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A
This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's October 1st and it's time to announce our October get lit with all of it book club selection. We will be reading King of Ashes by SA Cosby. The story follows a man named Roman Crothers. He's left his small hometown of Jefferson Run, Virginia to go to Atlanta. There he's become a successful financial advisor to B list celebrities. But Roman finds himself back home after he learns of a tragic accident involving his father which might not have been an accident at all. Dun dun dun. In fact, it might have been an act of a retribution from a local gang and Roman siblings have found themselves in in the crosshairs. Can Roman save his family from this gang? And at what cost? SA Cosby will be joining us for an in person event at the New York Public Library. It'll be virtual as well. On Tuesday, October 28, along with a very special musical guest, we will be joined by Yaya bae.
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B
Rain Clouds are Here. Oh rain.
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C
Clouds are.
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A
The Brooklyn based R and B musician Yaya BAE has a new album out titled Do It Afraid. Clash magazine calls it a wholehearted celebration of joy and love and the soothing remedy we need right now. BAE will play a special acoustic set for us live at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. To find out how to get your free tickets and to borrow your E copy thanks to our partners at the New York Public Library. You should head to wnyc.org getlit that's wnyc.org getlit again. That is all happening on Tuesday, October 28th at 6:00pm at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. We can't wait to see you there. Head to wnyc.org getlit for tickets and information. Until then, happy reading. Now let's get this hour started with a 25th anniversary celebration.
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B
Sam look at the stars look how they shine Everything you do yeah they were all yellow I came along I wrote a song for you and all the things you do and it was called Yellow so then I took took my turn oh what a thing to done and it was all yellow.
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A
Coldplay released its debut album Parachutes in the UK in July of 2000 and in the US November of that year. The album won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music and went on to go double platinum 25 years later. Coldplay's most recent tour set multiple records surpassing $1 billion and becoming the best selling rock tour in history. The band has won Hundreds of awards, 34 Grammy nominations, seven wins. They played all over the world, sold out more than a hundred million albums, and of course, they were responsible for the summer's most fun scandal, when a workplace affair was broadcast at their concert. But back in the late Ninet, they were just a bunch of university kids playing in pubs and small venues, and that's where my next guest discovered them. Debs Wilde was a scout for Universal Records at the time. She's now a music industry consultant who continues to work with the band and is also the author of Life in A Celebration of Coldplay, which comes out in a new edition tomorrow. She joins me now for another installment of our 25th album series. Silver liner notes hey, Debs.
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C
Hey, Good afternoon. How are you?
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A
We're doing great. Thank you for joining us. So you discovered the band in 1998 at a music convention called in the City. What do you remember about the first time that you saw them?
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C
It doesn't feel like it's that long ago, and this makes me feel very, very old. But I remember it so clearly. It was Manchester, which is renowned for terrible weather, and it was raining, and I walked into this very small venue. It wasn't really a music venue per se. It was used for Cuba Cafe. It was like Cuban dancing and things like that. But it was doubled up as a venue for this conference. And I walked in, I think the band would probably midway there through their first song, and it was very quiet and I just remember creeping in and thinking, wow, what? What's this? It was just so kind of atmospheric, beautiful vocals. They won't mind me saying they looked dreadful, but it was. It was basically four students who hadn't quite worked on the image part of their. Their combo. And it was just something that just had me rooted to the spot for the rest of that performance. And that was a rarity in those days because you had to kind of go from one venue to the other and see as many bands as possible. So clearly there was something that made me want to stay, and clearly I've stayed around for the next 27 years.
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A
What were they called at the time?
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C
They were called the Coldplay, but they hadn't been called that for very long. They'd been called Starfish for a little while and then the Coldplay and they dropped the shortly after I saw them.
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D
So, yeah, that same year you encountered Coldplay in 1998, they recorded and released an EP called Safety. Tell me a little bit about Safety.
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C
Well, the Safety ep, I hadn't actually heard it before I went to see the band, which again, was Quite unusual to. It was like a cold call, if you like. I just turned up to see what they were all about because I hadn't heard any music. So I quickly got the number that was handily pinned to a board on my way out of the venue of their manager, Phil, and I called him and said, I saw the band and I thought they were great. Please, can you send me some music? So he sent me the Safety ep. And honestly, this. It's so vivid. I remember pressing Play and immediately thinking, yes, whatever I saw in that room, I'm hearing it now, that band, it's amazing. And it was just properly goosebump inducing and I just thought it was incredible. Still do. Sounds amazing.
