47 Fun Facts About Coldplay

Where did Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland meet during freshers' week in 1996?

They met in their first week and were still cramming for finals there days after signing their record deal in 1999.

Under what name did Coldplay play their first live show, at a Camden pub in January 1998?

Starfish soon made way for Coldplay, a name handed down by fellow student Tim Crompton, who had thrown it out as an option for his own band.

Which Coldplay member joined after filling in for his housemate at an early recording session?

Will Champion played guitar and piano, not drums: his housemate owned the kit and was due to record with the band, and when that fell through Champion said he'd give it a go and was soon asked to join.

What was the title of Coldplay's self-released debut EP in 1998?

Safety cost about £1,500, which the band's manager borrowed from his father and friends, and most of the small pressing was given away rather than sold.

Which early Coldplay manager, a school friend of Chris Martin, is credited as the band's fifth member?

Phil Harvey cycled into his Oxford college on the morning of an exam to say he was quitting to manage a rock band; he later burned out and left, then came back as creative director.

Which BBC Radio 1 DJ's show made Coldplay its first unsigned session guests, in January 1999?

Steve Lamacq was tipped off by Simon Williams of Fierce Panda, the indie label that went on to release the band's next single.

With which record label did Coldplay sign in April 1999?

Parlophone's scout Dan Keeling had already passed on the band once, then changed his mind as the buzz grew, and the contract was signed outdoors in Trafalgar Square.

What is the title of Coldplay's debut album, released in July 2000?

Parachutes was shaped by producer Ken Nelson: after watching the nervous band rush through a live set, he decided they 'just need to calm down' and had them relearn each song's tempo.

What was Coldplay's first UK Top 40 hit, released in March 2000?

Shiver was, Chris Martin later admitted, 'a blatant Jeff Buckley attempt', written while he was soaking up the American singer's records.

Which single became Coldplay's first UK top-five hit in June 2000?

Yellow began on a break from recording in rural Wales, when producer Ken Nelson told the band to 'look at the stars', which became the song's opening line.

The one-take video for Coldplay's 2000 breakthrough single shows Chris Martin on a beach in which English county?

Dorset's Studland Bay was meant to host the whole band and a crowd of extras on a sunny beach; the finished video has Chris Martin walking it alone in the rain.

Which Coldplay ballad did Chris Martin write to comfort his then-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, after her father died?

Fix You was, Paltrow later said, about Martin 'trying to put me back together' after her father's death; the couple had met only three weeks after he died.

Coldplay moved to which city to record their second album after struggling to focus in London?

Liverpool had fewer distractions: in London, Chris Martin said, they were catching up with friends and bills, so they went back to where much of their debut was made.

What is the title of Coldplay's second studio album?

A Rush of Blood to the Head nearly wasn't made: drained after a year of touring, the band had just one song, 'In My Place', and vowed to record it before anything else came.

Chris Martin wrote "The Scientist" while trying to work out a song by which former Beatle?

George Harrison's 'Isn't It a Pity' was the song Martin was struggling to work out on an old, out-of-tune piano when 'The Scientist' arrived instead, all at once.

Which Coldplay song won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 2004?

Clocks was nearly left off its album: written late, it was filed away as an idea for the third record until the band, having delayed the release, were urged to finish it at once.

Which Coldplay album was the world's best-selling album of 2005?

X&Y arrived months late, and the delay helped trigger an EMI profit warning that knocked 16% off the record company's shares in a single day.

At Live 8 in Hyde Park in 2005, Coldplay were joined by which singer for his own band's 1997 hit?

Richard Ashcroft of the Verve sang 'Bitter Sweet Symphony', a hit that earned him no songwriting royalties after a sample dispute until Mick Jagger and Keith Richards signed their rights over to him in 2019.

Which producer did Coldplay work with on their fourth album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends?

Brian Eno suggested the partnership himself: Chris Martin would meet him for tea and play with tabla machines, 'and that just turned into a year's worth of production'.

Coldplay's 'Viva la Vida' was first released exclusively through which digital store, where it was 2008's best-selling song?

iTunes also put the song in a TV advert, a rare exception for a band that had turned down millions rather than license their music to brands.

Which guitarist sued Coldplay in 2008, claiming "Viva la Vida" copied his song "If I Could Fly"?

Joe Satriani's suit never reached a jury: it was dismissed in 2009 with each side paying its own costs, amid reports of a settlement in which Coldplay admitted no wrongdoing.

Which rapper added a verse to "Lost+", the 2008 reworking of Coldplay's single "Lost!"?

Jay-Z later shared a New Year's Eve bill with the band at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, walking on during their set to join them on the song, then counting the crowd down to 2013.

Which actor cameos as a violin-playing Elvis impersonator in Coldplay's "Christmas Lights" video?

Simon Pegg is godfather to Chris Martin's daughter, and the favour ran both ways: Martin had already made a cameo of his own in Pegg's zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead.

At whose private memorial did Coldplay perform in October 2011?

Steve Jobs was remembered at a staff-only service on his company's California campus, where Chris Martin reportedly signed off by telling employees to get back to work, as Jobs would have wanted.

Which single from Coldplay's album Mylo Xyloto won Best Rock Video at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards?

Paradise began as a possible winner's song for The X Factor, which had asked Chris Martin to write one, until a bandmate persuaded him to keep it for Coldplay.

In Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto story and comics, which tyrant wages a war on sound and colour?

Major Minus rules the planet Silencia through an army of Silencers, who wipe away the rebels' luminous graffiti; he also gives his name to a track on the album.

Coldplay wrote the song "Atlas" for the soundtrack of which film?

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire had a ready fan in Chris Martin, who the studio said already loved Suzanne Collins's novels, and "Atlas" went on to earn Golden Globe and Grammy nominations.

Coldplay swapped stadiums for small venues on 2014's Ghost Stories Tour, including two nights at which London venue?

Royal Albert Hall, at about 5,000 seats, was the largest room on a run of theatres, and the band played it in the round to bring the hushed new songs closer to the crowd.

Which US president's voice is sampled on Coldplay's album A Head Full of Dreams?

Barack Obama is heard singing "Amazing Grace" on the track "Kaleidoscope", in a clip from his eulogy for a pastor killed in the Charleston church shooting, used with White House permission.

In the video for "Adventure of a Lifetime", the members of Coldplay perform as which animals?

Chimpanzees were the result of a chance meeting on a flight: Chris Martin got talking to motion-capture actor Andy Serkis, and the band were soon in capture suits at his studio.

Which two artists joined Coldplay for the Super Bowl 50 halftime show in February 2016?

Beyoncé and Bruno Mars were recruited by Chris Martin himself: Mars first said no, and when he asked what Beyoncé thought, Martin filmed the pair of them on his phone and texted her the clip.

Which singer from a famous band of brothers joined Coldplay on stage when they closed Glastonbury 2016?

Barry Gibb had pulled out of that year's Sunday 'legend' slot over a family illness, yet still turned up to sing two Bee Gees songs, and came back to play the slot himself in 2017.

Which actor joined Coldplay on stage at MetLife Stadium in 2016 to recreate a scene from Back to the Future?

Michael J. Fox walked on after a video of Chris Martin's son Moses asking for a song from their favourite film, then played guitar on "Earth Angel" and "Johnny B. Goode".

Coldplay's 2017 hit "Something Just Like This" was a collaboration with which EDM duo?

The Chainsmokers said most of the song came together at their first meeting with Chris Martin, who plugged a microphone into the studio PA and freestyled for an hour.

Under what alias did Coldplay release Global Citizen – EP 1 in 2018?

Los Unidades arrived as a mystery act: the label would not confirm who they were, but fans spotted that the band members had registered the name as a trademark.

What are the two halves of Coldplay's 2019 double album Everyday Life called?

Sunrise and Sunset were each performed live at the hour they are named for, the first half at dawn and the second at dusk, in two concerts streamed free on YouTube.

In which country did Coldplay launch their 2019 album Everyday Life with two livestreamed concerts?

Jordan's two shows, at a hilltop citadel in Amman, stood in for a world tour: the band had decided not to tour the album until their concerts could be made environmentally sustainable.

Which track on Coldplay's 2019 album Everyday Life features Belgian singer Stromae and horns led by Nigerian saxophonist Femi Kuti?

Arabesque brought Femi Kuti and his horn players on stage with the band at the album's launch shows, and each time he stayed on afterwards to lead a jam.

Coldplay's 2019 charity gig at London's Natural History Museum was played beneath the skeleton of what?

A blue whale named Hope hangs in the museum's main hall, and Chris Martin joked that the booking was a mix-up: he had asked to play 'near Wales', not whales.

Coldplay premiered their 2021 single "Higher Power" through a video link-up with which location?

The International Space Station's French astronaut Thomas Pesquet got the first play: the band beamed him the song in a link-up they billed as an 'extraterrestrial transmission'.

Coldplay's 2021 US number one "My Universe", sung in English and Korean, was a collaboration with which group?

BTS recorded their parts with Chris Martin in the room: he flew to Seoul for just two days during pandemic travel restrictions, having never met the group before.

Coldplay's eco-minded Music of the Spheres World Tour opened in 2022 in which country, a leader in renewable electricity?

Costa Rica gets nearly all of its electricity from renewables, mostly hydropower, so the opening shows could run on a clean grid as the band set out to halve its touring emissions.

The vinyl pressings of Coldplay's 2024 album Moon Music were made from what?

Recycled plastic bottles, nine to a record, went into each LP, and a special edition was made mostly of plastic that The Ocean Cleanup pulled from a river in Guatemala.

Coldplay played to more than 111,000 fans on each of two nights in January 2025 in which country?

India's Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, a cricket ground that holds 132,000, let both nights narrowly beat George Strait's 2024 Texas crowd and set a 21st-century record for a stadium concert.

By 2025, Coldplay had won nine of which awards, more than any other band?

Brit Awards wins reached nine in 2016, when a fourth Best British Group prize broke a tie with Arctic Monkeys and the band dedicated it to young people in refugee camps.

Director Jon M. Chu wrote Coldplay a letter to win a song for which of his films?

Crazy Rich Asians had been refused the song at first; Chu's letter told the band how it had given him and his friends a new sense of pride, and they said yes within a day.

Which painting of French revolutionaries, on the cover of Coldplay's Viva la Vida, inspired the band's stage uniforms?

Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix's scene of the 1830 Paris uprising, set the look: the band and designer Stella McCartney devised painted 'uniforms' echoing its rebels, and Chris Martin later gave one to the V&A.