Coldplay eyes hip-hop & Country Music

Chris Martin, with microphone, and the rest of Coldplay perform at last month's 2005 MTV Video Music Awards in Miami. Martin, 28, is in awe of hip-hop superproducer Timbaland. He's "my hero," he said.

Consider yourself warned, Coldplay fans: Someday soon, your beloved band of Brits might ditch all that lush loveliness in favor of some boot-scootin' and rhyme-bustin'. That's right: country and rap, from the U.K.'s reigning kings of pretty pop.

"Country is a very sleeping beast within us," said Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, 28, calling on his cell phone as he boarded a plane for Columbus, Ohio, another stop on the band's world tour. "We have two things we're not allowed to do - that's country and rap - just because of where we're from. So I think they'll rear their heads at some point.

"I think the only future for music is if you bring together the most disparate worlds. That would be an album between Garth Brooks, Coldplay and Kanye (West), and produced by Timbaland."

Martin is just kidding . . . or not.

As fellow Brit-pop bands such as Travis, Starsailor and Doves struggle to maintain a commercial audience, Coldplay keeps doing the same thing - chilling piano hooks, rousing crescendos, sad-boy lyrics - and getting bigger in the process.

Still, 'Play fans should prepare for the possibility of an odd future. "X&Y," released earlier this summer, features a hidden bonus track, "Til Kingdom Come," that is a decidedly country-sounding tribute to Johnny Cash. Plus, Martin is feeling a lot of love for hip-hop these days, especially after appearing at Aug. 28's MTV Video Music Awards in Miami.

Coldplay's cable-ready performance of "Speed of Sound" was introduced by Neptunes and N.E.R.D. star Pharrell, a hip-hop producer-performer. The pasty blokes from London and the cool dude from Virginia Beach, Va., might seem a weird pairing, but the bizarre truth is that a growing number of hip-hoppers love Coldplay. Really.

Sooner or later, all popular bands face backlash, and Coldplay, who some rock 'n' roll fans consider a bit too touchy-feely, is no exception.

"We're in a position now where a lot of people really hate what we're doing, and it's hard to come to terms with that," said Martin, who won't specify the haters out there.

Martin reasons that the mutual lovefest stems from the fact that "neither party quite understands how the other person does what they're doing. For example, Timbaland, who's my hero - I do not understand how he's doing it. It just makes my jaw drop, you know? I think what he likes about Coldplay is a similar thing, although I don't think he has quite as much respect for me as I have for him."

As for all those rumored plans about quirky collaborations with Jay-Z and others, Martin wouldn't reveal any details.

Now that he's become just as famous for whom he's married to (actor Gwyneth Paltrow) and whom he's fathered (daughter Apple) as for his music, Martin is excited to be out touring again.

Making "X&Y" was an arduous process. With pressure to top the success of 2002's "A Rush of Blood to the Head," an entire first draft of "X&Y" was scrapped. But now that there's a finished product out there, he and his bandmates - guitarist Jon Buckland, drummer Will Champion and bassist Guy Berryman - can start to enjoy what they made.

"Before (new songs) are released, you know how you felt when you initially wrote them and recorded them, you know?" Martin said. "And then in that funky period before the record comes out, when you're starting to hear people's opinions, you become detached from the songs again."

Now that he's playing them live, though, "I'm really feeling in the middle of those songs again. I love them, and they've become part of our back catalog. It's amazing."

Martin admitted that he suffers from perfectionist tendencies, but, like a parent seeing his children off to school, he has learned to let go.

Come on, Chris, wouldn't you like to tweak here and there?

"Always, always," he said with a laugh. "But if I start getting into that, it'll become a very boring interview."

As far as the band's plans - there have been rumors about a 2006 album - Martin isn't talking. "We're kind of closed for repair at the moment in terms of what we're telling people. What's cool about being on tour is that the public face of you is doing one thing and the private side is doing another."

Ah yes, Martin's private side. Gwyneth. Apple. The infamous virginity he managed to hold onto until he was 25.

Those pesky questions are the reasons Coldplay stayed off the "white carpet" arrival site at the MTV to-do.

"We don't do red carpets. We always miss them. We haven't done one in a long time," he said.

Martin is protective of his private life - in 2003, he was charged with criminal damage for smashing a photographer's camera - but he says that the birth of Apple Blythe Alison Martin has made him a better man.

"I've become far more fascinated with everything, and far more bemused by everything," he said. "And far more aggressive about things I don't like, you know what I mean? I think (fatherhood) just turned the volume up, turned everything up to 11 for me. What it does for me, it brings in a protectionist element. It makes me more fascinated about the big questions."

Source-azstarnet