Chris Martin Reveals Why Coldplay Will Only Release 2 More ‘Proper Albums’ as a Band (Exclusive)

Nobody said it was easy for Coldplay to churn out new music forever.

In a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe debuting exclusively on PEOPLE, Chris Martin revealed Coldplay only plans to release 12 “proper albums” as a band before stepping away from crafting fresh material.

“We are only going to do 12 proper albums, and that’s real,” said the frontman, 47, of the band, also featuring members Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman, Will Champion and Phil Harvey. Lowe, 51, responded by telling Martin he wants “50 albums” from Coldplay — but the “Clocks” singer doesn’t agree.

“You don’t, because less is more. And for some of our critics, even less would be even more,” said the Grammy winner.

Martin explained, “It’s really important that we have that limit,” noting that the Harry Potter series contains seven books. “There’s only 12 and a half Beatles albums. There’s about the same Bob Marley, so all of our heroes. and also having that limit means that the quality control is so high right now, and for a song to make it, it’s almost impossible, which is great.”

Rather than “coasting” at this stage of the band’s career, “we’re trying to improve,” he added.

The musician enjoys working on new music, and it’s likely he’ll continue doing so in another form. “That will always continue in some way, but there’s something about the Coldplay thing,” said Martin. “I don’t know where the songs come from. I don’t know where the ideas come from, but that’s just been coming to me for about four or five years now. Like, ‘You have to finish like this,’ and I trust that just like I trust the songs.”

He continued, “So if we do something together after that creatively beyond touring, then it’ll be something different, or it’ll be a side thing, or it’ll be a compilation of things we hadn’t finished.”

One main reason for Martin’s decision to retire from making albums is that in order to make a “great” project, “it’s such a lot of wrangling of people,” he said, “and I want to give the others some of their life for themselves.”

The “Fix You” vocalist continued, “I don’t want to be, when we’re 60, be like, ‘Will, we need you. Come on! We can do better than this!'”

Coldplay is still enjoying its time together, both in the studio than on the road. Martin thinks the band has more joy “than ever” at the moment for a multitude of reasons: “because of getting older, because of COVID, because of everything going on in the world, because of how lucky we know we are, because of the places we get to go, because of the optimism that it gives us to see all different kinds of people gathering together, because of songs that arrive from nowhere, because we go at a slower pace.”

“All these things mean that we love it,” he said.

Martin’s full interview with Zane Lowe is available on Apple Music.