutes' is poised for an imminent date with your soundsystem.

The Coldplay foursome sit in a private restaurant room looking rather frayed, as if fame has started to take its toll. But no, singer Chris Martin is happy to inform us that he still uses public transport; and recounts how, when the record company sent a stretch-limo to take them to a promotional fixture a few weeks back, they returned it!

Rather commendable but can it last? When a band become hot there is no way to slow down the celebrity rollercoaster gathering speed into the future, regardless of any other laws of logic. Have they started to feel the fame distort their reality?

"What little success we've had," says Martin, assuming spokesman duties, "has really been beyond our wildest dreams. Fully appreciated, but we are trying not to let it go to our heads. It might be early days and I have experienced nothing... I've signed a fair amount of autographs after our shows but that's all."

Common spirit

The Coldplay members are in their early twenties but the songs they've produced are more mature, with an insightful quality well beyond their tender years. Martin gets a co-songwriting credit on equal footing with the other members: Jonny Buckland (guitar), Guy Berryman (bass) and Will Champion (drums). Your correspondent suggests democracy might not be the best way to go as far as creativity is concerned.

"Why, you think that art can't be made by a committee?" Martin gets the cynic's nodding. "You might be right but the way it works with us is that everybody has the right to express their thoughts about every song. Will has told me several times he didn't like a line in my lyric and I took it on board. Of course I was hurt, I've got an ego, but his criticism was justified; and, if it makes the song better, that's for the best."

Having met in 1998 at the University Of London, two independent releases swiftly followed - 'Safety EP' and 'Brothers & Sisters' - before signing to EMI's Parlophone label last year. From those early days there is one song you'll never hear them play live.

"We've dropped 'Out of Daydream'," Martin states with a smile, "because somebody wrote that it was the worst song they had ever heard. We realised that it was real rubbish and dropped it. The remark did hurt me but it was the right thing for us to do."

Feeling the heat

Even placid opinions can cause havoc among eternally self-doubting artists and Coldplay are no strangers to it. Just goes to show that between ambition and marketing hype there are human beings longing to be accepted approved of and loved. But the bottom line is that any review is just an opinion and not a judgement.

"Probably true", Martin says, "but one of the Radiohead guys said that when you read a good review you don't believe it; and when you read a bad one it really hits. So, you learn to expect bad reviews. As soon as this album gets panned will be back where we started from."
One suspects they play-act pessimism because the record is full of joy-inducing songs that could leave only the emotionally-dead cold. For the rest of us, their future's so bright we gotta wear shades.

"Hope you're right," says Jonny Buckland, voicing the band's caution, "because we tend not to expect much. That's not lack of an ambition but just a realisation that there is a lot out there and it is a big question whether we'll be judged at the face value or for the quality we strive for."

"But then," Will Champion concludes, "pessimists never get disappointed." With Parachutes since nominated for the 2000 Mercury Music Prize, Champion's philosophy seems to be standing him in good stead.