Coldplay’s 12th Album Will Be Its Last, Says Chris Martin: ‘It’s Really Important We Have That Limit’

After Coldplay releases its 10th album, “Moon Music,” on Oct. 4, the band will only make two more, said frontman Chris Martin.

“We are only going to do 12 proper albums and that’s real. Yeah, I promise,” Martin said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe (via People). “Because less is more and, for some of our critics, even less would be even more! It’s really important that we have that limit.”

Emphasizing why the band is self-imposing the limit, Martin added, “There’s only seven ‘Harry Potter’ [books]. There’s only 12-and-a-half Beatles albums, there’s about the same for Bob Marley, so all our heroes. Also, having that limit means the quality control is so high right now, and for a song to make it, it’s almost impossible, which is great.”

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Martin added that while the band could be “coasting” at this point in the guys’ careers, instead “we’re trying to improve.”

Another reason Coldplay plans to stay out of the studio after two more albums is because “it’s such a lot of wrangling of people,” to make a “great” project, according to Martin, “and I want to give the others some of their life for themselves.”

He added, “I don’t want to be, when we’re 60, be like, ‘Will [Champion], we need you. Come on! We can do better than this!'”

Still, Martin said that after Coldplay retires from making studio albums, he won’t be finished making music.

“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.”

It’s possible, he said, that side projects arise between him and his Coldplay bandmates Guy Berryman, Phil Harvey, Will Champion and Jonny Buckland. “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,” Martin said.

Coldplay’s next album “Moon Music” arrives Friday, Oct. 4.