Coldplay’s Guy Berryman insists the band are “years away” from retirement.
Frontman Chris Martin, 47, had proclaimed that the rock band will stop making records after their 12th studio effort, but the 46-year-old bassist is taking his bandmate’s prediction “with a pinch of salt” as he believes he will “never stop writing”.
Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, he said: “Chris is never going to stop writing, so I kind of take it with a little bit of a pinch of salt.
“We’re still years away from any kind of retirement. But I think you have to have a plan. If you’re running a marathon, you know you have to run 26 miles. But if somebody said to you, ‘OK, start running and just don’t stop,’ it’s quite hard to motivate yourself.”
The chart-topping group released their 10th studio album, ‘Moon Music’, in October, and Chris explained that they made the decision to stop making records beyond their 12th LP to keep their legacy intact.
Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, he said: “We are only going to do 12 proper albums and that’s real. Yeah. I promise.
“Because less is more. And for some of our critics, even less would be even more! It’s really important that we have that limit.
“There’s only seven Harry ¬Potters. There’s only 12 and a half Beatles albums. There’s about the same for Bob Marley, so all of our heroes.
“Also having that limit means the quality control is so high right now, and for a song to make it, it’s almost impossible, which is great. And so where we could be coasting, we’re trying to improve.”
He went on: “There’s something about the Coldplay thing. That’s just what . . . I don’t know where the songs come from. I don’t know where the ideas come from, but that’s just been coming to me for about four or five years now.
“Like, ‘You have to finish like this,’ and I trust that just like I trust the songs. So if we do something together after that creatively beyond touring, then it’ll be something different, or a side thing, or a compilation of things we hadn’t finished.”
The ‘Yellow’ hitmaker suggested he and his bandmates – also including Jonny Buckland, 47, and Will Champion, 46 – won’t want to spend the rest of their lives making Coldplay records.
He added: “Also, to make an album great as a band, it’s such a lot of wrang¬ling with people and I want to give the ¬others some of their life for ¬themselves.
“I don’t want to, when we’re 60, be like, ‘Will, we need you. Come on! We can do better than this!’”