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D
We have a clip of the song Bigger, Stronger, the first track from the ep. Let's listen.
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B
I wanna be bigger, stronger driver Faster car to take me anywhere in seconds to take me anywhere I wanna go and drive around the faster car I will settle for nothing less I will settle for not I want to be big stronger trees at the touch of a button I can't go anywhere I want to go travel around my f to come I will settle Found the fair ass I will settle.
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D
You can hear it right there. There's something definitely there.
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C
I am literally sitting here with goosebumps and the hairs on the back of my neck going, this still sounds so fantastic all these years later.
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D
Yeah. You know, that EP was shared around, it was sold at concerts, it was sent to A and R people. How did things progress from that EP to Coldplay getting signed and starting to work on their debut album?
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C
Well, to be fair, it got passed around, but then it got passed on because nobody took any notice of that ep, which is crazy when you listen to it, but it was basically when I got it, I was absolutely. That was me hook, line and sinker. I was in. So I sent it to a friend of mine who wasn't in competition because she was working for a music publisher. And I just said, please, can you listen to this? Because I think I might be going a bit mad because I. No one seems to be talking about this band and I think they're incredible. And luckily she said, yes, I agree, they're great. And I introduced them to a music lawyer as well. And the music lawyer then played it to one of his clients who happened to run a small indie label, which is Face Panda, Simon Williams, and he put out an EP as well. And also at this point, my friend at the publishing company played it to Dan Keeling at Parlorphone, who'd actually already passed on the band from a different demo he'd heard that he didn't like and then thought, oh, I think I've. I think I've got some stuff to make up here. And so that's kind of what happened. So it almost was just that small little circle there of dominoes dropping. And as soon as Dan was involved from Parlor Phone, the band were just kind of like, yes, we want to sign to that label. My label was kind of dragging their heels. My boss was not. He liked it, but unfortunately he was also one of the ones that passed on it. So I didn't get to work with him immediately. But luckily I still kept in touch and went to all the gigs and stuff. So, yeah, we've kept together a long time despite not actually signing the band. So it's great.
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A
I'm speaking of Debs Wilde. She's the author of Life and Technicolor A Celebration of Coldplay. She's also a former A and R person who helped discover the band and land them their first record deal. We're Talking about the 25th anniversary of their debut album, Parachutes, and we're taking your calls for another edition of Silver. Liner notes, listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you ever seen Coldplay live? Do you have a favorite song, especially from that first album, Parachute? Do you have a question for Deb's Wild about the band? Give us a call. 212433 WNYC, 212-433-9692. We've got Craig who's calling in from Morganville, New Jersey. Craig, thanks for being with us. You're on the air.
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E
I recently were on vacation in London and as a last minute thing, we went to Wembley Stadium to see Cole play. I was never a huge fan, but it was something that everyone in the family liked. I've seen it all. I've seen Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Wall. I've never seen a more interactive concert in my life. Not the hit songs, every song. Everybody sang, every word. There were lit up wristbands that were computer programmed that spelled out wor. It was amazing. They even busted themselves about that KISS camp thing and the audience was laughing hysterically. And the other amazing thing was after the show, there's a big ramp that goes to the underground that was packed. Nobody could move. And what was everybody doing? They were singing stars in the sky. It was insane. I never seen anything like that. It was absolutely amazing. And it was. It was wild. Thank you.
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A
I like that first person report. Let me get your response to that Deb, when you hear that, it's so.
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C
Wonderful to hear that, because even though I work with the band, I have the exact same feelings. When you go to a show, it's so inclusive. It is such a place of joy. I think I said this recently, that for those two hours, it's the most present I am. And I don't think about anything else because it's just so much to take in. It's absolutely amazing for every single sort of sensory that you have, it's just. Yeah, it's incredible. That was a good review there, too.
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A
In your book, though, you do write.
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D
About the tensions that happen within the band. For Parachutes, it even led to Chris Martin to ask drummer Will Champion to leave. And you quote Chris as saying, for a week, Coldplay didn't exist. What was the tension coming from the band and then. And how did it play out?
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C
It was a really tricky time. I think, if I remember, Chris was very much feeling the pressure of getting this right because it was the first album and it was kind of the producer that they had at the time who was not happy with some of the results. And I think that fed into what Chris was thinking. And I don't know if it was so much that he didn't think Will was competent or should be in the band, but the pressure to sort of fix a problem resulted in sort of Will being fired momentarily. And then there was talk of, you know, Replacements and other people were kind of not auditioning, but they were being spoken to. And it just says a lot that even back then, they knew that they couldn't be Coldplay without Will. They couldn't be any other four. It had to be those four. So as soon as they realized that, Chris obviously went back to Will and begged him to come back, which didn't take too long, to be fair. And it's been just beautiful ever since, because Will is such an anchor and such a force in the band that that dynamic just wouldn't work without him. So, yeah.
