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cherrylng · 4 months ago

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2008 Coldplay Interview - Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland [ROCKIN'ON (July 2008)]

Dramatic upheaval in the new album Beautiful Life/美しき生命/Utsukushikiseimei [aka Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends] has arrived! Coldplay's second chapter begins.

Interview: Shino Kogawa / Interpretation: Erika Yamashita

Coldplay's new album, ‘Beautiful Life/Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’, marks a dramatic and clear turning point for the monster band Coldplay. The new album ‘Beautiful Life/Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends’, their fourth original album, is a new chapter after the completion of the previous three albums ‘Parachutes’, ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’ and ‘X&Y’ as a ‘trilogy’, and is a masterpiece in which the band has radically renewed their dynamics and methodology.

Instead of compiling a song-orientated compilation of songs, they clearly set out to make a concept album. The structure of the first track, ‘Life In Technicolor’, which cycles into the final track, ‘Death and All His Friends’, makes it clear that this is a massive work with a big swell, and the intense interplay of themes and sub-themes in each number is a huge work in its own right. Each number, which spreads out while the theme and subtitle are violently intertwined, is used as a cog in the wheel that drives this epic work. Although the Japanese title leaves out a lot of nuance (the original title was Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends), the theme of the album is the ultimate linkage of life and death. The sound of this album is the opposite of the tranquil beauty that Coldplay used to have, as the band wildly depicts such a grand theme on a huge canvas that will never be answered. Incidentally, Brian Eno, who produced 'Beautiful Life/Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends', seems to have been the ‘breaker’ they hired to thoroughly shake up the perfection of one of the finest beauty-melody bands of our time. Eno is the man behind the album, who ‘liberated’ Coldplay from Coldplay by introducing the rough trick of having the band draw cards at random, and then put the ideas on them into practice without any argument.

Thus began a new chapter for Coldplay. When viewed as a new album from a band whose last two albums have both sold an astronomical 10 million copies or more, 'Beautiful Life/Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends' may seem a risky departure from the rock-solid (commercial) winning formula. This is because what is called an adventurous or problematic work often dismantles a band's inherent appeal, and ‘epic’ and ‘ distracting’ are sometimes synonymous. However, 'Beautiful Life/Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends' does not dismantle Coldplay's appeal, but rather brings their true nature into focus for the first time. The grandeur of this work is far from scattered; rather, it is an extraordinary work that strongly emphasises that this scale was Coldplay's original normality.

Coldplay, needless to say, are not a band that can only write simple and universally appealing songs. Rather, they were a band with a peculiar sense of style, who carefully selected one out of a hundred possibilities and presented it to the listener with a perfect fit. So this album, in which they expanded their own possibilities to 200 or 300, is rather the first time Coldplay's tremendous capacity has been used to its fullest.

Coldplay's identity as the most successful UK band of the 2000s was beautifully excessive and distorted.

"The guitar is always the loudest. That's our new rule. In many ways, we felt like we had to start afresh."

"We're not a hit single band anymore. We focused on making a colourful album (Chris)."

The new album is a tremendous turning point for Coldplay. It's an adventurous and very dramatic change of pace, but first of all, can you give us an objective impression of what it's like to have finished making it? Chris (hereinafter referred to as C): 「It's not so much that I finished making it, it's more like I had to let it go. It was ripped out of my hands, against my will (laughs)……….. By the time we got to the fourth album, we were so hungry for new ideas and sounds that I don't think we were ever satisfied with anything we made, but three weeks ago we went to the record company. They said to us, ‘You've got to give it to us now, or you're going to be in a lot of trouble’. So it's still a bit, you know, I still feel a bit tense (laughs).」

(laughs). This album is not just a compilation of good songs with good melodies, is it? The composition of the album, which starts with the instrumental number ‘Life In Technicolor’ and ends with the last song ‘Death and All His Friends’, which traces the melody of ‘Life In Technicolor’ again, suggests that a kind of cycle exists in this album. It sounds like you're building up a big story. Jonny (hereinafter referred to as J): 「Yeah, it fits perfectly.」 C: 「It's the best thing I've heard today. After all, we've spent the last year trying to achieve that. It's a very confusing world of music today for artists. You don't know what to focus on. Do I have to have one big hit single, or do I have to have an album full of good songs ……………? So we decided to make an album where the whole thing is like a circle, but each song is completely different. We're not a hit single band.」

Huh? C: 「Not anymore. So we focused on making a colourful album. Rather than making a big single or a big selling album, that's exactly what we wanted to do, just like you said. You know, like a good meal, full of different flavours.」

