Sincerely yours

It’s the day after Coldplay’s sold-out concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and the British rock band’s tour bus is gliding along the normally clogged 5 Freeway toward San Diego with the same ease the group has moved to the forefront of pop.

Coldplay’s first two albums have sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, thanks to sensitive, reflective songs that offer a calming break from the relentless pessimism and aggression of ‘90s rock.

That positions Coldplay as one of the few bands in years to make music smart and embracing enough to connect with part of the edgy young alt-rock crowd and accessible enough for mainstream pop fans.

At the concert in San Diego this night, most of the 12,000 fans will sing along with “Yellow,” the enchanting ballad that lead singer Chris Martin wrote three years ago in a moment of bliss, and many will likely wonder if a new love song, “Moses,” was inspired by Martin’s girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow. (It was.)

“I couldn’t be happier,” says Martin, 26, and that’s good. He’d have a hard time these days convincing anybody his life isn’t sweet.

This is the way stardom is supposed to feel but rarely does in rock.

Where quality musicians, all the way back to Elvis Presley and the Beatles, once routinely sought the biggest possible audience, most of the great bands of the last 15 years -- from Nirvana to Radiohead -- have either been suspicious of too much success or torn apart by internal strife while reaching for it.

Coldplay’s potential for reviving that grand rock tradition of quality coupled with mass appeal was underscored in Q magazine’s review of the group’s last, Grammy-winning album, “A Rush of Blood to the Head.”

“By now, we are accustomed to seeing great bands falter at the edge of the big time as we are watching the England football team crumble in the quarterfinal,” wrote critic Dorian Lyneskey. “It doesn’t make them any less inspiring, but wouldn’t it be nice, every now and then, to see one go all the way?”

Coldplay hardly seemed ripe for this role just two years ago.

In England, the group’s rapid rise led to a backlash. Alan McGee, the maverick record executive who signed such rebellious bands as Oasis and Jesus and Mary Chain, wisecracked that Coldplay’s tender strains appealed only to “bedwetters.”

At the same time, Martin felt hopelessly out of place in the U.S., sandwiched between testosterone-heavy bands on a series of East Coast rock radio concerts. As he sang his thoughtful tunes about relationships and life, audiences pelted him with coins and bottles. In one show, a CD struck him squarely on the head.

“We were confused about what we were trying to do and who we were trying to please,” Martin says now. “Instead of focusing on all that bad stuff, I [decided] to focus on the four people in the audience who ... paid their money and want us to show how much we are into it. I stopped being shy about showing how much I cared about what I’m doing.”

When Coldplay played for its own audience on the next tour stop in Atlanta, Martin displayed that pent-up energy and passion, and the word began spreading.

By the time the foursome returned to Los Angeles last year, Martin was reaching out to the audience with the warm, openhearted spirit that audiences have come to expect from U2.

Whether sitting at the piano or moving about the stage with a guitar, he throws himself into the music with his whole body so forcefully that he becomes a real-life tambourine man, inviting the audience to join him.

This is a band on a mission, and it’s brave enough to admit it.

“Mainstream pop culture is so awful and so bland and so packaged,” Martin says on the way to San Diego. “Our goal is to change the mainstream. We don’t want to just keep ourselves a secret. We want to fight to have sincere music be the main thing again.”

MUSICAL OPTIMISM

There are moments of pure pop magic in Coldplay’s concerts, especially near the end of the show, when Martin sits at the piano and sings a song he learned from a 1967 Louis Armstrong recording.

Written by George Weiss and Bob Thiele, “What a Wonderful World” a lovely, utopian vision that can seem almost sarcastic when played against the backdrop of Vietnam in the ‘60s or the post-Sept. 11 anxiety of today. Yet Martin, as did Armstrong, sings it with a purity and faith that make you want to suspend disbelief and dream along.

There’s a similar sweetness and optimism in “Yellow,” the tune that brought the band to stardom. Against bright, joyful guitar chords, Martin sings,

Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And all the things that you do.

“The best songs seem to just appear from nowhere,” says Martin, who graduated with honors in ancient-world studies from University College London. “We were recording this song called ‘Shiver’ in Wales, and the sessions were not going well. We had been in London, where the sky always seems very foggy. Someone said come out and you can see all the stars.”

