‘Who’s gonna write Coldplay’s story?’ Palisadian Gary Spivak jokingly asked the band’s manager, Dave Holmes, the day before the 2003 Grammy Awards last February. A 14-year veteran of the music business, Spivak had been ‘toying around with the idea of writing rock books for a decade’ and had dreamed of writing the story of how these four young Englishmen rose to superstardom. ‘[Coldplay’s management] called me from the Grammys to tell me the band wanted me to do it,’ says Spivak, who will be signing ‘Coldplay: Look at the Stars’ (Pocket Books, July 2004) Thursday, August 5, at 7:30 p.m. at Village Books. Spivak had already developed a personal relationship with Coldplay members Chris Martin (lead vocals, piano, rhythm guitar), Guy Berryman (bass), Will Champion (drums) and Jonny Buckland (lead guitar) during his nearly five years working in the promotion and marketing department of Capitol Records (Coldplay’s label). When he was laid off in January 2003, he saw an opportunity to write the story of one of his favorite bands. ‘I’ve been with Coldplay since Day One of their American existence,’ says Spivak, who traces their American debut back to September 2000, when the band’s hit single ‘Yellow’ was released to radio. Though he didn’t have any bookwriting experience, he says, ‘They’re true artists and they’d rather work with someone they know and trust.’ Spivak mapped out the plan of his book during a flight to Milwaukee, where he joined the Grammy Award-winning band last February on their winter tour through Minneapolis and Chicago. Yet, this wasn’t the first time he’d been on tour with Coldplay’it was the sixth. And he’s seen them live 30 times. ‘I had a tape recorder but every time I pressed ‘record,’ we all started laughing,’ says Spivak, who earned his journalism degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder. ‘Making [the interview process] formal failed miserably so I wrote from memory of the conversations I had with them.’ The tour bus would stop and Spivak would run into his hotel room to document these conversations. When he actually started writing the book, Spivak remembers vividly staring at the computer screen. ‘But once I got into it, it was surprisingly easy how it flowed…because I adore this band.’ By December 2003, he turned in his final draft. As a result of his insider status, ‘Coldplay: Look at the Stars’ includes never-before-seen photos (some taken by Spivak) and casually-spoken, honest quotes from the band mates who Spivak calls, in his book, both ‘old souls’ and ‘champions of modern music.’ In the introduction, Spivak writes, ‘The paradox of Coldplay is their magic. Confident but insecure. Ambitious but humble. Friendly but moody (see Chris Martin). Precise but unpredictable. Self-doubting but self assured.’ For example, Coldplay is not participating in the marketing of the book simply because overexposure is not their thing. ‘They’re an isolated group of private gentlemen and they remain so to this day,’ says Spivak, whose other favorite bands include Radiohead, U2 and, of course, the Beatles. ‘Getting into that circle was the hardest and most fulfilling part [of writing the book].’ The title of the book has triple meaning”Look at the Stars’ is a Coldplay song lyric (‘Yellow’), an ode to them as ‘bonafide rock stars,’ and carries sentimental meaning for Spivak, who writes that front man Chris Martin was the first artist on the Capitol Records label to call him after he’d lost his job. ‘I closed the conversation by saying the one thing I’d regret the most about having to leave [Capitol] would be not getting to work with Coldplay anymore. Martin’s answer is one that I will never forget. ‘Well, maybe we can find a way to still work together. Maybe it’s in the stars.” What also may be in the stars, according to Spivak, is Coldplay’s best album. ‘I don’t think they’ve made it yet,’ says Spivak, who is now a national promotion director at Geffen Records in Los Angeles, where he works with Blink 182, New Found Glory, the Cure and Papa Roach. ‘I think they’re about to make their Joshua Tree [U2’s hit album].’ Born in San Francisco and raised in Cheviot Hills, Spivak played as a drummer in an all-white roots-reggae-rock band called Riddim Bandits before going to work as a regional promotion director at Elektra Records in 1999. He went on to MCA, Atlantic, Capitol and Geffen. Spivak moved to the Palisades in 1999, where he resides with his wife, Jill, and two children, Jake, 7, and Emma, 5, who attend Marquez. ‘They’ve learned to appreciate Coldplay,’ Spivak says of his kids, to whom he dedicated the book. Village Books is located at 1049 Swarthmore. Contact: 454-4063.
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