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cherrylng · 2 months ago

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Upcoming Victories UK ‘00 - Coldplay Interview [BUZZ (November 2000)]

“I'm like, why do I have to answer that? People say it's boring and too sincere, but we're just a band that wants to sing and play songs!”

Chris finally explodes. The huge sales in the blink of an eye, the pressure and frustration of "Best New Band in the UK" falling like a torrential downpour, and why we in the press, more than anyone else, are tinkering with Coldplay, the most unconscious miracle harmony of anyone.

Photograph by Shoko Ishikawa Text by Shino Kokawa Interpretation by Erica Yamashita

"It's getting to the point where it's out of our control…… The least we can do is just keep writing good songs and playing them as well as we can. I really don't know what else is going on." In an interview in the September issue, Chris expressed his bewilderment at the situation surrounding them. Coldplay's debut album "Parachutes" debuted at number one in the UK and they were reverently awarded the title of "Best New Band in the UK". They were thrust into a huge number of microphones. Immediately, the "New Sensitive Rock" scene was launched and made its banner.

Two months have passed since then. "Chris won't be doing interviews for a while. He is on the verge of declining all interviews." It was the night before the interview that the record company informed us of this. The next day, the three members excluding Chris regrouped for the interview and interpreter Yamashita went to their live venue. When she visited the designated dressing room before the show, Chris was waiting for her with the three members. He said it was okay to talk, after all.

The result was an interview in which Chris' honest feelings exploded in a big way, as shown below. However, this mode of thinking was not born out of a distrust of the press or post-break nihilism, but rather a more fundamental frustration: "Why can't I get my message across through music alone?" In the UK guitar scene, which continues to be in a stupor, everyone is struggling in different phases, from bands that try to differentiate themselves with intelligent presentations to those that run amok with a negative or positive attitude. Amongst these bands, Coldplay are the only ones who have so much faith in the sound that spills out of their guitars.

After the release of your debut album "Parachutes", you went to Glastonbury, Summer Sonic in Japan, and V2000. How was your first festival summer? Guy (Bass, G): 「It was good.」 Jonny (Guitar, J): 「Yeah, it was mostly good.」 Will (Drums, W): 「Except for Portugal (laughs). The venue at the Portugal festival was horrible, first of all, and the audience were all people who were listening to heavy rock.」 Chris (Vocal, C): 「I mean, there were more interviews than gigs.」

How do you feel about that? C: 「It was the worst.」

……The worst, huh. C: 「Yeah. But I'm fine now, because the tour starts on Monday.」 J: 「Well, especially recently, because we've been doing nothing but talking instead of playing.」 W: 「Yeah, we haven't been able to play any shows for a while because of Jonny's throat, so it's been a bit stressful.」

Do you feel like you've been put in an environment where you can't genuinely enjoy your band activities and music? C: 「There are too many things that don't matter. Think about it, nobody cares what Beethoven looks like or anything like that. All people know is his music. That's our ideal situation, but it doesn't work like that. We live in a multimedia age and it's all about the pictures and how they look. It's not easy. But basically we're only as good as our music, so I think there's still a part of us that can be left to the music.」

"Parachutes" became a huge hit album that still sits in the top 10 of the national charts, but what do you think it was about you that attracted audiences? W: 「I guess it was our simplicity, or purity of it. We weren't competing for fashion in this day and age, or for badmouthing other bands, but just for the quality of our music.」

Amongst the many guitar bands that write good, melancholic melodies, I think you guys stand out because melancholy is not a ‘dead end’ feeling. W: 「Yes, that's exactly the kind of thing we want to put forward. We didn't want it to be just a melancholic album. We were very careful not to make it sound like that. And the key to that was what kind of songs to choose, and what kind of song order to make the songs flow. The promo CD we made before the release had all the songs in a random order, and when France heard it, they said, "This is a really sentimental record". But when we told them the order was like this, they said, "Oh, I see."」

There's strength in the delicacy of it. C: 「We believe in what we're doing. We get excited by our songs and we really, really like it. In the end, it's the reason we get up every morning. There has to be some positivity, because it's something I feel positive about. I don't want to make music that doesn't give me a sense of hope.」

When you were deciding on the direction Coldplay should take, how did you come to this mid-tempo and melody-oriented approach? C: 「The way we write songs is that sometimes I'll come up with an idea and take it to Jonny or someone else in the band, and then we all get together and shape it. It's something that we like in our own way. And that's the type of stuff we like so far. We don't discuss making them mid-tempo or anything like that, if we find a new song that we like that is mid-tempo, we just build it up as we go along. It's not like we decide on the tempo first. It's just that we get excited about songs that sound like that.」

What does it feel like to be excited? C: 「Well, I don't know. I just like it…… Obviously we're not a thrash metal band. We don't plan it that way anyway. We just let things come out. I can't even point to myself and say, "This is what I want to do".」

Hmmm. Has the meaning of music itself changed? C: 「No, I don't think so. I still feel great when I play and do really well, and depressed when I don't do well today.」