Martin went outside on that lovely night. The world seemed so at peace, and the song was born.

Even in “Politik,” an anxious, post-Sept. 11 reflection, he still looks to the future with an abiding faith. “Give me strength, reserve control/Give me heart and give me soul.”

Rather than being tied to rock’s raw blues and country roots, Coldplay’s best numbers seem to grow out of the eloquent and melodic pop-rock tradition blueprinted by the Beatles in their most sweepingly orchestrated works -- notably such ambitious yet uncommonly personal tunes as Lennon-McCartney’s “Across the Universe.”

Whether backed by Jonny Buckland’s jagged guitar licks or Martin’s epic piano chords, the music is filled with such beauty and timeless grace that it reminds you of the purity of ancient cathedral bells. Martin’s singing ranges from the droning ache of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to a comforting, conversational tone, sometimes accented by a sudden touch of falsetto.

Whatever his shading, the band -- which also includes bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion -- plays with taste and economy. This is a band that understands the importance of restraint, even when it is trying to revive a lost tradition in rock.

You sense that same restraint in the band members. Despite all that is happening around them, they don’t have to work at being down to earth when they stop by a breakfast-hour KROQ-FM show at the House of Blues in West Hollywood before heading to San Diego.

A lot of bands do these promotional chores begrudgingly, but the four guys in Coldplay are so cordial that one of the fans asks, during a Q&A; session, how they stay so grounded. Martin seems genuinely surprised by the question.

“We don’t think we are that grounded,” he tells the fan. “We get whisked from here to our hotel rooms, then to a nice venue to play for a lot of nice people. It’s pretty easy to stay happy.”

A MODEST SOUL

At a trim 6 foot 2, the seductively handsome Martin would stand out in one of those Vanity Fair covers showcasing Hollywood’s hot young talents.

He’s also smart, athletic and courteous, adores his parents and is socially conscious (the partial Web site address written on his arm the day of shows points fans to an organization that supports farmers and other workers in developing countries who are hurt by unfair world trade practices).

Plus, good gosh, he can laugh at himself.

Asked about his university background, Martin, who is from Devon in southwest England, assures you his high marks aren’t as impressive as they sound.

“It was pretty easy and very light,” he says of his major’s degree of difficulty, as he lounges in the tour bus’ modest dining area.

“If someone says, I have a first in medicine, that’s something. If someone says, ‘I have a first in ancient-world studies,’ you smile. I loved Greek and Roman theater, but I got [the first] by doing basically beginner’s courses.”

This modesty apparently isn’t an act.

British writers describe Martin as “terminally humble” and a perpetual worrier.

In early interviews in England, he fretted about everything, from not fitting in with the rebellious rock ‘n’ roll image to a receding hairline. To his everlasting chagrin, he admitted he was so girl-shy that he was a virgin until 22. He still doesn’t take drugs or normally drink alcohol.

At first, he felt self-conscious about his upper-middle-class, university roots (his father was a businessman, his mom a schoolteacher), but he relaxed seeing the acceptance of Radiohead, whose members also have college backgrounds.

“To me, what was great about rock ‘n’ roll was not fitting into some image but having the freedom to be and believe in anything you want,” he says.

Martin draws the line at talking about Paltrow, but the singer doesn’t become huffy when the topic is gently raised. Asked to name his favorite actress, he recognizes right away that it is a trick question.

“That’s a great question,” he says, smiling. “Do I have to answer that? I know who I think is the best actress, but I won’t say.”

He’s comfortable enough with the relationship to let references to “my girlfriend” slip into the conversation. When he’s asked about songs for the next album, for instance, Martin responds, “My girlfriend has this keyboard her dad bought her, which has got sounds on it I’ve never heard or never tried writing on before,” he says. “That’s where all these new songs are coming from, which is really cool.”

He’s not big on television, and he wishes he read more, but he loves movies and is eager to share his list of favorite films: “Life Is Beautiful,” “Annie Hall” and “Back to the Future.”

Martin, who lives in London, throws himself into the conversation about films with the same enthusiasm that marked his discovery of rock ‘n’ roll as a youngster.

Growing up in a conservative setting, he sensed something liberating in rock ‘n’ roll; he was enthralled by the photos of musicians he saw in such publications as New Musical Express even before he had heard much of their music.

