A Day in the Life of...

Disastrous gigs and studio nightmares haven't stopped Coldplay from becoming one of the biggest guitar bands on the planet. Guitarist Jonny Buckland reveals how their new album is progressing...

Jonny Buckland ambles into Coldplay's North London rehearsal room looking extremely relaxed. Wearing jeans and a denim jacket, his hair is rather shaggy, his stubble has passed six o'clock shadow and is fast approaching twilight, and it's reasonable to assume that he wasn't at home last night watching TV with a cup of cocoa.

Coldplay may have been dubbed rock's 'bed-wetters' by former Creation boss Alan McGee, but ask Jonny about the band's squeaky-clean nice boy image and his dismissal is swift. "I don't know whether it's true or not, but I don't really see myself in that at all."

He's followed in to the room by drummer Will, who immediately heads for the mixing desk to play Jonny a drum pattern he's been working on. They talk, Will twiddles a few knobs, they laugh, they discuss who's going to win Big Brother, and suddenly you feel as though you're watching a nature programme, an intimate portrayal of creatures in their natural habitat.

The band's gear has already been set up in preparation for this afternoon's practice. A quick glance around reveals a couple of 335s and a selection of Takamines, all generally used by singer/guitarist Chris Martin, while a rack along the studio wall gathers Jonny's collection; a brace of Teles, a walnut ES335, a Jaguar and an old beaten-up Jazzmaster.

His pedalboard houses the usual suspects, BOSS delay and tremolo, wah, Rat and a Line 6 DM4, while over by the back wall a pair of Fender Twins glimmers in the spotlights.

It wasn't until late 1999/early 2000, during the recording of the band's multi-million selling debut album Parachutes, that Jonny (left) settled on his chosen equipment. "I tried out quite a bit of gear at that time," he explains a little later, after Will has headed off in search of refreshment. "I was going in every morning messing with different stuff and I just really liked the Twin.

It can be really warm and you can also make it sound really dirty, but in a strange way that's not horribly distorted. I had the Teles before this point, and I added the Jag.

Chris (right) also bought a really nice old Jazzmaster around that time and I started using it, although it's still the Tele you'll hear on most of the tracks that made it on to the album; 'Don't Panic', 'Spies', 'Everything's Not Lost', 'Trouble' and 'High Speed'. I played the Jag on 'Yellow' and 'Shiver' and the Jazzmaster on 'Sparks' and 'We Never Change'."

Later Jonny will reveal he's recently been experimenting with a 335 ("It's the loudest guitar I've ever played"), but for now let's return to the band's humble beginnings."It was a Westone," smiles Jonny, "amazingly loud". Yep, like many other fine guitarists, Coldplay's main man began his guitar explorations on a good budget Japanese guitar. Sadly his early attempts to form a band never really got off the ground - "at 13/14 you spend most of the time trying to think of a name or drawing album covers rather than actually doing anything" - and it wasn't until he left the soggy climbs of Mold in North East Wales and headed off to university in London that things started to take off.

Having met Chris Martin (Coldplay's wide-eyed singer/guitarist) within the first two days of starting university, the band took shape quickly with the addition of bassist Guy (left) and multi-instrumentalist Will Champion, who gave Jonny his blue Telecaster and took up residence behind the drum kit.

They played their first gig at the now defunct Laurel Tree in Camden in January1998, but it was due to a gig mix-up a few months later that the band found a manager and financial backer. "Chris had an old school friend called Phil who used to come up and visit him.

We wanted to do a gig at Dingwalls in Camden and we had arranged it so we were headlining and a couple of mates' bands were also playing on the bill. Then, about two weeks before the gig, the promoter turned round and said, Actually there are eight bands playing, you're fifth on the bill, you've got a 15 minute set and you don't get any money, just 10p from each flyer.

So we said, Phil, will you be our manager. He agreed, phoned the promoter up to say we weren't playing, then hired the venue out the next night with his own money. Thankfully we made it all back, so he then paid for us to do our first record at a little studio in Tottenham called Sync City."

The band recorded 3 tracks, which were released as the 'Safety' EP. Around 500 copies were pressed, most of which were sent to record companies, and these collectable items now change hands for around £150. A number of memorable gigs followed.

"I remember we played at the illustrious Wye Farming college in Kent at an end of term ball. We were supposed to be on first before Space but there were all these problems with the fire regulations, so everything got put back. In the end Space went on first at around 11 o'clock, and then some other band and then another, and by this time it was three in the morning.

When we started playing everyone was either asleep or staggering around. There were about two people watching and this man kept walking on the stage and dancing in a very bizarre way.

"Then just after that we played at the In The City event in Manchester, and it was disastrous. First of all I had left all my pedals in Devon - in the end they were given to a long distance lorry driver who was going to Darlington and Phil had to drive to there to pick them up the morning of the gig. We were first on in a tiny little cafe, the lowest of the low, and we had a really arsey sound man who just wanted to go for a beer. We were like, We want to have a good sound. And he was like, Hurry up, I want a beer. That night I completely forgot the first part of the first song and it was downhill from then on."

But things soon picked up. The band were spotted by Simon Williams from Fierce Panda records in December, and the label released the band's next single (Brothers And Sisters) early the following year. Then Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq approached the band to record a session for his evening show. The boys were all still at university.

