"This album was fuelled by a desire to move from black
and white into colour," says Coldplay frontman Chris Martin. "Or, if
you like, we decided to let our garden grow a little more unkempt. The bloodhound
was let off its leash."
However you might describe it, there's
no mistaking the artistic leap which 'Viva La Vida' represents for the four friends
collectively known as Coldplay. "I think it's our boldest and most confident
record," says bassist Guy Berryman. "We were much more open to new ideas
and influences and much less afraid to experiment." "It can be easy
to stop yourself from trying things because you're scared of what people might
say," adds Martin, "but we forced ourselves not to do that."
The result is a record where groovesome programmed beats jostle with grand
swells of church organ ('Lost!'), where the space between verse and chorus is
filled with deliciously propulsive stabs of North African-styled strings and tablas
('Yes'), where breezy Flamenco handclaps drive a tale of gloom and despair ('Cemeteries
Of London'), or where four-to-the-floor rhythms meld with weeping strings for
an ode to lost glories ('Viva La Vida'). It sounds like Coldplay, only different.
"The starting point for this album was listening to an amazing
old Blur song called 'Sing (To Me)' while we were on the road with 'X&Y',"
says Martin, referring to a pounding, hypnotic track from Blur's first album.
"I remember hearing it and thinking, 'OK, we need to get better as a band'."
The first song for Coldplay's new album was written the very next day.
"I'm driven by two things," Martin continues. "One is trying to
make sense of existence. The other is when I hear something brilliant, trying
to write something as good as that. With this album, we were inspired by so much
amazing music. We'd listen to Rammstein and Tinariwen next to each other and the
result would be something like the middle bit of '42'. For another track, we'd
listen to Marvin Gaye and Radiohead. Or Jay-Z and the Golden Gate Trio. Or My
Bloody Valentine and Gerschwin. Or Delakota and Blonde Redhead. There were no
limitations."
"We've definitely stretched ourselves,"
says guitarist Jonny Buckland. But those sonic stretches didn't come at the expense
of the diamond-tipped melodies which have helped make Coldplay one of the world's
favourite bands since they released their debut album, 'Parachutes', in 2000.
'Viva…' might find Coldplay in experimental mood, but its 10 songs still
burst with big, life-affirming hooks and choruses. "I hope so," says
Buckland, "We've never been ashamed of tunes and we never will be."
"We're still obsessed with making songs that can be sung to the rafters,"
agrees Martin. "We just wanted to present them differently."
In that spirit, the band decided at the very beginning of the recording process
that 'Viva…' would be their shortest album. "We realised we hadn't really
listened to any albums all the way through for quite a long time," explains
Buckland, "the simple reason being that people put too many songs on them."
"So, although it meant leaving off some tracks that we love," says Martin,
"this album had to finish before an episode of CSI is over." Sure enough,
the band kept the album's ten tracks within their target of 42 minutes (though
additional hidden songs do bring the overall length to 46 minutes).
Another big change was that the band found themselves a permanent HQ; a former
bakery tucked down an anonymous alley opposite a north London council estate.
There, they could rehearse, write, work on artwork or just relax (the dartboard
proved particularly popular). As Buckland says, "It's the first time we've
had a proper band home since we were rehearsing in my student bedroom in 1999.
And it made a big difference."
"The Bakery has been an absolute
godsend," agrees drummer Will Champion. "We could come in every day,
with no pressure on time, and just work on our music. Previously, we'd think:
We've got a handful of songs, let's go into a big, expensive studio and start
recording. But then, we'd end up scrapping most of the stuff and having to start
again, because we hadn't spent enough time rehearsing or writing. With this record,
we spent months in The Bakery before going into a studio. We just demoed and played
and rehearsed and practiced, until things sounded great. We ended up much better
prepared for the actual recording, a lot of which we actually did in The Bakery
too."
From the start, the band were joined in The Bakery by the
album's two producers, Brian Eno and Markus Dravs. "It was Brian's idea to
work with us," says Martin. "I would often meet up with him for tea
and start playing tabla machines and that just turned into a year's worth of production.
Then Markus came through Win from Arcade Fire, after he worked on 'Neon Bible'.
Win said, 'You should work with this guy cos he'll whip you into shape'."
