RG: I think the only way you can avoid Difficult Second Album Syndrome is to make the first album rubbish. Also, I think it's unfair that two series of The Office and the Christmas special count as my album and he throws 10 songs together and that's an album. Ten three-minute songs? That's 30 minutes. That's one episode!
CM: What about that band you were in? Antigone Rising? Saracen's Haircut? [Seona Dancing, Ricky's brief career as an '80s new romantic.]
RG: [Changing subject] I went to [This Is Spinal Tap/A Mighty Wind creator] Christopher Guest's house.
CM: No way! Are you in his new film?
RG: Yeah. It's called For Your Consideration. He's got the original [piece of paper] in perspex of them coming up with the name Spinal Tap and it's, like, fifth on the list. There's another one, and I laughed for about 20 minutes at this ... [barely able to say it] Jumbo Prawns. Oh God! [Beside himself with hysterics.]
CM: Do you think you could out-quote me on Spinal Tap?
RG: I'll have a go. It's a good competition ...
CM: But it's nerdiness. Pure nerdiness. We mustn't be nerdy in this article.
RG: No. You've got an image to keep up.
CM: I know. [Mimes snorting cocaine] "Snorts line." Put that in brackets. But you asked about the follow-up thing. I mean, I feel really strangely about our album. I think it's probably the same for Ricky and it will be the same for Simon in his next film ...
RG: Pegg's getting a few plugs, isn't he? He didn't even turn up.
CM: He's the best comedian in LA today.
RG: Ha hal Christopher Guest's in LA right now.
CM: Well, I think Simon's as good as that. And anyone who disagrees is a cunt.
RG: That's not the headline. The headline is still: "I think Extras is
better than The Office."
CM: Listen, I permanently feel like we've got everything to prove. Now more than ever. I'm being 100 per cent sincere. I spend all my time writing. Because I'm obsessed that we've got to get better.
RG: I haven't got any peer pressure. I haven't got much in common with people working in England today and that's nothing to do with them being ...
CM: Shit?
RG: No, not at all. I just don't feel it's a competition. But you were joking with me earlier, saying, "[Fix You] was a flop, it got to Number 4." And I know you were joking, because it's not a flop. But when you've had Number 1s, I suppose you do think ...
CM: We've never had a Number 1.
RG: Haven't you? What was the highest?
CM: Two.
RG: Oh right. But ... what was Yellow?
CM: Four.
RG: Really?
Ricky, as entertainment manager at the UCL Union, would you have booked Coldplay?
RG: Yeah, of cqurse. Actually, I think I lost your first demo tape.
CM: I'm sure you did. We certainly didn't hear it on your show. We used to drop it off at XFM every week. There was this thing called Demo Clash. Every week we'd be cleaning arid it would be, like, [excitable DJ voice] "Next up, a four-piece from North London," and we'd be like [panting], "It's us! It's us!" and they'd be " .. .it's the Llama Farmers!" Every week we'd get beaten by the Llama Farmers.
RG: But you were too sophisticated. You came out ready ...
CM: Well, there was a song called Ode To Deodorant on our first demo. It was
terrible.
RG: I think X&Y is your best album. I'm sick of fucking Yellow and Trouble and all this twosyllable [girly voice] "Ooh, Trouble, Yellow, Wibble ... "
CM: Have you heard of [Australian children's group] The Wiggles? We just finished this tour in America and we played to ... a load of people. And it was overwhelmingly great ...
RG: Show-off.
CM: Wait - and we played a few nights at Madison Square Garden that sold out really fast...
RG:Modest.
CM: So we were, like, "OK, we're really the big boys." And then we got told yesterday that The Wiggles have sold it out for a week, doing three shows a day.
RG: Haha!
CM: And they have a song called Yummy, Yummy, Fruit Salad. It sold, like, a million copies.
RG: Them and Crazy Frog. You're being kicked around.
CM: We get pummelled. Yesterday, I thought about doing a novelty song called Burp.
RG: Don't.
CM: What about a song called Squeeze My Juicebox?
RG: [Suddenly serious] You see, what I like about Coldplay is that you are a little bit above it. You're down the line. You've left desperation and irony behind.
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