Chris


Name: Chris Martin
Date of Birth: 2 March 1977
Place of Birth: Exeter, (Devon, UK)
Instruments: Vocals, acoustic guitar, piano/keyboard, harmonica
Schooling: University College London (first in Ancient World Studies)
Previous Bands: The Rockin' Honkies, The Red Rooster Boogie Band and Pectoralz
Musical Tastes: Sparklehorse, The Flaming Lips, Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young
Quotes: "Rock'n'roll is about doing what the fuc* you want. It doesn't have to be about doing huge amounts of drugs or being hedonistic. It's about not caring what anyone else thinks of you. Rock'n'roll is about the seeking of the ultimate pleasure. For us, that means hanging around together and playing music that we all love and not being afraid to say that's why we're doing it. We're a little too frank sometimes, and not as concerned with all the other stuff as we should be. That's fine, though. We just get on with doing it. We don't want to live up to anybody else's cliche."
"It started out as a joke really. We were up at Rockfield Studios in Wales and I came up with this melody. I started trying to sing like Neil Young, just cos the song had the word 'stars' and that seemed like a word you should sing in a Neil Young voice. It's funny how things happen." - Chris on 'Yellow'


"We're happier than pigs in s*i*, to be honest." ~ on the band's sudden success


"See, I read more bad stuff about our album than good. I really don't know what I think. There are some nights I love playing it, and some nights I hate it. I know at the time we made it I thought it was a great record because it has soul and passion but also melody. But then six months later, after you've played it X number of times, and some people like it and some people hate it... you're kind of confused yourself. It's like a child -- how can you possibly be objective? I would never listen to it. Once something's done, I don't want to hear it again, because I'd just worry about it."
~ on how critism has interrupted his judgment


"For about three years, I was very into survival stuff with my friend James. We would build camps around the garden until we found a dormouse in one of them. Was I in a band? I'd say"
"We just want the songs to reflect reality"
"Everything we do is about the songs. Quality songwriting, that's all we care about. When you hear a quality song it stands out so much from the rest of the music out there. You just know when something is great ... We're not Brian Wilsons yet but everybody in the band writes and wants to get a few more songs on the next album so that's good because we push each other to get better"


“It’s like when bacon, and eggs, and mushrooms, and chips are put on the same plate. It becomes something greater than the individual parts. It becomes a cohesive whole, that’s tasty. Our sound is tasty that’s what our sound is!” ~ on describing the band


Guy




Name: Guy Berryman
Date of Birth: 12 April 1978
Place of Birth: Kirkcaldy (Fife, Scotland)
Instruments: Bass guitar.
Schooling: University College London (Engineering degree, dropped out after one year)
Previous Bands: Time Out
Musical Tastes: James Brown, Kool & The Gang, funk and soul.
Qoutes: "It was guitar and keyboards...we played terrible, terrible stuff. The best musician in the group was really into Genesis. We would agonise for hours trying to work out horrible prog rock stuff with ridiculous solos. We never got anywhere near it - we'd muck about and make a noise." - Guy on Time Out
"Some music comes from struggle, but more basic than that is a fundamental love of music."
"Someone I got the wrong impression of when I first met. He's not as scary as he looks - he's a lot nicer. The dark member of the band. Everyone thinks he's moody. Soft-spoken is better." - Chris on Guy


"It’s exciting. You put that bit extra into playing for a crowd who don’t know you and your music. We try to make an impression, we always try and make an impression. We just want to get our music across"


"We will never stop trying to make our live sound better. You make recordings and you play live constantly. We want to perform the songs as tight as we can."


"Sometimes when you're on the road you're constantly awake and the doing the most stupid things amuses you. How long that'll last for I don't know."
~ on how being in a band has changed him


"The comparisons to Radiohead don’t bother me. We’re kind of clued up enough to understand that as a new band we’re going to be compared to big stars. The easiest way for a journalist to describe a band is to compare it to somebody else. So we expected comparisons to Radiohead, not because we’re trying to be like them, or emulate them, but because it's obvious that we have a similar line-up with a similar style of music. Like them, we're very melodic with a dynamic vocal range. Chris and Thom Yorke can sing high and low with great strength and that’s what people associate us with. "
~ on the band's constant comparison to Radiohead


"Well it’s not like... You know, it’s not Spinal Tap by any means. But, no, we’ve all got girlfriends. We try and keep away from all that to avoid temptations, as they might say."~ on dealing with female fans


"Music is a personal, individual thing, and the fact that we write pretty strong songs with melodies is good enough"
"The bigger the afro, the better the record " ~ on R&B music

Jon


Name: Jonny Buckland
Date of Birth: 11 September 1977
Place of Birth: London...now Mold (North Wales)
Instruments: Electric guitar.
Schooling: University College London (2.1 in maths and astronomy)
Previous Bands: None
Musical Likes: The Stone Roses, Ride
Quotes: "Yes, it's not an area you really associate with music. But Rhys Ifans is from around there." Jon on Mold
"Talented. Funny. Great guitarist." - Chris on Jonny
"If this all ended tomorrow, we'd still be doing it"

Will


Name: Will Champion
Date of Birth: 31 July 1978
Place of Birth: Southampton, (Hampshire, UK)
Instruments: Drums
Schooling: University College London (2.1 in anthropology)
Previous Bands: Fat Hamster
Musical Tastes: Irish folk
Quotes: "Yes, happy times, it's my socio-biology lecturer I remember best. He was always saying he had enough material
to give a six-week lecture course on the masturbatory behaviour of gorillas."
"Ah, yes, dear old Bungle, and best of all George - the nation's first explicitly gay TV puppet. I wonder what happened to
George?"
"Will's dad is like the Michael Jackson of archaeology" - Chris
"Will is like a human jukebox, he's more a guitarist than a drummer. Me and Will used to sit on the stairs at our halls of residence and he'd know more songs than anyone. You name it, he'd play it." - Chris
"He's extremely strong, extremely funny, extremely good at stuff - he's particularly good at Michael Owen impressions. What's the word? Trustworthy." - Guy