As Coldplay take a short break from their mammoth Music of the Spheres tour - the band have been on the road since 2022 and won’t wrap up until September 2025, believe it or not - frontman Chris Martin has been discussing his approach to songwriting.
“Songs pop up everywhere,” he tells Rolling Stone. “They wake you up, songs. They’re always a surprise to me. Sometimes the title is way ahead, and it’s waiting for the song to come, the right song.”
Martin says that this was what happened with one of Coldplay’s biggest hits: “There were about six shitty Viva La Vidas, and then the actual one.”
He adds that he can relate to the idea - one voiced by many other writers - that when inspiration strikes, you have to act on it.
“Paul Simon, who I love speaking to, will say, ‘I’m not writing anything. But then I wake up and there’s a song knocking on the door. And I have to get out and do it.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know that feeling.’”
As for where that inspiration comes from, Martin says that other artists are often the source: “Every year there’s someone that comes, an artist or a song, an album that just puts you in your place and makes you humbled and then inspired,” he confirms. “What’s it been this year? Chappell Roan? I hope she’s OK. It’s hard for the younger ones, especially when they’re on their own.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Martin discusses his love of storytelling, claiming to be “as obsessed with Mary Poppins as I am with Radiohead,” and reiterates that there will be just two more Coldplay albums before the band becomes a touring-only operation.
Suggesting that the last record will sound more like the band’s debut than their more recent, pop-focused efforts - such as 2024's Moon Music - he says: “The cover of the album, I’ve known it since 1999. It’s a photograph by the same photographer that took the photo that’s the cover of our first EP.”
