Unseen Coldplay Photos To Be Released
Coldplay John Hilton, close friend of guitarist Jonny Buckland, has known the band – consisting of Jonny, Chris Martin, Guy Berryman and Will Champion - since they formed at university in London in 1996. The group went by several names including Pectoralz and Starfish before settling on the name Coldplay in 1997.
When the time came for the band to release its first EP, they asked John to do the album’s artwork. Looking for inspiration, John watched the group rehearse in their dingy apartment for weeks, taking hundreds of candid images of the young soon-to-be stars.
John also did the artwork for the group’s second album, but handed the job over to professionals when the group signed their first big record deal in 1999.
He now finds it difficult to look at the covers he designed without cringing, but loves flipping through the images he has of the band. He is currently storing them in a box in his London home, but hasn’t ruled out sharing them with the world in the future.
“It’s great to have designed covers for Coldplay, although I'm more proud of the hundreds of photographs I've got of them rehearsing in their flat,” John said in an interview on Coldplay’s official blog.
“They're all in a big Camden recycling box at the moment, in my wardrobe. Maybe one day I'll dig them all out. But it never felt right to try and exploit that sort of thing.”