"I was never a big attender," laughs Jonny. "We would rehearse most evenings and I'd always put the band first. By April we'd decided we wanted to sign to Parlophone, and then we did our exams!"

Having finished their formal education, the band began their rock and roll scholarship supporting Catatonia at the London Kentish Town Forum. "That was incredible, it was huge. It was one of our best gigs and we were amazed at the size of their rider. They had JD and tequila, it really gave us something to aspire to."

Their first Glastonbury performance followed, after which the boys headed into the studio to record an EP and start demoing album tracks. With a deal signed and sealed and some money in their pockets, it should have been a great time for band. Sadly, it wasn't. "That was a really, really depressing time.

We were like, Oh yes, we've signed a record deal, and then we had to take the tube every day down to Elephant and Castle. It was boiling hot that summer, the trains were screwed, and it was taking an hour and a half to get to the studio. We were so excited, and it started off well, but by the end we were tearing our hair out, getting nothing achieved.

"We had a producer who was pulling us in a certain direction and we were kind of pulling against it. Half pulling against it and half going, Well at least he's got a sound!"

The acclaimed Blue Room EP (featuring two tracks from the Safety EP plus three newies) was all the band had to show for their two month studio stint, but they continued to tour and rehearse, deciding they would co-produce in the future. After completing the NME Brat tour in January 2000, they headed back to the studio and the songs started to flow.

"We only had a week in the studio but we got three songs recorded exactly how we wanted them and really surprised ourselves," remembers Jonny. "It was still a bit of a struggle from there but it was much better. The recording was broken up with a tour in the middle which helped, but things seemed to be coming together. We were much happier."

Another single ('Shiver') was released in February, giving the band their first top 40 hit, but it was during their next tour supporting Muse that things really took off. Or to put it another way, it all went Yellow.

"During that tour the song had started to get radio play and by the time we played Glastonbury, it was in the shops. It was huge. Two weeks later we did T in the Park and that was just unbelievable. We'd been on the bus for 24 hours driving up from South East France - we'd done a festival there - and we didn't have a clue what to expect. The place just went completely crazy."

And the rest, as they say, is history. Yellow went top five, becoming the summer's guitar anthem, and their debut album Parachutes entered the UK charts at number one. Over this whole period Jonny Buckland has developed into a fine guitarist. He's not a technical player, he'd be the first to admit that, but his ability to compliment a song without over-cooking it is a lesson to us all.

"It's quite fun to do the cheesy solos, but not on our songs," he claims. "I play around with stuff, do a bit of improvising, but only around the melody. I'm not really into the verse, chorus, verse, solo, chorus, chorus, end. George Harrison is one of my heroes, everything he did just made the song better, he did the odd solo but never too much. Just fitting the song, rather than, Look at me, spotlight please."

"I don't really have to use them because I don't do that many chords," he confesses. Trouble has a dropped D on the high E, but that's the only one I use. At the moment I'm just trying to learn how to play normal tunes properly.

"When Chris plays chords he does a lot more tuning. It can make a chord sound a hell of a lot better if you mess the tuning up a bit just to get the key you're playing in, lots of open strings and stuff. If you play Yellow in normal tuning it sounds terrible, it sounds like the most boring song ever. Just a couple of notes tuned makes a huge difference."

"The Big Day Out (in Australia) was really good actually. I saw loads of bands. Margaret who plays with PJ Harvey, she's amazing. And Josh from Queens Of The Stone Age, the big guy with his Ampeg, he creates such a huge sound. Plus that guy from the Flaming Lips, he's incredible, just completely natural. You take bits from everywhere and often you don't even realise it. I try not to get stuck in a rut and do the same things all the time. You've always got to try and avoid that and move on, try to listen to different stuff and get different ideas."

Talking of fresh ideas, Coldplay already have a number of new works in progress, although admittedly many are still in their infancy. Nevertheless, it's a small wonder they've had any time to write at all since Parachutes took off.

"Basically Chris has been working really hard," explains Jonny. "Any time he gets off he just picks up the guitar and starts some new stuff. We had some stuff that we hadn't finished by the time we recorded the album, so those ideas were already there. Ever since then whenever we go into the rehearsal studio we don't really rehearse we just try and write new stuff.

"We've been playing Animals and In My Face live since October and we're getting more ideas about how we're going to record them. They've been going down quiet well and they're quite different for us. It's a bit unfair for me to talk about them because Chris wrote them. All I can say is I like them."

While Jonny can't really discuss the lyrical nature of the songs (Chris is the sole lyricist) he has noticed a change in his playing style.

"Animals is quite dark and In My Place is more rhythmic than I've done before," claims the softly spoken Welshman. "There's also a new song called Worship Blood which is the first one I've played using the 335. It's dead simple and again more rhythmic. Playing the 335 was a new experience for me. It's the loudest guitar I've ever played and so versatile that it made me choose different notes. But don't worry, although it's a loud guitar and some of the songs are heavier, I'm not doing any tapping!"

"We start recording at the end of September. Ideally we'll have it all done by Christmas, but we're not being over-ambitious like we were last time. It really depends how many new songs we get written in this period as to how ready we'll be when we get in. The sooner we write and arrange, the quicker they'll be ready.

"Even Noel Gallagher came up to us at T In The Park the other day and said he really liked the new songs and stuff. But at the end of the day it's all hype and bullshit, it's just talk. I love playing the new songs, I do think the album will be good, but we won't release it until we think it's really good."