Worldpop.com Interview

Coldplay are Britain's brightest new band. Yellow crashed into this week's Top 5 and on Monday they release their debut album, Parachutes. worldpop chats to singer Chris Martin about being pop's newest star...

Yellow went straight in the charts at Number Four. Was it a surprise?

"You're telling me! We were in Holland, playing to people who had never heard of us and we felt lost cos we'd never played out of England. Then our Manager came in and said it was Top 5 and we couldn't believe it!"

"We'd had a few days off so we weren't together on the day but we'd had all the midweeks in. We were hoping it would stay in the Top 10 so all week we were happy cos we weren't expecting it to go near the Top 10! There's been a lot of hand shaking going on."

'This time last month a lot of people didn't know who Coldplay were and now you're a big pop star!

"I don't think we are though. I still have to spell the name of our band three times a day and people go, 'Nah, never heard of you.' We're not that big, we're not The Vengaboys. Mind you we are higher than The Vengaboys! I wouldn't say we were very big though and we're certainly not as big as Travis."

"Not really. It must be a bit odd. I think it's great for them but it just puts us into perspective. We've got a long way to go."

"That's nonsense. It's not the sound at all, it's just that I talk in between songs, that's all it is."

Do you not see any similarity with your songs? They're very open.

"Yeah, but so are a million other people's. No one's been comparing us to Travis until the last three weeks. It's more Travis than Radiohead now. I just talk between songs about things and sing songs about things, and Fran does the same."

"We all met when we were living in the same place at college. It was really exciting from the start. Me and Jonny, the guitarist, started writing songs and then we were saying, 'How did we do that?!' There seemed to be a magic going on. Then Guy and Will joined and it was special. Slowly it started going and going."

"I think we've got to be much more hard-skinned cos the bigger you are the harder everyone fires at you."

"A bit too personally. I hate reading them. I hate everything about the job except the music. I picked up our album today for the first time, with the finished artwork and everything and I was like, 'Oh my God! We've done an album!' but whenever I read a review I just hate it."

The album, Parachutes, is released next week. How are you expecting it to do?

"If we've learned anything from how Yellow's done then it's that you can't predict anything. I'm sure we'll come back with a single one day where everyone says, 'This is going to be Number One' and then it goes in at Number 52!"