He was often disappointed with the records he bought because the sounds weren’t as imaginative as the sounds he imagined from looking at the photos and reading about the groups. But one band, James, did live up to expectations. Led by Tim Booth, the British band was highly regarded and had a wonderfully convincing and inspiring edge.

Martin said he loved the group’s “totally uplifting spirit, a positiveness. I spent all summer working in a strawberry farm just to buy their records.”

As he got deeper into music, the teenager read not only about the music, but also the reasons some bands stayed together and others broke up. He noticed that three of his favorites -- U2, R.E.M. and Radiohead -- divided the songwriting royalties equally and shared decision making.

The same principles govern Coldplay, whose members met in the fall of 1996 while living in the same residence hall at university. They attended classes during the day and rehearsed three to five hours a night.

After releasing a mini-album in 1999, Coldplay started receiving rave notices in the British pop press and was signed by Parlaphone Records, a branch of EMI, which made them label mates of Radiohead.

Thanks to the popularity of the single “Yellow,” the group’s debut album, “Parachutes,” entered the British charts at No. 1 in 2000. Q magazine gave the album four out of a possible five stars, citing Jeff Buckley, Pink Floyd and Radiohead as obvious influences for the group’s haunting sound.

Next stop: America.

IN THE BEGINNING

So many promising British bands failed to crack the U.S. in the late ‘80s and ‘90s that Coldplay and EMI’s major U.S. labels -- Capitol and Virgin -- were skeptical about trying.

When those two labels passed on releasing “Parachutes” here, a smaller EMI affiliate, Nettwerk Records, jumped at the chance to work with the album.

David Holmes, who now manages Coldplay, was co-owner of Nettwerk, and he persuaded the band to do a few shows here, insisting it could connect strongly with U.S. fans. The group found an immediate fan base in Los Angeles, thanks to support from both KCRW-FM, the NPR affiliate, and KROQ-FM, the alt-rock powerhouse.

One measure of the group’s rapid rise is that the band has gone in Los Angeles -- one of its biggest U.S. markets -- from the 1,500-capacity Mayan Theatre to two nights at the 17,000-seat Hollywood Bowl. Tickets for the Bowl shows went so fast, said Bill Silva, who produced the concerts with partner Andrew Hewitt, that the group could have sold out a third night. The band’s even hotter internationally. Of its 13 million album sales, almost 10 million come from outside the U.S., primarily in Europe.

That puts them in a rare position to assume a leadership role in rock -- a place that has proven dangerous for many bands.

Several superb ‘90s bands have been poised to revive the mainstream pop-rock goal that once was shared by such varied groups as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Doors and Queen.

But they fell short.

Some -- including Rage Against the Machine, the Verve and Oasis -- crumbled because of ego problems or musical differences.

Others were suspicious of massive success -- either because their low self-esteem made them uncomfortable with the adoration (the late Kurt Cobain and, to a lesser extent, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder) or because they felt success was disorienting and corrupting (Yorke).

If Radiohead keeps making albums as fiercely ambitious as “Hail to the Thief,” it could still join the Beatles/U2 tradition, but Yorke resists that larger stage. In a recent Newsweek interview, he again warned of getting too close to the flame.

“Ultimately, you get to a point -- Coldplay’s a good example right now -- where no matter what you do, you become lifestyle music,” he said. “No one wants it that way, but it always happens if a record is successful. People identify with it, and it verges on becoming just a marketing campaign.”

These days it’s hard to get through an entertainment-oriented magazine without seeing someone praising Coldplay, be it Elton John (in Interview) or Hollywood starlets (in Vanity Fair).

Martin recognizes the dangers of becoming so caught up in touring, promotion and other elements necessary to establish a U2-type leadership in rock that both health and music can suffer.

“The one thing that keeps me grounded is that I realize my whole life is resting on things that happened to me, things I had no control over,” he says during the bus ride to San Diego. “Meeting teachers who encouraged me, having a piano in the house, the fact that Jonny lived three floors down from me at university and discovering he played the guitar and finding out we could write songs together, and then meeting Will and so forth.

“Before I met the others, I used to go to a friend’s house on school holiday. He was in boarding school with me and ... “

Martin pauses.

