Chris Martin

• 1. Introduction

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  Chris Martin, the English singer and pianist born on the 2nd of March 1977, composed a three-minute instrumental called "Electric Thunder" when he was 12 years old. In February 2020, a former fellow pupil found it on a cassette tape. Martin had played keyboards on the recording, accompanying schoolmates who performed as the Grandisson Ensemble. At auction, the tape was expected to sell for £600. It fetched £840. The boy behind that tape grew up to be the vocalist, pianist and co-founder of Coldplay. How does a schoolboy with a keyboard get there? Why did his band pass through other names before settling on the one the world knows? And why do rappers, dance producers and pop stars keep inviting him into their songs?

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• 2. Exeter To Harare

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  Exeter, in Devon, is where Martin was born, the eldest of five children. His father, Anthony John Martin, is a retired chartered accountant. His mother, Alison, comes from Zimbabwe and works as a music teacher. Civic standing ran through the wider family. His grandfather, John Besley Martin, was a CBE who served as High Sheriff and Mayor of Exeter. He founded the caravan and motorhome sales business Martin's of Exeter in 1929. Further back, Martin's great-great-grandfather William Willett campaigned for British Summer Time and made it a recognised practice.

  When Martin was 10, the family lived in Zimbabwe. Back in England, he attended the Hylton and Exeter Cathedral schools, where music became his passion. For his secondary education he went to Sherborne School. There he met Phil Harvey, who would later manage Coldplay. At Sherborne, Martin was president of the Sting fan club. He also played alongside Harvey in a blues band called the Rockin' Honkies.

  Before college, Martin worked at Shed Studios, producing jingles for plays at St. George's College in Harare. He then enrolled at University College London and earned a first-class honours degree in Greek and Latin. His degree, notably, was in the classics rather than in music.

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• 3. Naming Coldplay

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  Orientation week at University College London in 1996 is where Martin met the guitarist Jonny Buckland. The two spent the rest of that year planning a band. In early 1997 they began writing songs together and rehearsed every night. Guy Berryman joined in the following months, and the group recorded numerous demos without a drummer. By November, the trio went by the name Big Fat Noises.

  Will Champion joined next, and he scheduled the band's first live show at the Laurel Tree only a few days after arriving. Panicking, the group renamed itself Starfish in 1998. A few weeks later it settled on Coldplay, a name suggested by Martin's friend Tim Crompton. Crompton had considered it for his own band after finding a book, Philip Horky's Child's Reflections, Cold Play (1997), but he discarded the idea.

  Parlophone signed the band in 1999. The debut album Parachutes arrived in 2000, and its song "Yellow" entered the charts at number four. That single became the group's breakthrough. Ten albums are now listed under the band's name, the most recent being Moon Music in 2024. Coldplay has won seven Grammy Awards and nine Brit Awards. It has sold more than 160 million records worldwide, making it the most successful group of the 21st century.

  The Independent and the Evening Standard have named Martin one of the most influential figures in the United Kingdom. American Songwriter ranked him among the best male singers of the 21st century.

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• 4. Songs For Others

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  Embrace's "Gravity" and Jamelia's "See It in a Boy's Eyes" both carry Martin's songwriting. He co-wrote the Jamelia track with Rik Simpson, a frequent Coldplay producer. He has also collaborated with Ron Sexsmith, Faultline, the Streets and Ian McCulloch.

  In 2005, Martin worked with Nelly Furtado on "All Good Things (Come to an End)", which appeared on her album Loose in 2006. The two were once rumoured to be a couple after performing together at the Glastonbury Festival in 2002. Furtado joked that he was her boyfriend and that "he just doesn't know it yet".

  His interest in hip hop led to "Beach Chair", a track on Jay-Z's Kingdom Come in 2006. Martin supplied the chords. Simpson built the drum pattern. Jay-Z then brought in Dr. Dre to mix the song. Martin and Jay-Z performed it at the Royal Albert Hall on the 27th of September 2006. The following year, an impromptu jam session at Abbey Road Studios led Martin to record the chorus for Kanye West's "Homecoming" on Graduation.

  Dance music came next. In 2015, Martin worked with Avicii during sessions for the album Stories. Their first joint composition, "Heaven", began in that period, with Simon Aldred of Cherry Ghost providing early vocals. Martin also sang on "True Believer". Avicii died in 2018, and "Heaven" appeared on his posthumous album Tim in 2019, with Martin's vocals. In 2017, Martin co-wrote "Homesick" for Dua Lipa's debut album.

  Martin has also turned up on screen. He and Buckland made cameo appearances in the film Shaun of the Dead as supporters of the fictional charity ZombAid. In 2006, he appeared in series two, episode four, of the comedy Extras, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. In the 2009 Sacha Baron Cohen film Brüno, he sings in the closing credits alongside Bono, Sting, Slash, Snoop Dogg and Elton John. In March 2015, he joined the televised launch of the streaming service Tidal by video link and was introduced as a shareholder.

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• 5. Tributes And Benefits

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  At the Brit Awards in 2017, Martin performed "A Different Corner" in tribute to George Michael. In June 2015, he sang "Til Kingdom Come" at the funeral Mass of Beau Biden, son of then Vice President Joe Biden, after learning that Beau had been a fan. In August 2017, he played a solo piano version of Linkin Park's "Crawling" for the band's singer Chester Bennington, who had died the previous month.