Eno and Dravs pooled their talents to form something of a production
dream team in the studio. "They're both very different characters,"
explains Berryman, "they really balanced each other out." As Win Butler
had implied, Dravs was a harsh task master. "He worked us like dogs,"
grins Buckland. "Everything had to be done to his exacting standards. He
really pushed us as musicians, to get us to the point where we could record a
lot of the album live." And that's exactly what they did. "I would say
about 80 percent of what you hear was recorded with the four of us in a circle,
playing together," says Martin. "That's a pretty unusual way to record
these days, but it's the ultimate fun of being in a band."
Eno,
meanwhile, provided the inspiration and confidence Coldplay needed to develop
their sound. "He completely disrupted the formula," says Champion. "He
forced us to change everything about our usual way of working and then see where
that would take us. Brian has this amazing ability to demystify wonderful music
and make it seem very achievable. We weren't afraid to try anything."
And that means anything; be it relocating to Barcelona to record group vocals
in ancient churches, or inviting a hypnotist into The Bakery. "That was a
good day," says Champion. "He talked us through this process of extreme
self-relaxation and the possibilities of what you can do when you're in a state
where there are no constraints on your imagination. Then we went back downstairs
and played some music. There was some hope that we'd be able to regress into some
Tudor madrigal or something!"
Sadly, that didn't happen, nor did
any of the resulting music make it onto the album, but the band still found it
a worthwhile experience. "I was buzzing for weeks," says Champion. "It
just backed up what Brian always says about not being afraid to experiment and
try things you haven't done before."
"Brian brought so much
to this album," agrees Martin. "For starters, he actually played on
a lot of it. But he brought life, freedom, drive, distortion, excitement, oddness,
madness, sexuality, geekiness and Roxyness. All of those things. He's amazing."
Another crucial presence in the studio for 'Viva…' was the band's
close friend and former manager, Phil Harvey. He's the person you'll see listed
as Coldplay's fifth member in the booklet accompanying both 'Viva…' and their
multi-award winning second record, 2002's 'A Rush Of Blood To The Head'. Yet,
when the band had made their third album, 2005's 'X&Y', Harvey was absent,
living in Australia.
"With our last album, we missed our editor
and our fifth member, because he was a few thousand miles too far away,"
says Martin. "Some of the songs on that record are great, but we needed someone
to say, relax, take this out, don't worry about this. Phil's like an overlord
figure for us." "He was the biggest difference of all on this record,
I think," adds Buckland. "We missed him so much on the last one. He's
our wise man, sounding board, buffer zone, everything. It's amazing how much easier
things are when he's around."
Which certainly isn't to say that
making 'Viva…' was trouble-free. Coldplay have always put themselves through
the mill to make their records, and 'Viva…' was no exception. "It's
actually been more of a roller-coaster than ever," says Martin. "I think
if you want to make something good, you have to suffer for it. And we went through
every emotion you can dream of. Except sloth. We haven't really gone through that.
But everything else. And I think you can hear that in the finished product."
'Viva La Vida' takes its title from the extremes of emotions that fuel
it. This is an album characterised by loss and uncertainty, travel and time, happiness
and regrets. "I'm not sure if it's bi-polar syndrome, but we definitely have
something going on in our heads which is as much down as it is up," says
Martin. "Unfortunately it's uncontrollable. I wrote these songs in both states;
they're up and down and all over the place. There was no lyrical plan, they just
come out like that. But they're rallying cries too. There's always love, joy and
excitement in our music."
That much is obvious from the giddy rush
of 'Lovers In Japan' or the sweet carnal bliss of 'Strawberry Swing'. But it's
clear, too, from the insistent hope of a track like '42' ("There must be
something more") or the spine-tingling group-sung climax to 'Death And All
His Friends'. "We're never going to lose the desire to be optimistic,"
says Martin.
What then, of Coldplay's ambitions for 'Viva…'? "I
wanted this record to prove us worthy of the position we've been given,"
says Martin. "And there's no question that we've come out of this process
a better band; whatever anyone makes of the record, when we play live, we're gonna
be on fire. But, ultimately, however cerebral you try to get about it, this album
is there to entertain people; to provide 42 minutes of enjoyment, with ten great
songs that will each be somebody's favourite. I'm really hopeful that we've achieved
that."