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D
How do you think they came out stronger from that difficult situation?
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C
I think exactly the fact that it was so awful and that realization of, look, we're in this together or else it isn't a thing. And that is literally how they've been ever since. They're so close, they genuinely love each other and like being around each other and they support each other and lift each other up, that I think that bond is unbreakable. And I think that lesson to be learned so fast and early was probably, in hindsight, a good thing. But yeah, that's definitely been for the better.
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D
Let's talk to Deborah from Westchester. Deborah, thanks for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air.
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F
Oh, wonderful. So my husband knows and still that Billy Joel is my all time famous favorite artist and had gotten tickets for us to see him at the Albany Knickerbocker arena about 14 years ago. We were going to have a whole special weekend of it and Billy Joel canceled his concert on us. Something happened in his personal life. He canceled the concert. We had this great hotel booked. We said, what else can we do in the capital region? What else is going on? And we saw Coldplay was playing at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. We had never heard of them. We kind of listened to a couple songs that we googled and we're like, okay, they sound okay. We went. We fell in love with them that night. They are our favorite band. At that concert, they actually handed out CDs to all of the audience members. And we still play that every year on our anniversary.
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D
Aw, that's a sweet story. We love hearing that. Thanks for calling, Deborah. My guest is Debs Wild. She's the author of the book Life in Technicolor, a celebr of Coldplay. She's joining us for another edition of Silver Liner Notes. Their debut album, parachutes, was released 25 years ago. Deb, hey, let's listen to another song. I'm going to play an early demo of the song Trouble, when it was originally went by Spider Webs, and then we'll hear the final version. First of all, here's Spiderwebs.
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They built the world for me they spun away.
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Okay, and here's Trouble.
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I never meant to cause you trouble I never meant to do your own.
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A
So, Debs, what do you think it is about the songwriting that makes it hit so hard and makes it stick around? We saw how it went from one iteration to another.
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C
It's funny because they. It's always fun to listen to those distant relations, isn't it? I mean, that's quite a different song, but you can see which bits remain. And I think that is something that's really happened their entire musical career because I've heard so many different songs and thought, oh, that's from there, and that's from there. And I guess it's one of those things that until it actually works or fits, you know, they just kind of. Chris describes it as songs arriving, and I think, you know, they have to park some things until other elements also arrive, if you like. But I think with with trouble. Well, with all of this first album and a lot of what's come, I think it's all about the connection. And people can really relate to Coldplay songs, I feel. You know, they're sort of timeless as well as ageless. They're classic, but they reach so many people, because I think the sentiment of most of those songs that we love and we cry to, or we do fall in love to, and, you know, there's so many things that as humans that we go through, and if you can kind of capture that in a song or a melody or lyric, then then obviously it's. It's gonna, you know, gel. And I think that's what it is.
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A
Go back in time 25 years ago. How did the album do in the UK and how did it do in the US?
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C
Oh, the whole thing about the album in the UK was unbelievable because the. Their record label thought it might sell 75,000 copies over the first week, and it sold that in its first day. And everyone was so surprised because, you know, they'd had Yellow as a hit, had gone in at number four before that, Shiver had just barely scraped the top 40. So no one was expecting it to go as stratospheric and global as it did so quickly. But there's no doubt that album was brilliant. So I'm not even sure they'd have pressed enough copies otherwise it probably would have done better. But in the us, of course, it took a little bit longer, but the band was so determined and willing to put the time in that they obviously went to America and toured extensively and did club tours and. And they were very lucky that that American radio stations also fell in love with it. So it was relatively easier than some bands have it. But again, I think it's because their music was so universal, it didn't necessarily fit into a pigeonhole or a box. And I think timing's everything, and it just felt like the right band for the right time, if that makes sense.
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D
You really like the song Shiver. It's one of your favorite tracks from the album Parachutes. What do you love about it? And we'll listen to it.
