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After a long day of recording in a south Wales studio, the members of Coldplay stepped outside and looked up to a perfectly beautiful night sky. The next day, "Yellow," No. 10 on this issue's of Modern Rock Tracks chart, was born.

Coldplay's drummer, Will Champion, says, "We'd just finished recording 'Shiver,' and we all went outside to just chill out. THe sky was absolutely incredible. It was so completely clear, and there were like a billion, billion stars. The next moring Chris [Martin] had written a Neil Young-style, country-type song. When Jonny [Buckland] added his guitar riff, it became a bit more upbeat."

"Yellow," Champion says, is "a happy song because it represents a happy time for us. A lot of time in the studio was spent arguing and fighting, and sometimes it was very tense. But that day was a really good day."

The band spent its studio time trying to create an unpolished sound for its Nettwerk album, "Parachutes." Says Champion, "Some of the songs on the album were recorded everything all at once live. Some were chopped up a bit more. We're looking for a raw, rich sound that's not too slick. That's what is quite unpleasant about a lot of pop records. It's just so perfect that you can't imagine people onstage singing those songs live."

From the band's outset, Coldplay strove to capture a live sound even though Champion had barely touched a drumstick. "I had played a little bit, but nothing major," he says. "We were all really friends at the university. When Guy [Berryman] joine and they were looking for a drummer, I said 'Well I can't promise anything, but I'll give it a go and see what happens.' As soon as we all played together, it worked."

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