“You know this is a very unsexy story,” he says. “I probably wouldn’t have told it at one time, but I’ve got a girlfriend now so

“I would go hide in the bathroom and read about U2, and my friend and I would think about being a band like that some day.... The whole idea was so unlikely that the story is hysterical.”

PICKING THEIR PATH

With many bands, the members convey such attitude, even offstage, that you can spot them right away. With Coldplay, you’d have a hard time doing that. Martin’s energetic personality does make him stand out, but the others are so unassuming it’s hard to imagine they are on rock’s fast track.

Despite the intensity around the band these days, the atmosphere backstage before the San Diego concert is ultra-relaxed. After a sound check, Martin spends nearly an hour on a new passion -- yoga -- while the rest of the band plays basketball with the crew.

They speak about the band’s history with a sense of wonder themselves -- and as equals.

“I think we all sensed right away that we had a potential to do something that few people ever get a chance to do,” says Berryman, who lives in London with his girlfriend. An engineering major, he dropped out after a year but kept close to the band. “I would work all day and they would go to school all day, and we’d meet at 6 in the evening,” he says, sitting on a curb in the parking lot after the basketball game. “We were exhausted, but we would rehearse until late at night. It was fun, but it was a struggle, just the physical commitment.”

Buckland, who studied math and astronomy, is the quietest of the Coldplay members and the closest to Martin. Resting after the game, he reflects on the time Martin got hit with the CD and the band blossomed.

“We always were optimistic, but I saw something change inside of Chris at that moment,” he says. “We stopped being so paranoid and thinking that everybody who came to our gigs hated us. We realized it was OK to have a good time on stage.”

About the future, drummer Champion, who studied anthropology and has a passion for Irish folk music, says, “We don’t want to contrive any type of path for ourselves. “A lot of people say you either have to go down the Radiohead route or the U2 route, and I don’t like to think of it like that. We just have to do whatever is right for us.”

On stage that night, the Coldplay magic returns. One reason is that the music, for all its inspirational qualities, is also rooted in the tension that comes from remembering past failures. There’s an underlying anxiety that makes the optimism feel like genuine relief, not just lazy images.

“I’ve always been this strange combination of arrogance and self-doubt,” Martin says during the bus ride, when asked about this duality. “I’m still completely unconfident about most things. I’m petrified about our next album. I’m petrified about people not buying tickets next week. I’m petrified about our next video getting played.

“Yet there is also part of me that knows we are determined to make the most groundbreaking, heartbreaking, passionate record of all time.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Albums that rocked their world

CHRIS MARTIN

Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” (1975)

“This has everything you want from an album -- melody, immaculate lyrics, passion. It’s funny, it’s sad. From a solo-artist point of view, it’s my all-time favorite.”

U2’s “The Unforgettable Fire” (1984)

“This is remarkable from a purely sonic point of view. When people make music like this, it’s meant to be played in a big gathering of people. I’m a real sucker for that type of epic music. I love being in a concert, part of lots of people jumping around and celebrating.”

GUY BERRYMAN

The Beatles’ “Revolver” (1966)

“I like it as an eclectic mix of songs and styles. “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the track that really stands out in my mind, but I love everything about the album, including the artwork.”

The Flying Burrito Brothers’ “The Gilded Palace of Sin” (1969)

“I’m a budding steel guitar player, so I love Sneaky Pete’s steel work on the album. But, mainly, I’m a Gram Parsons fan. I love everything he did, but this is my favorite. It really defined country-rock to me.”

JONNY BUCKLAND

The Stone Roses’ “The Stone Roses” (1989)

“It was one of the records that changed my life. Suddenly, I thought guitars were real cool and being in a band was probably the greatest thing you could do. It felt like a whole new generation being born in music.”

Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” (1975)

“It’s an unbelievable album, but, then again, you could say the same about so many Dylan albums. There’s a whole world within these songs, all the images and the sound of his voice even tells you something. It’s his own world.”

WILL CHAMPION

The Pogues’ “Rum, Sodomy & the Lash” (1985)

“It just reminds me of growing up. My family spent a lot of time in Ireland and it reminds me of my childhood.”

Tom Waits’ “Small Change” (1976)

“I had heard a lot about Waits and I didn’t think I’d like his music, but I finally heard this in 1998 and I thought ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’ was just amazing. I grew to love his singing.”

Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached at robert.hilburn@latimes.com.