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C
It's not so much that it's my favorite, but I'll tell you what it is about Shiver. It was the first song that was delivered as a single to go out to the masses. So by this point, I'd heard demos, I've heard unreleased songs. I hadn't heard something that was going to potentially go to radio. And when I heard that song, I was actually quite surprised that I didn't know they were going to be a band that would necessarily get played on the radio so quickly. And that song, now, when I hear it, it just throws me such. I mean, I can't even describe that. I get so emotional because I forget how good it is, because at the time we were too busy thinking about, you know, charts and positioning. But I do remember the first time I heard it live and. And it did make me sort of almost cry because I was just so, so proud and so moved. And it was just. The whole journey at that point, just. Just came to that moment of, yes, this band can do it, because, you know, you can't. You can't predict these things. But when I heard Shiver, I knew they had it in them to. To go far.
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D
Here's Coldplay with Shiver.
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So I look in your direction but you pay me no attention to you I know you don't listen to me. Cause you say you see straight through me from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep I'll be there by your side Just you try and stop me I'll be waiting in line Just to see if you can.
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A
It's another edition of our Silver Aligner Notes. We are celebrating the album parachutes. It's turning 25 this year. It's from the band Coldplay. I'm speaking to Debs Wild. She's the author of Life In Technicolor, A Celebration of Coldplay, and she is partially responsible for them existing. All right, I have to ask you this. I have to bring up the Astronomer CEO scandal. So Chris does this bit in concerts where he puts somebody on the Jumbotron and he improvises a song about them. It sounds really great. And in this case, the couple, they turned out to be coworkers, and they were engaged, shall we say. The Internet went wild. And it was interesting because his response was very natural in that situation. Is he a person who can still be surprised?
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C
I don't think it's surprised. I'll tell you what it is. So I think there's more surprise in the reaction after, because this is a segment that had been around for about a year, and in that particular show, someone had already been on the screen before them. So in a way, I think if you see it in context, you're kind of thinking, maybe if they'd have reacted differently, would have been a different outcome. Maybe if they'd have seen the person on screen before and thought, oh, maybe now is a good time to not be engaged, as you say, and then it would have Been completely different. But obviously Chris is a very natural person and obviously he couldn't have known what was going on. But what was lovely was afterwards, every time there was a show, of course, there's no way. Why would they drop that segment? But it felt like maybe we should say something to sort of diffuse it and make sure it doesn't happen again. But, I mean, I've never seen anything quite so incredible as the reaction online with the memes and the, you know, the sort of skits that were taking place. It blew up. It was quite a phenomenon, really, which. For a band to just have a jumbotron segment in their show to go to, that is. It's still talked about now. It's still, you know, it's still on the news, isn't it? So it's completely crazy.
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A
Saturday Night Live debuts this weekend. I plan to see. I bet it's gonna be on there. Before we let you go, tell us about your book, Life in A Celebration of Coldplay.
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C
It's honestly so strange to write a book about people that you've known for so long and worked with, that have become so culturally important. And I. I sometimes forget so doing something like this, and as well as it being an amazing scrapbook of my 25 years as well, not to mention theirs, it's just fascinating to put the jigsaw together of talking to friends and family and colleagues and crew about, you know, what they remember from those early days. That was definitely my favorite part of writing it, sort of. The first chapter is actually called Chapter Zero, because I felt like we can't start with what people know. Let's go backwards and fill in the gaps. Because if you think about it, the band were around before we could necessarily hit Google, so it felt like a really nice thing to be able to present lots of. I mean, people probably don't realize that a lot of the images in the first chapter, which Chapter zero, from Chris's personal archives, it's like he kept things, you know, the flyers and the set lists and track listings. And so it was really nice. It was. The hardest part was really to work out what to leave out. Otherwise it could have literally been about 200,000 words instead of. The initial one was 40,000, and this is. Is probably 55 or something. But it's hard to condense into such a small space, really. But it's been incredible to sort of revisit things, and it's been an honour as well, because the fans are just so incredible that I love them all and they're so supportive that it feels like a lovely gift to give back to them. So yeah, it's been wonderful.
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A
Deb's Wilde has been my guest. She's author of Life and Technicolor A Celebration of Coldplay. She joined us for an entire edition of our silver liner notes to celebrate their album Parachutes. Thanks for joining us, Debs.
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Thanks for having me. Since WNYC's first broadcast in 1924, we've been dedicated to creating the kind of content we know the world needs. In addition to this award winning reporting, your sponsorship also supports inspiring storytelling and extraordinary music that is free and accessible to all. To get in touch and find out more, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org For a limited time.
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E
At McDonald's, get a Big Mac Extra Value meal for $8. That means two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun and medium fries and a drink. We may need to change that jingle.
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Prices and participation may vary.