As Coldplay finishes the new  "Mylo Xyloto," a candid and detailed conversation with Chris Martin, Jonny Buckland and manager Dave Holmes about harvesting the best songs, executing a bold global plan-and choosing to create without fear.

He offers a Perrier. In his dressing room, prior to a gig at UCLA's Los Angeles Tennis Center, Coldplay's Chris Martin is polite and engaging, showing no signs that he and his bandmates are neck-deep and under the gun in the painstaking process of completing the next Coldplay album.


Coldplay performs "Lost" at Lollapalooza 2011.

Q&A: Read Our Entire Conversation With Chris Martin

Titled "Mylo Xyloto" and due Oct. 24 worldwide (except for North America, where it will debut Oct. 25) on Capitol Records, the album will be Coldplay's fifth, and comes at a critical juncture for a band entering its second decade. This will be its first record in three years, and not only does the band's loyal fans crave new music, but the industry at large is looking for more evidence that Coldplay is indeed still on an upward trajectory as an international mega-band with decades of staying power. "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends" (2008) debuted at No. 1 and has sold 2.8 million units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and the tour in support of it grossed more than $126 million and moved more than 1.7 million tickets to 94 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore.


Coldplay plays "Viva La Vida" at Lollapalooza.

Embarking on a new cycle, spirits, like expectations, are high. "We've been together long enough that I know how everyone else is feeling, and it makes me excited when I feel the others are excited," Martin says. "They seem pretty fired up. I think we have a lot to prove to ourselves. There's no point in not going for it." This is global go-time for Martin and Jonny Buckland (guitar), Guy Berryman (bass) and Will Champion (drums), as the band and its team transition from showcasing choice songs at festivals to teeing up the launch of the record in earnest. Of course, they have to finish it first.


Coldplay rocks Lolla '11.

This gorgeous evening in Los Angeles, the members of Coldplay are completely immersed in this still-evolving project-to the point of mixing the romantic ballad "Us Against the World" that very day. That one is "a keeper," Martin says. But the fate of other songs that the band has written and recorded since "Viva la Vida," including the eight heard by Billboard prior to the show, is very much in play.

"Because we haven't sequenced it yet, the goal is to leave it in a peaceful place when we finish it," Martin says. "The hope is for the record to be free from any musical kind of box. It very much comes from the Brian Eno professorship of, 'Go anywhere. As long as it's you guys, you can go anywhere.'"

NEXT PAGE: Inside Coldplay's New Album