What's the percentage? C: 「…….6 to 4, I guess.」

That's pretty harsh…… Incidentally, this issue of BUZZ is a special issue on guitar rock. And we'd like to feature you guys as newcomers of the year 2000. By the way, the others were Muse (everyone nods in agreement), Doves (everyone nods in agreement), and JJ72 (Jonny frowns while everyone nods in agreement). What are your opinions about the other bands? W: 「We've met all three of those bands before, and they all seem to be making music for the same reasons as us.」 C: 「I like all the bands, especially Doves. I love them. But, you know, it's not about sympathy or anything like that. Everyone wants to create a scene, but there's just so many different bands out there.」

I think some people want to see it as a scene, hoping for a revival of UK guitar rock (laughs). C: 「Yeah, I get it. I'm honoured to be included with the bands you've just mentioned, because I like them all very much. It's just that none of us have put our heads together and tried to make a scene.」

I understand, don't worry (laughs). Now for the next question, which might be a bit rude. For example, what is it that drives you guys to make music, far from the desperate awareness of reality that British lad musicians have, that "we have no way to shine other than through music," and the ego-maniacal claims of bands that are fueled by that? C: 「But we don't think like that, we don't think like that. We're born and raised where we are, and we're very proud of that. Whether we have money or not doesn't make us good or bad. I wonder why we have to answer that question every time we are asked to do what we want to do. We just want to sing and play the songs we want to play. When we say that, people say it's boring or too sincere, but why else would you be in a band? That's our reason, there's no other reason. If you want to make loads of money, you'd be better off becoming a big businessman. The only attraction is the music itself.」

It's a problem that doesn't really make sense to me living in a homogenous society like Japan, but what do you think about the British tradition, but what do you think about the British tradition of saying, "You guys have no right to play rock!", just because you're from a middle-class background, starting from the days of Joe Strummer of The Clash to Blur and Radiohead? J: 「That’s really true of our country, isn’t it?」 W: 「But it also has something to do with social change. For example, in the 60s, most of the musicians were from the working class, and the laughing stock of TV comedies was middle-class university students, but now the whole country is middle-class, so workers are a good source of material. There's a tendency for everyone to wish for something they don't have.」 C: 「In the UK, there seems to be a sense of who is and isn't allowed to do what. But we don't really care. It's not like it's holding us back at the moment. You know what I mean? If you think it's a problem, it becomes a problem, you know? They try to hide it, they try to say they're not middle class.」

Is that one of the most depressing things you feel at the moment? You're just trying to deliver good music, and they just pick on things that have nothing to do with it. C: 「Yeah, absolutely. But I do the same thing with my favourite musicians. I can't help it, these things happen. For example, I think a lot about Bob Dylan, like, what kind of person is he? I guess it just means people are interested.」

I can really feel that you get very uncomfortable and that it's hard for you not to genuinely enjoy the music anymore. Do you still think the only way to overcome this is to keep playing? C: 「Yeah. Yes. In fact, we've just set out the terms of negotiation for next year. If we do two weeks of promotion, then we can spend the other two weeks doing whatever we want. We need to get that sort of thing settled.」

By the way, I've been reading your diary on your website, and the other day you wrote about the Radiohead show. C: 「It was amazing! They didn't seem to be having a lot of fun, but maybe they just weren't into it that night.」 W: 「I thought so too, but maybe the band couldn't get on. I think it was a very busy day with a lot of invited guests, and the whole atmosphere was a bit weird. I met Ed later and he said, "We didn't enjoy it at all." But I was impressed. My friends who went on the other night said the atmosphere wasn't too bad at all.」

Thom Yorke also said that "Rock is boring, it's rubbish music." C: 「That's ridiculous.」

Uhh..…. I think they are a band who have proved that conclusion to themselves, one by one, over the course of four albums. What do you think of their current phase? C: 「I just think they are trying to do something interesting. Maybe using guitars is boring…… But you know, it's what you play, not what you play with.」

You guys are now creating a sound that follows an orthodox guitar format. Is that going to change in the future? C: 「No, I can't say anything about that. The two new songs, one of them is a guitar…… I mean, we're not doing it with that kind of idea in mind…… No, we're just doing it with the idea of creating something interesting and new. I'm tired of explaining the songs, I just want to say they're songs, isn't that enough? That's the great thing about Bob Dylan. It's just him and the guitar. But no one says it's boring just because he always uses the guitar. It's just about how good the songs are played.」

By the way, I was firmly told by the record company that Chris wouldn't take this interview. I'm really happy that you accepted, but…… I wonder if you're really stressed out. That is, that you have to be involved in things other than music. C: 「Yeah, that's true. But I'm happy to do it on the days when we have gigs. But, to be honest, we were all a bit stressed out over the summer. Seriously. We didn't get a chance to play any music at all, and instead we just talked about our music. I think that took a toll on the band. The reason we're all so happy today is because we get to play shows again.」

That's good. C: 「Really.」

Translator’s Note: I enjoyed translating this interview for how much information I've gleamed out of it, especially seeing this side of Chris that I’ve rarely encountered before even with how few Coldplay interviews that I’ve translated so far. Like, being paraded around from one interview to the next, being asked so many questions that eventually became dull to them, with barely any actual gigs to play at? I can’t blame them for feeling the subsequent frustrations, especially when they were only 22-23 years old back in 2000.

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#Chris Martin #Jonny Buckland #Guy Berryman #Will Champion #Coldplay #Parachutes era #my scan #translation #interview #BUZZ #BUZZ November 2000

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