Coldplay’s as-yet-untitled third studio album is likely to see a June release as the band continues to tweak the final product. As previously reported, initial sessions for the album with producer Ken Nelson were set aside, with the U.K. rock act opting to start over with producer Danton Supple, who mixed Coldplay’s 2002 breakthrough, “A Rush of Blood to the Head.”
“I think we were in no hurry [to finish] because the prospect of touring again was so daunting that we felt we should take our time, and also we wanted to make sure that it was the best it could possibly be,” drummer Will Champion says in a new online newsletter on the band’s official Web site.
“But in the end, having no deadline became a problem because we never really felt the need to finish anything. As soon as we gave ourselves a proper deadline we started to be much more productive and the stuff we were doing was miles better. It’s always the same with us — the best stuff comes when we start to panic.”
Besides, Champion says the new album has “got to be better than the other two, otherwise there is no point in releasing it.”
Asked the fate of some of the new songs Coldplay performed live at the tail end of the “Rush of Blood” tour, Champion reports, “Some of them have morphed into new songs [and] some old song titles have been given to new songs, so there might be some familiar bits and bobs in there.”
The actual recording process has found Champion laying down his tracks in a variety of ways. “On one song, I played the pump organ and we all sat in a room together recording live takes,” he says. “On others, I would play the drums to a guide piano or guitar and singing and then we’d layer it up from there.”
For now, the only confirmed live dates on Coldplay’s schedule are a March 12 benefit for California radio station KCRW in Los Angeles and an April 30 headlining slot at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., although Champion hints that U.K. dates may happen in the “spring.”
Source billboard.com.
