What Coldplay are doing instead of playing The Carling Weekend Reading & Leeds Festival…(With Chris Martin)

Why aren't you playing the festival?
"Funnily enough, my dad has a sports team which he gets together once a year, and that always falls on the same day as The Carling Weekend, so we couldn't play in it last year. But we have to this year! We felt it was more important to keep my dad happy! But it'll be good to have a day off as well. Also, we were     worried that people would be getting a bit sick of us, playing at every festival. We were just made up at Glastonbury and T In The Park, we couldn't believe that feeling." 
What's the feeling like in the Coldplay camp at the moment?
"I actually got really cross today, because I was watching TV, Planet Pop or some nonsense, and it was full of the most cack music you've ever seen, and I thought, 'well, this is all very well, but why can't people learn about great music?' You know what I mean? But it made me all confident. It made me want to say, 'We are one of the best bands in the world, and so are The Flaming Lips and Sigur Ros.' I mean, Sigur Ros, they're never going to be on prime time TV in England, are they? So I'm going on the warpath. Everyone thinks that we're 'nice boys of rock' or whatever, but we've got our axes to grind. It just makes you determined. It's the feeling in the Coldplay camp at the moment.
"We've also all been through the feeling that, 'Oh my God, we've got to promote this album (Parachutes) forever and we're never going to have the chance to write any new stuff.' But we've just decided that, hey, we're going to do whatever it takes to get people singing proper songs. Some of the airtime-filling nonsense that I heard just makes me appalled. When there's all these great songs that are going unlistened to every day."
Where you think you'll be in six months' time?   
At the Brits, obviously! All we care about is awards! Haha! No, that was a joke - I've got no idea where we're going in six months' time. We really want to start working on our next album, but we really want people to know this one as well. It's going to be an effort to get back to living normally and working hard on writing and stuff, as well as going out and promoting and doing photo-shoots and all that sort of nonsense. Selling ourselves in the media and campaigning against crap music."
Have you had to really sell yourselves in the media yet? 
"No, but we're waiting for the backlash! I'm waiting for it to come. I'm sure it will!"
What about Alan McGee?                                                                                                               "Well, that doesn't concern us in the slightest. It's not even worth responding to, really.
"We've only ever done Reading once, last year. Festivals are great because you're a pop star for half-an-hour and a fan for two days - you're just like everyone else. I was in the crowd last year, watching Blur, and I was in the crowd last year, with my mouth open, watching The Flaming Lips - and funnily enough, even Thom Yorke was watching as well - out in the crowd. The real big boys, out to watch concerts - no        disguise, no beard or anything.
"But it's cool. That's why I love festivals - all these bands. And you never get bored because there's always someone else to go and watch, or some fast food to go and be eaten. They're great, man, we love them."