  Charity work has filled a steady share of his calendar. In 2004, he sang on the Band Aid 20 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?". In December 2012, he performed three songs at 12/12/12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, which aided victims of Hurricane Sandy. Two years later, he joined Band Aid 30 at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill to record a new version of the same song. That session raised money for the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa.

  In March 2009, while touring Australia, Coldplay opened the Sound Relief benefit concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The show supported victims of bushfires and floods in Victoria and Queensland. In September 2015, Martin became creative director of the Global Citizen Festival.

  In 2025, InFocus, a charity dedicated to vision impairment and complex needs, launched Exeter's Martin House and named it after him. The building works as a residential care facility for young people.

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• 6. Politics And Trade

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  Fair trade is the cause Martin has pushed hardest. He campaigned for Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign and travelled to Ghana and Haiti to meet farmers and see the effects of unfair trade practices. For a time he performed with "Make Trade Fair", "MTF" or an equals sign written on the back of his hand.

  His views on war surfaced on stage. He criticised President George W. Bush over the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At a Teenage Cancer Trust show at the Royal Albert Hall, he encouraged the crowd to sing against war. While accepting honours at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards, he endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. His wardrobe for the Viva la Vida Tour of 2008-2010 included Barack Obama armbands.

  He has also appeared in a video for the Robin Hood tax campaign. That campaign proposed a tax on stock trades in the United States, aimed at levelling the field between the 1% and the 99%.

  Martin lives mostly in the United States but still votes in the United Kingdom. In April 2006, The Guardian ran an April Fools' Day piece claiming he would endorse the Conservative leader David Cameron. In June 2016, Martin voted Remain in the referendum on European Union membership. In 2019, he said he would "probably vote Liberal Democrat". In November 2023, he expressed support for Palestine during the Gaza war, stating: "We don't believe in oppression, occupation, terrorism or genocide".

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• 7. Musical Heroes

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  Travis, the Scottish rock band, gets credit from Martin for the creation of his own band. U2 is another major influence, musically and politically. Writing about U2 for Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", Martin called them "the only band whose entire catalogue I know by heart". He praised the first song on The Unforgettable Fire, "A Sort of Homecoming", as "so rousing, brilliant, and beautiful". He added: "It's one of the first songs I played to my unborn baby." Radiohead has also shaped him.

  The Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha holds a special place. In a 2005 interview, Martin said: "the first band I ever loved was a-ha." In November 2011, he recalled that "back when we didn't have any hits of our own we used to play a-ha songs." He has performed live with a-ha's Magne Furuholmen, introducing him as "the best keyboard player in the world".

  The list runs on. Martin is a fan of Oasis, Muse, Westlife, Girls Aloud, Take That and Arcade Fire. In a 2011 interview, he cited the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Marley among his favourites. In 2014, he inducted Peter Gabriel into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his solo career.

  In 2005, Coldplay played R.E.M.'s "Nightswimming" with Michael Stipe during their Austin City Limits performance on the Twisted Logic Tour. Martin later called it "the greatest song ever written". He has named Richard Ashcroft, formerly of the Verve, "the best singer in the world". He also admires the lyrics of Morrissey. He has said Coldplay's "Shiver" was a rip-off of Jeff Buckley, influenced by Buckley's "Grace".

  In 2008, Coldplay released an alternate video for "Viva la Vida", directed by Anton Corbijn. It pays tribute to the video for Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence", with Martin dressed as a king, as Dave Gahan was in the original. The band called it "a video cover version, made out of love for Depeche Mode and the genius of Anton Corbijn".

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• 8. Private Life

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  The 5th of December 2003 was the date Martin married the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. Their daughter Apple was born in May 2004 in London. Before the birth, Martin and the band released a song called "I am your baby's daddy" under the name the Nappies. Coldplay's "Speed of Sound", the lead single from X&Y, was inspired by his awe at becoming a father. Simon Pegg and Buckland are Apple's godfathers, and Martin is godfather to Pegg's daughter. Their son Moses was born in April 2006 in New York City, named after a song of the same name.

  In March 2014, the couple announced their separation as a "conscious uncoupling" after ten years of marriage. Paltrow filed for divorce in April 2015, and it was finalised on the 14th of July 2016. From August 2015 to August 2017, Martin was in an on-and-off relationship with the actress Annabelle Wallis. He then began dating the American actress Dakota Johnson, and they lived in Malibu, California. In 2024, it was revealed the couple had been engaged for several years. In June 2025, People reported that they had split after eight years of dating.

  In a 2012 interview with the Daily Mirror, Martin revealed he had suffered from tinnitus since his early adult years. He noticed symptoms as a teenager "while listening to loud music". He now wears specially filtered earplugs or customised in-ear monitors on stage and urges his bandmates and children to protect their hearing. He has also partnered with the Royal National Institute for Deaf People to raise awareness of hearing loss.

  PETA named him the World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2005, though he began eating meat again after his divorce. He supports Exeter City and is ambidextrous. The Times estimated his net worth at £160 million in May 2023. He has a habit of going barefoot, especially while rehearsing for Coldplay shows. On Saturday Night Live, he performed "All My Love" and "We Pray" with no shoes on.

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