Coldplay is already writing and demoing material on the road for its next album, the follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Parachutes.

The band hopes to record this fall and have the new album out by summer 2002. "We're starting to get some stuff together," says Coldplay drummer Will Champion, phoning from a tour stop in Australia.

"We've got two songs ['Animals,' 'In My Place'] that are pretty much finished," he says, "and they're pretty much our favorite songs at the moment. But we've got quite a bit of touring left before we can think about recording them."

"'Animals' is about having dark sides to your personality," Champion says, "and 'In My Place' is based around a mellotron, the instrument used on 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' But instead of the flute setting, we use the cello setting. It's a big string sound with a big, heavy drumbeat."

Champion says he hopes to fill the producer's seat with Ken Nelson, who helmed Parachutes. "It worked pretty well and we're completely comfortable with him," he says, adding that recording locale will "possibly" once again be the band's hometown of London. "But maybe we'll go away and hire a house or something."

Parachutes debuted at No. 1 on the British charts and is only now catching on in America due to the hit "Yellow." Coldplay begins its first U.S. headlining tour Feb. 9 in Seattle. And the media is already in a swarming pattern.

"It's crazy," says Champion. "We just sort of managed to get used to what's gone on in England, and now it's all kicking off in America and all over the place. It's kind of difficult to come to grips with it."

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