Coldplay's Chris Martin was interviewed by Jo Whiley yesterday after she gave his band's new single 'Violet Hill' a first airing on her Radio 1 show. Asked about the band's new album, 'Viva La Vida', he said the aim with the new long player was to "get better, as opposed to bigger". Just to stress that point, they made the new album shorter than its predecessors - Martin: "I think you can say what you like about our record, but its brevity is its strongest feature".
Speaking about his hopes for the new LP, he said: "It's colourful and it's short which is what these things should be. The intention was to try and be good and get better as opposed to bigger. We felt incredibly hungry to prove why people have heard of us. I wanted it to be okay to be that 16 year old who says they like Coldplay in the playground. Hopefully with this record they won't get teased so much".
On working with Brian Eno, the producer of the new album, he continued: "Brian Eno is an absolute magician. First of all you learn about life and sex and all that kind of useful stuff for outside the studio. Then you learn about music and how to make music. He really freed us up. If you didn't really like Coldplay because of me I think you might be more encouraged to know that our new music has a lot more of everybody else on it. That's the thing that I'm proud of".
As is compulsory at the moment, the interview eventually moved onto the issue of Jay-Z and Glastonbury. To be fair to Whiley, Martin brought up the issue after being asked why Coldplay weren't playing the festival this year. "Why would we need to appear at Glastonbury given that the best musician on the planet [that's Jay-Z] is headlining it? I find it pretty embarrassing - the whole palaver about it. We came back to England the other day from being on a trip somewhere and there was all this hoo-ha. Coldplay not playing Glastonbury and Jay-Z playing. It is exactly what needs to happen to keep the world a good place. He's the best rapper in the world".
So, there you have it, that's that debate resolved, ended and brought to conclusion. 'Violet Hill', by the way, is being made available as a free download, and can be downloaded for free all this week from http://www.coldplay.com. The free track is set to be followed up by two free gigs, one in London and one in New York, details of which will be posted on that there website sometime soon.
LP 'Viva La Vida' will be released on 12 Jun, a little earlier than previously announced and, the more observant of you will notice, on a Thursday - apparently it is being released everywhere in the world on the same day. Very global.