| Bruna Nessif 17. November 2014 – 20:03
Artists draw inspiration from a variety of things, and sometimes, it’s other artists.
Appearing in a new Beat x Beat webcast produced by Beats by Dre, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin explained the creative process when it came to writing the band’s hit song “A Sky Full of Stars,” and revealed that there was one popular pop queen whose music really helped spark the idea behind the chart-topping Coldplay track.
And you may be surprised at who it is.
“I’ll tell you the truth: I was listening to a lot of Katy Perry,” Martin said.
Yep, that California Gurl is partially to thank for that song you can never get out of your head.
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Martin continued, “A lot of her songs have the same chord sequence the whole time. Your body feels comfortable with them and then the melody’s changing on top so there’s a groove you really get in to and then also you’re kept interested… so I was like, ‘that’s an amazing way of doing songs.'”
Although Katy Perry helped set the wheels in motion, the crooner also shared that electronic dance music played a fair share in completing the track, too.
“That song really ended up being inspired by EDM, which some people turn their nose up and then you go to see an EDM thing and people are together and having the best time,” he said. “So I was like f–k it! I love that stuff. So I wanted to have a song that comes from that world. But in terms of, ‘I’d really like to jump up and down to this,’ we don’t really know what we’re doing.”
So that’s when Avicii came in to collaborate with the band and help shape the song. “He did a full Avicii version, we did a full Coldplay version, and we spent weeks weaving it all together,” said Martin.
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