Coldplay’s Chris Martin on how Fontaines D.C. remind him “how you can never phone it in”

Coldplay’s Chris Martin has shared his admiration for Fontaines D.C., and recalled how the band remind him that “you can never phone it in”.

• READ MORE: Exclusive: Coldplay: “When things appear overwhelmingly positive, that’s often because it’s what the singer needs most”

The topic arose as the frontman recently spoke to NME in his only written interview for new album ‘Moon Music’, and revealed the number of new artists that have caught his eye.

Arriving last Friday (October 4), ‘Moon Music’ is the 10th album from Coldplay and the follow-up to 2021’s ‘Music Of The Spheres’. Now, in the NME exclusive, Martin opened up about how the members have been left feeling inspired by Fontaines D.C. and Little Simz.

“When Fontaines or Little Simz come along, you’re just reminded that you can never phone it in,” he explained. “Even if you’re making something that you think no one is going to like, you have to be so sure that you do, and that you poured every last ounce of energy into it.”

“You know that when [Fontaines] made ‘Starburster’, no one was phoning that in. When I hear that song or IDLES, I’m like, ‘Shit!’,” he continued. “We’re not just talking about bands; we’re talking about Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Beyoncé – anyone that you can feel is just working so hard.”

His high praise for the Dublin band comes as Grian Chatten and co. recently shared the hit album ‘Romance’; a record NME described as being their “most considered and intricately crafted work yet”. Similarly, his praise of IDLES comes on the heels of frontman Joe Talbot asking if they could take Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ video and transform it with AI so it looks like Martin was singing along to ‘Grace’ for a music video.

As for the celebration of Little Simz, the comments from Martin come as the Mercury-winning British rap icon recently joined forces with the band for the ‘Moon Music’ track ‘We Pray’, alongside Nigerian juggernaut Burna Boy, Palestinian-Chilean musician Elyanna and Argentinian singer Tini.

Explaining why the band looked beyond “middle-aged white guys” for their collaborations on the record, the frontman said: “We don’t need any more of them, really. It’s fun to expand the band into other cultures, countries, genders and sexualities. That’s really what we believe in.

“It’s amazing how much talent there is everywhere. It’s also humbling because you realise that we are beneficiaries of having been born English and being able to play everywhere. That comes off the back of extraordinarily awful colonialism.”

Also starring on the album is Afrobeats don Ayra Starr, who Martin described in the NME interview as being “brilliant”.

Check out NME’s exclusive interview with Chris Martin in full here, where he also opens up about the band’s plans to stop writing new material after album 12, their mammoth set at Glastonbury 2024, invitation for Liam Gallagher to share some Lasagna, and their determination to help support grassroots venues across the UK.

You can also listen to Chris Martin’s exclusive playlist to accompany his NME interview above on Spotify and here on Apple Music.

In the latter, he once again shares his fondness for Fontaines’ ‘Starburster’. “I listened to it and I got insanely jealous, which is my highest compliment… I thought ‘Skinty Fia’ was a masterpiece and I was eager to hear ‘Romance’ and ‘Starburster’,” he recalled.

“It shows how you become a brilliant band over a long period of time. It’s brave, it’s forward-thinking, it’s got soul, the lyrics are incredible, the melodies are incredible, the production is incredible, it keeps every other band on their toes. You can play it last in a set when no one even knows it and it will hold up. It’s perfect.”

‘Moon Music’ was given a glowing four-star review by NME, and described by Rhian Daly as a record that looks to “pull Martin and those feeling like him back from the brink, one pop song at a time”.

“It’s not just in Coldplay’s lyrics that this resilience can be felt, but in their musical choices too. Multiple songs on ‘Moon Music’ – like ‘Jupiter’ and ‘Good Feelings’ – fade out, only to return to the speakers again,” it read. “These fake-outs don’t just keep you guessing but mirror that feeling of having exhausted all your options, only for you to find the strength to push forward.”

Since the release on Friday, the iconic band have gone on to perform some of the tracks on Saturday Night Live, as well as make a surprise appearance on the US branch of QVC.

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