Of the ten tracks, my personal favourite, and the one I was most excited to hear, was ‘42’. It's a spectacular number with a very dense and information-rich set of key changes, beautiful and clear melody, and destructive heavy guitar. J: 「In a way, a lot of information in one song is a small form of the whole album. I wanted the whole album to be dense, you never get bored of listening to it, and there's a lot of unpredictable things happening one after another. For me at least, that song fits the direction of the whole album perfectly.」 C: 「You mean that song is a microcosm of the whole album?」 J: 「That's it, that's it. So all sorts of unexpected melodies appear, and the instruments behave in unexpected ways…」 C: 「And the guitar is always the loudest. That's our new rule.」

(laughs). More than the piano. C: 「Because everyone knows Coldplay plays the piano, so I thought, hey, let's make the guitar a bit bigger here and let it go all out. That's one of the things I'm really proud of on this album. Johnny's guitar playing is so much better than it's ever been. I'm really happy about that. After all, I've always known how great his guitar was.」

Speaking of the unexpected, some of the tracks, such as ‘Lovers in Japan’ and ‘Yes’, have a unique structure where there are two sections in one song, or even two completely different songs within one song, right? J: 「Yeah, “Lovers In Japan / Reign of Love” and “Yes / Chinese Sleep Chant” are the idea that you can buy two for the price of one.」

Haha. C: 「Do they have them in Japanese supermarkets? When you buy a can of soup, you get another one as an extra. That's why I stole the idea from the supermarket business (laughs). People keep complaining about the music industry, so I decided to put in an extra song without telling them. And somehow they allowed me to do that.」

So you had too many ideas for songs, and as a result, that's how you came up with the concept? C: 「No, it wasn't like that, it was really a sincere desire to get more value for the same price. It's a very simple desire. If people are going to buy an album, let's put as much as we can into it.」

The last track, ‘Death and All His Friends’, is also wonderful. The beginning of the song, which opens with Chris' plaintive vocals and single-note guitar, could literally be a metaphor for death or resignation, but then the no-effects guitar kicks in and breaks the flow! The rhythm section then rushes in, and suddenly the song takes off into a vital, almost raw metaphor for life. C: 「I'm glad you hear it that way. It starts off in a typical Coldplay style. I think this song is a message that runs through the whole album, so to speak. It's a message that no matter which way you look at it, there's always sadness, but you have to keep a positive attitude. I think we'll probably sing that song at the end of the show. With the audience. We want to end every show with that message. Don't give up on life, even if it's hard.」

When I listen to these songs, I would expect that the way you write songs has fundamentally changed from what you have done in the past. C: 「Yes, it did indeed. Working with Brian Eno and Marcus Dravs was a big part of it. And then our secret fifth member, our manager Phil. He would tell us to do this and do that. They all pushed us to break the routine. Phil, for example, is very happy when we come up with songs with different elements. Things that you wouldn't expect. And of course Brian responds very well to that. Brian's life as an artist is a series of things that no one expects. If it had been another producer, I would have tried to go in the opposite direction. I would have tried to go in the opposite direction, like, ‘I want something simpler’. But the people who were with me this time encouraged me to incorporate different elements.」

"They said, 'You can't get any bigger, so you're going to have to improve the quality.' I felt like I'm in an incredibly privileged position and I'd be a fool if I didn't keep refining it (Chris)."

During the making of your last album, X&Y, you said that you guys were on the verge of burnout because you couldn't stay motivated to keep the band going. You also said that a ‘heavy, cold silence’ prevailed within the band. If X&Y was born out of that kind of adversity, what was your mental state at the time of making this album? C: 「We were very hungry and excited by the possibilities. We felt free to do whatever we wanted and we wanted to move away from the sound we had created up to ‘X&Y’—I think this happens in any field, but it's true that by the middle of the X&Y tour, apart from enjoying the shows, I felt like we needed to start afresh in a lot of ways. We had to find new techniques, new sounds, and work with new people. Otherwise, it would be the same old thing over and over again. And that can happen very easily.」

I think it's interesting that you were actually able to get out of that situation and go into this album with the attitude of being free to try anything. Because, normally, I think the situation Coldplay is facing is not an extraordinary pressure. And I don't think you guys are so obtuse as to be able to enjoy that success with open arms, just because you're a band that's had a string of astronomical sales, like 10 million copies or something like that. C: 「Yeah…… We felt like we had to go to a higher level than we are now. So…… I was like, we can't get any bigger, so we've just got to get better in quality. I'm in an incredibly privileged position, so I felt like I'd be a fool if I didn't keep on improving and getting better and better and better at it.」 J: 「I needed to invest in myself. And this place [The Bakery, their band space] is the fruit of our success so to speak. This place has freed us up. It's given us a platform for the band and freed us up creatively.」 C: 「In a small space like the Bakery, no one is famous, no one is more successful than anyone else, and there are no people we don't want to be around. In this building we're just a four or five-piece, unremarkable band, and the only thing that determines if we're happy or not is if the music is sounding good that day. Everything else - success, money, negative and positive - is pushed out of the building and doesn't come in here. I think that's really great. Because we were starting to feel a lot of pressure. Especially around the time we made this last album, we were feeling………… (ambulance sirens blaring in the background on the main street)」

