Coldplay's Quiet Storm

Martin's spirituality also took a sharp turn. He was raised believing in a Christian God -- not the same God, he's quick to point out, as "those crazy American fundamentalists" like George W. Bush -- and at an early age he felt the collective power of singing in church. "Everybody singing together is the best feeling in the world," he says. At Sherborne, meeting kids of different colors and creeds, Martin found his beliefs had morphed into something more ecumenical. "I went through a weird patch, starting when I was about sixteen to twenty-two, of getting God and religion and superstition and judgment all confused," he says. "I think a lot of our music comes out of that. I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be overwhelmed by the miraculousness of it? Everything from that carpet to your nose to my balls is amazing. In fact, my balls are a particular miracle." (To set the record straight, there is no connection between my nose and Martin's testicles.) Martin could no longer wrap his head around the idea of hell, particularly when it was linked to sexual morality -- though that was hardly the only reason he wasn't getting laid. "To be perfectly honest," he says, "I didn't know what I was doing. I wish somebody would have come to me when I was fourteen and explained how to give an orgasm. And it's very strange being the world's sexiest vegetarian" -- as he was recently voted in an online poll by PETA, although it should be noted he does eat fish -- "because eight years ago, if I'd invite someone over to my place for a tofu burger, they wouldn't be interested."

As we walk from his old flat back to the bus stop, Martin's mind turns to the London bombing. "Right now, forty families are grieving," he says. "It's fucked. I wish people would look further into the reason somebody would want to bomb London or New York rather than just how to catch them." The morning of the attacks, Martin was with family in France before playing a gig in the Netherlands that night. After the gig, when Coldplay's private jet landed in London, Martin briefly returned to his home in Belsize Park, only to go out to buy gas for his scooter. "What it must have looked like to see a guy in a hooded top walking along at two in the morning with a gas tank in his hand," he says. "Like if you're walking through the woods on your own at night and you're terrified. Then you think, 'God, if someone walks by and sees me, they're going to be terrified of me.' It's an X and Y thing -- how you can be two things at once."