The Chris Martin Game

[_Broken_Doll_]

from that Q&A website:

So, you're not harboring any secret desire to become Gwen Stefani?
I don't have the stomach for it. Literally. I don't have the abs.

Oh, and those half-shirts would look horrible on you.
Yeah, they would. I've got a lot of hair there.

[CoLdpLay210]

Chris Martin was told that Coldplay could be even more compelling, notorious or whatever if its guitarist wasn't so damn...quite!

"People who say that are c---s," says Martin. "It's the quiet ones you have to watch. China's pretty quiet, but it's also very great. When we're all speaking Chinese in 20 years, people will say, 'Well, I didn't realize—they were awfully quiet."

Ask about his daughter Apple

"Nobody's ready for anything," he says. "That's life. But we're talking about a thing in my life—my daughter—that is nothing but positive, that brings me nothing but happiness. I know I have to work hard. I know I can't quit the band now and become a crack addict. But there are bigger things to fear in life, you know? Going deaf. Having to sit through an Anthony Minghella film."

Martin admits he winced when Radiohead's Thom Yorke, one of his heroes, labeled Coldplay "lifestyle music"—a dig at the band's universality in films, stores, airports and Mom's iPod.

"We're like an eager dog just yapping around their heels, and they're trying to kick us away," he jokes. "It's like unrequited love. I'm in love with a lot of things. Some of those things love me back. And some of them don't—and one of them is Radiohead."

After a year and a half of touring and then another year and a half of making an album, you guys must get on each others’ nerves a bit. How do you sort out issues? Do you argue? Group therapy?

"Things can get very tense. But we’re not really fist-fighters. In most bands, the arguments always tend to involve the singer, and in this case I would get absolutely destroyed by at least two members of this band in a fistfight."

Wait, only two? Who’s the guy in the band you could take?

"I’m pretty sure that me and Guy [Berryman], our bass player, would have an equal match. But I would never even approach [drummer] Will [Champion] with my hands raised. It’s very good to be scared of your drummer, actually. I’m sure Bono’s scared of Larry. Wouldn’t Larry win that one? Oh my God, yeah."

Here's Johnny

What would it take for you to become as famous as your singer?

"A public drug habit. Or some kind of crime spree."

So just merely being a good guitarist isn’t enough?

"It’s enough for me. Totally, it’s enough. I can’t imagine being able to deal with any kind of tabloid stuff. It’d drive me insane. I’d just be thinking, "Oh God, my poor mum will go nuts. I don’t want her to know that!"