That kind of feeling? C: 「Yeah, yeah. That's exactly how the alarm sounded.」

Has the driving force that drives you into music changed since the days of “Parachutes”? J: 「I don't think the things that drive us to listen to music and play it ourselves have changed. The actual music we play and the kind of music we like has changed a lot though. At least in my case.」 C: 「I always think that when you listen to music or play music, each song is somehow a way of understanding the world and making sense of it. Of course I'm never convinced, but music has always been a safe escape for me. It's a magical world where anything is possible, where you can talk about any emotion, and you can be in any state in a song. So what drives me to music is because it feels so good. That's why I don't think music itself can be a vicious force in this world, even if the emotions are the worst. I don't think what drives music in that sense has changed at all. When a lot of other things are involved - you know, fame, money, and so on. Of course money means something up to a certain point, but when you get to the point where you can eat every day and feed your family, well, you know. I've met people who are billionaires, but they're not necessarily happier than people who work and earn money on the street. But the music never disappoints. It's funny, just listening to four minutes of music makes you think the world is not so bad. It's amazing.」

There are some very impressive new innovations in this album, such as North African Arabic rhythms and Latin music-style guitars. Where did you get the idea to incorporate these elements? J: 「I had been listening to various types of music for a long time, but until recently I didn't feel that it was okay to incorporate them. There's always a risk when you introduce a new sound. You know, you could get mocked…」 C: 「And get a big embarrassment…」 J: 「Yeah, a big embarrassment (laughs).」 C: 「Thank God, Brian Eno was with us. He made me feel like there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what I tried. If it had been anyone else, they would have said, "No, there's no way four white British guys can handle that kind of rhythm". That's how it was, so first of all, Will started to bang out some weird stuff on the drums…… Really, it was like that opened up our cage.」

So, what music or artists influenced you in the making of this album? C: 「Ok, so I'll list ten. I would say I listened to Tinariwen, a North African band, Rammstein from Germany, then I listened to INXS, Chopin, Jay-Z, Björk, Donna Summer, Luis Miguel from Mexico and I really listened to all kinds of music from all over the world. Then I started listening to Chinese music and stuff like that…… It's weird that I haven't talked about this much when I think about it, but I was really listening to all kinds of stuff. And then sometimes, music like Radiohead or Bob Dylan or however you want to call it. That's the great thing about the internet, you can get any music from any country.」

The image of Brian Eno is that of someone who points the way to a new path when an authentic guitar band is at a crossroads of leaps and bounds. What effect has he actually had on this album? C: 「Excitement, hunger, freedom……. Raw sexuality.」 J: 「Confidence. And also boredom right off the bat.」 C: 「I always have to keep him amused or he leaves (laughs). It's quite a big job to impress him. On the other hand, Marcus squeezes us hard and concentrates on actually getting all the emotions on tape. Brian's kind of a melancholy guy, he doesn't like to focus on recording. But Marcus is like, ‘OK, I'll put this in’, and he makes sure he gets the point across. We needed both of them.」 J: 「It's like Brian sows the seeds and Marcus reaps the fruit.」 C: 「Or you could say Brian makes the babies and Marcus nurtures them.」 J: 「(Explosive laughter)」

(laughs). I think the three albums from ‘Parachutes’ to ‘X&Y’ are in a way albums that exist on a single road. In contrast, this album is the beginning of the second chapter of Coldplay - or is it? C: 「Yeah, yeah. That's what we were going for. And all good things come in sets of three.」

Compared to the distance between, say, ‘Parachutes’ and ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’, or ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’ and ‘X&Y’, how far would you say the distance between ‘X&Y’ and this album was? C: 「It was already a completely different mentality.」 J: 「Like you said, we broke what we did with the first three albums and put it back together again in a different way. So this is the first album that shows the new us.」 C: 「I'm very proud of the first three albums as well. Especially ‘X&Y’, which we've always said negative things about ourselves, but it's actually a very gratifying album. It was through that album that we went through a difficult period and came out the other side. But you know, I'm negative about it myself, sometimes. So I dare to say it.」

"It's inevitably going to be songs with big over-the-top themes. It's all about space and kings and stuff like that. I guess I want to go to a different world from the everyday (Chris)."

