Will Champion

William Champion also known as Will Champion was born on 31 July 1978 in the beautiful city of Southampton, England. His father, Timothy Champion was a professor of Archeology at the University of Southampton. Will grew up in the high field suburb of Southampton, near his father’s place of work. Champion went to Ports Wood Primary School and then shifted to Cantell Maths and Computing College for his secondary schooling.

He went to London University to study Anthropology. Will was an avid musician since childhood. He started taking lessons in violin and piano at the tender age of 8 and learned guitar at 12. He also has basic knowledge of bass and tin whistle. In fact, all his family members are also music enthusiasts. He began to show interest in playing guitar when his mother taught him the three basic chords and after some time he realized that most of the songs revolved around these three chords.

He found reading musical notes extremely tough and instead used to memorise the whole routine. In spite of being a good instrumentalist, William was not a part of any band in school as most of the children around him used to play football. William worked under English comedian, Ricky Gravis and also as a bouncer before Coldplay happened to him. He was a part of a band called the fat hamster but only for a very short period. Champion’s musical inspirations and influences are Nick Cave, Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits is the full name of Tom Waits. H >> Read More... , and Irish folk music. He was the last of all the members to join Coldplay. Despite not having any formal training in drumming, he accepted the offer and became a part of Coldplay in 1997. Champion uses a Yamaha drum kit and Zildijan as cymbals. He uses pro-marks American hickory 5A sticks with a wooden tip.

In 1999, Chris Martin Chris Martin is an English singer, songwriter, mus >> Read More... , the lead vocalist of Coldplay sacked Will champion for unknown reasons. But realized it was a huge mistake and William made a comeback to the band. Chris Martin describes William as a human jukebox as he knows more songs than anyone and can play all. His bandmates describe him as sensible and a good decision maker. He is also called “the rational head of Coldplay” by his bandmates. Champion is not only an instrumentalist but is also a vocalist. In many of Coldplay’s concerts, William has sung and performed songs. He had once, sang an acoustic version of “Death Will Never Conquer” from their album Viva La Vida, live.

He had also sung the live version of “Til Kingdome Come.” Will celebrates most of his birthdays touring and it is a tradition of the band to sing “happy birthday” for him in their concert on his birthday. In the year 2000, he lost his mother Sara Champion to cancer. She was a Doctor of Prehistoric Archeology. Coldplay dedicated their album Parachutes to her. In 2003, he married Marianne Dark and was the first member of the band to get married. He has three children. In 2006 Dark and Champion had their first child- Ava and in 2008, they had twins – Juno and Rex. Apart from playing drums in Coldplay, he had also made a guest appearance on the first solo album of Magne Furuholmen, called Past Perfect Future Tense.

He also did a cameo in the Game of Thrones- the super hit drama series of HBO. Champion is a big fan of cricket and football. In his childhood, he played cricket for Chandler's Ford CC and also holds a seasonal ticket of the south coast team – Southampton F.C.