Having your first album go to number one in your homeland is nothing to sneeze at, so forgive Will Champion, the drummer for U.K. sensation Coldplay, if he still sounds a little dazed, even a few months on from this major achievement by his band. "There have been so many things to look back upon with fond memories this year," he says on the phone from his London home, "so it's kind of difficult to pick out one or two, but the day we found out that the album was number one in the U.K...that was definitely a high point." No word on how Champion, bassist Guy Berryman, guitarist Jon Buckland, and singer/guitarist Chris Martin celebrated the event, but it couldn't have been anything that kept them out of commission for long--after all, they had a full round of English summer festivals to play.

Coldplay's debut, Parachutes, out since July 2000 in Britain but only recently released in America, is further evidence of what appears to be a growing, and welcome, U.K. trend: the commercial success of sensitive, tuneful, guitar-based pop/rock with a wide-open, borderline epic sound. (For further examples, check out the recent albums by Travis, Doves, and Badly Drawn Boy.) The British music papers, never slow to offer definitions, have tagged it the "new Radiohead" movement, and true enough, the influence of Thom Yorke and his Oxford colleagues can't be discounted. But Coldplay's music is more straightforward, less self-consciously arty than Radiohead's, and Martin's nasal, fluttery vocal style owes just as much to Jeff Buckley and Dave Matthews as it does to Yorke.

Asked who they personally consider their stylistic peers, Champion responds, "Any band that cares about tunes we feel are sort of our kin. What we love talking about and what we love doing is playing music. The rest of it's just incidental. It's great, because in the U.K. now, there are a lot of bands coming through that have that same attitude, focusing on good songs, maybe as a kind of backlash against all the pop and image-based, produced, manufactured rubbish. I think people want to be sung to, want to feel like people are singing songs about them, and singing songs that mean something, rather than just some young girl looking nice."

So far, Coldplay hasn't made as much of a stir Stateside as they have in the U.K., but give them time. Songs like "Shiver" and the buzz-worthy single "Yellow" are anthemic in an unassuming way, with hooky choruses, tasty guitar playing, and arrangements that favor the sedate but don't hesitate to rock when necessary. They certainly have the potential to set radio alight, and "Yellow" has already begun to do just that. "We knew that the songs were good," Will notes, "and so we didn't want to have a lot of flashy production techniques. We just wanted to record an album that was us. The majority of it was done live. There were times during the recording process when we thought that we'd never finish it, just give up and go home, 'cause it was really stressful; we had lots of arguments because we all felt so strongly about getting the music right. So finally finishing it and hearing it as a whole was a massive achievement."

The story of Coldplay began in 1996 at University College, London, where the quartet first met as undergraduates. Bonding over shared tastes in music, they gradually began writing and rehearsing songs together, until it became clear that they were in fact a band. Champion was the last to join, and although he was proficient on a number of instruments, he had never played drums seriously before. But since that was the only open slot left in the group, he quickly adjusted to life on the throne. "I'd played once or twice on a friend's drum kit," he says, "so I knew the very basics--what did what and what you were supposed to do. But as soon as we all sat down together, it just felt really right and natural."

His bandmates must have thought the same thing, because they subsequently wasted no time going professional. "It was January 6, 1998, when we had our first rehearsal in Jonny's bedroom in north London," Will recalls, "and then two weeks later, we had our first gig. As soon as I came into the band and we had that first rehearsal, I got the number of a promoter at a local club, rang up and said, 'Can we have a gig?' So straight away we threw ourselves in at the deep end. We brought loads of our friends, about a hundred people, down to this gig so it would look really busy. It was quite a memorable time." From there, it was only a few more club shows and a couple of indie EPs before the band was signed to a major label (Parlophone), paving the way for Parachutes and its big entry into the U.K. charts.

Come February 2001, U.S. audiences will get a chance to sample the quality of Coldplay for themselves, as the band commences its first American tour. Will is looking forward to the experience, almost as much as he's anticipating some well-deserved R&R between now and then. "We have a month off," he says, "during which I'm going to go on holiday and not go anywhere near a stereo or any kind of music." Again, forgive him this--it's been a big year.

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