Was what Eno did an update of Coldplay's methodology or was it something that subverted and, in a way, destroyed Coldplay's methodology? C: 「For example, Brian has a set of cards, and when we're improvising and jamming and stuff, he'll pull one out of it at random and show it to us. There are all sorts of cards, like ‘play more intelligently’ or ‘don't use your favourite chords’. We also brought in a hypnotist for a while to see what would happen, and we recorded for a while in a convent in Barcelona. We were taken out on excursions like that, to see other bands, to see art works. It was like having a teacher with us. It was great.」

What is the theme of the album? The title of the album, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends, is the title of two songs included in the album (‘Viva La Vida/Beautiful Life/美しき生命’ and ‘Death And All His Friends/Visions Of Life/生命の幻影 ). Why did you choose this title? C: 「We've been doing this band for seven years now, and whenever people listen to our music, some people say they get “very excited” and some say they get “very depressed”. It's funny when you think about it. So I decided to give the album two titles, so that the listener can call it either way, depending on his or her mood. There used to be a book for sale in England that said the ending depended on the reader's choice…」 J: 「Oh, the kind where if you said yes, you could go on to page 5. ‘Fighting Fantasy’.」 C: 「Oh yeah! We always call it [the album] ‘Viva La Vida’ (It's a Wonderful Life), but you can call it ‘Death and All His Friends’ if you like (laughs). It comes from the point of view that you can do whatever you want. At the same time, having two completely opposite titles reflects the lyrics well, and the world is such a strange place that it's easy to get disheartened. The title is a message to us as a band, that no matter how depressing things get, never give up, never get beaten down. It's easy to say, "Oh no, it's over". But we don't want to do that.」

I feel that conflicting elements and values continue to be presented throughout the album, including the sound development of this album, which has many key changes and dramatic differences in emotional highs and lows. Are these themes intentional? C: 「Yes… My uncle passed away last October. I went to the funeral, and of course it was very sad, but there were all my relatives there that I hadn't seen for years. So it was a sad scene of death, but also a scene full of life, with all my cousins and children. At that time I didn't know whether I should feel guilty or not. Because, in part, I had enjoyed the day. There was a weird duality there. And I think that's also reflected in the title.」

Do you think there are clear ‘contrasts’ between opposing elements, for example, colour and monochrome, despair and hope, joy and sadness, sacred and profane, and life and death? Or would you say that it is in a way an attempt to ‘merge’ conflicting emotions, such as that hope exists in despair, or conversely, that there can be no perfect hope and that there is a certain amount of despair? C: 「I don't know…… It's difficult for me to comment that much…… I always felt that I couldn't write a song about cooking or something like that. For some reason, I end up writing songs with more over-the-top themes. I wish I could write a good song about salt and pepper, but no matter how many times I try, it just doesn't work.」

So you had no choice but to write a song about life and death. J: 「Hahahaha!」 C: 「It's all about space and kings and stuff like that. I want to sing about things that are far away from everyday life. I guess I want to go to a different world from my daily life in my songs. There are songwriters in the world who depict everyday life as it is. But for me, I was always dreaming about things like flying in the sky, or having dreams like this or that.」

Translator’s Note: Yes, I know. The pictures featured inside the magazine were their X&Y era outfits, but this magazine article was VERY early on before Viva La Vida was going to be released, so the pictures eventually came later on the next interview, which I will translate soon.

At first, I assumed that the translation would just be as the usual that I expected. Namely, using the actual song titles that were originally written in English. But, as soon as I read through it, I realised that it was necessary to also provide the Japanese localised versions of the names of the album and songs as it’s part of understanding the interview itself.

I tried to search online for the answers to explain why these name localisations happen, but all I saw were people talking about why the Japanese market keeps offering bonus tracks in their local versions to discourage fans from importing CDs, which were cheaper. However, that in part connected to my question. Because bands/artists have to sign a contract with Japanese labels to distribute and sell their music in Japan, it also means that the distributors (labels) are responsible for translating the titles and lyrics in order for the Japanese fans to understand the contents of the songs.

But these distributors are still businesses so they want to gain profit from this. So if the distributors believe that changing the names of the albums and songs will help it sell more, then they’ll do it. Also, admittedly, sometimes the transliteration of said album titles might not convey the theme of the album as well as it did in the original language.

Say, for instance, ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’. When translated literally, it actually means ‘頭に血が上る/ Atamanichiganoboru / The blood rushes to the head’. So it still has the same meaning, but something about it probably made it sound like the name of a heavy metal album. So we may not know why the name change was done, but it happened and that’s how the Japanese got ‘静寂の世界/Shijima no Sekai / Silent World’ instead.

The localisation also depends on another factor, and that is whether the band/artist themselves approves of the name changes or not. But such a case is far less likely as it’s not as if they would want to personally check on the translations themselves. That said, over time, localising the album names has become less popular in Japan, and from Mylo Xyloto onwards, Coldplay’s latest albums have all been written in katakana.

Also, didn't expect this out of a Coldplay interview, but... "Raw sexuality" ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

#Chris Martin #Jonny Buckland #Coldplay #Viva La Vida era #giant puppy #potato #my scan #translation #interview #ROCKIN'ON #ROCKIN'ON July 2008

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