Cold comfort

By REBECCA BARRY

Coldplay's guitarist is getting nervous. Jonny Buckland and his band-mates, frontman Chris Martin, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion are about to play a gig in Cleveland, home of America's Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, which featured in the classic rockumentary This is Spinal Tap. "Hello Cleveland!" is one of the film's funniest lines.

But Buckland isn't feeling very rock'n'roll. He is insecure about his facial hair. Martin has a sore leg. Worst of all, they don't know how many punters have turned up.

For one of Britain's biggest bands and most notorious group of worrywarts, touring America is enough to make an already follicle-conscious Martin lose another millimetre from his hairline.

"It's a big country and you can be big in one place and nothing everywhere else," says Buckland over the backstage clatter.

"It's even difficult for American bands. When we first started coming over we did quite well in New York and LA, but they were the only places we could do well in at all. Everywhere else, people wouldn't turn up."

Perhaps that shouldn't concern a band who have already sold five million copies of their 2000 debut (53,000 in New Zealand), while last year's follow-up, A Rush of Blood to the Head (41,000 in New Zealand), is on track to repeat those figures.

In Britain and Australasia they have been hailed as pop music's great white hope and are praised with the hyperbole used to describe Travis, Radiohead, even the Beatles. But that's not enough for a band whose ambition is to become the biggest in the world.

"The ultimate goal is to make the best records ever made and to do the best concerts ever done," says Buckland. "And if that means that we'll do well in America, then great. If we didn't do well in America we'd always feel like we should try. We do that anyway if we feel we're not doing as well in other places."

The publicity campaign to make them huge in the States has begun in earnest, no doubt aided by Martin's recent engagement to Gwyneth Paltrow. Coldplay's English complexions beam from huge billboards throughout the country. Celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt were among those invited to two sold-out gigs at LA's Hollywood Bowl. Their songs have started turning up on TV, most recently on the American comedy-drama Six Feet Under.

But Coldplay don't want to be known for all of that. They have turned down lucrative deals with soft drink companies and try to keep their feet on the ground by avoiding reading their own press.

"It's nice that celebrities come to our gigs and stuff," says Buckland, unassumingly, "but they're just, you know, normal people."

He still finds the notion of his own fame strange. "Quite often we do our best to come across as boring," he laughs of interviews. "We feel like we've been exposed as normal guys now, so anything we do that's interesting will seem like, 10 times as interesting as anyone else.

"I had one girl come up to me at the end of a gig who was surprised that I was almost normal. I thought that was quite sweet. Well, what did she actually think I'd be like?"

He describes Martin, on the other hand, as an intense personality. "He worries a lot. He worries enough for the four of us. We never have to worry because he has usually worried about something at least twice as much as us."

After Parachutes and the huge success of their first single, Martin fretted he would forever be known as "the Yellow guy", but A Rush of Blood To The Head soon put that to rest. Critics described it as beautiful, beguiling and more musically adventurous than their first album.

Bittersweet songs such as In My Place, Politik and The Scientist have become stadium anthems that verify what Buckland calls a "certain worry level" in the band. So, too, has God Put A Smile On Your Face, in which Martin implores, "Where do we go? Nobody knows".

"I worry about what we're going to do for our next album," Buckland agrees.

The band already have enough material for their next recording, which he promises will be "different - we are always wanting to try new things."

For that reason he never listens to his own albums. "I don't expect I ever will, but maybe when I'm about 50. It's like watching yourself have sex."

Coldplay also invest a fair amount of time perturbing over life's bigger questions.

"I'm gonna buy a gun and start a war if you can find something worth fighting for," Martin proclaims on their second album's title track.

So they did, joining organisations such as Greenpeace, Planetsave, Oxfam, Future Forests, Wateraid and Amnesty International. They are particularly involved with Fair Trade, which is committed to improving the trading conditions of Third World producers. Last year Martin went on a mission to Haiti to promote the cause.

"We didn't want to advertise shoes or something," says Buckland. "So we decided to advertise other stuff. We talk about [the organisations]. I think that's the most important thing we can do.

"Fair Trade seems like an important issue and it affects billions of people. It affects the way we live our lives and the reason so many people live in poverty traps."

When war broke out against Iraq, Martin let loose a "make love not war" spiel at one of their gigs. He was later criticised about it by outspoken Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, who seemed to think it wasn't their place to trumpet their ideas.

It came as a surprise, as Gallagher had stuck up for the band when industry mogul Alan McGee famously denounced them as "bedwetters middle class, sensitive and lacking in essential 'tude".

Buckland reckons the Gallagher statement has been blown out of proportion, but Martin has publicly acknowledged the McGee comment as an encouraging "kick up the arse". Ever since, he has been trying to prove him wrong.

Indeed, the band are well-educated. They met in the late 90s at London's University College where they all fared well in their exams.

It was within the walls of Buckland's bedsit that they would bash out the chords to Ode to Deodorant, a song about commitment, one that won't let you down, they would jest, and High Speed, about a washing machine.

They recorded their first EP, Safety, which sold out its 500 copies. Two other EPs followed, one with Parlophone Records. When Parachutes was released, the company's A&R man hoped it would sell 40,000.

Since their surprisingly phenomenal success Coldplay have been branded miserablists, but brushed off the jibes with a renewed sense of motivation. In fact, they seem to need the backlash.

"Half the time we are extremely arrogant about what we have done and what we do and how good we are. I mean, we think we're amazing," says Buckland.

"But the other half we think, 'Why the hell are we here? How can we possibly do any better? It's rubbish, we're rubbish, we don't deserve to be here.'

"That keeps us trying to make better things. And the other half gives us the confidence to go on stage and actually do it in the first place."

* Coldplay plays Auckland Showgrounds, Thurs July 24.

* See E4 on details of how to win Coldplay tickets and CDs.