Formation and first years (1996–1999)

The members of the band met at the University College London (UCL) in September 1996. Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland were the first members of the band, having met one another during their orientation week. They spent the rest of the college year planning a band, with their efforts culminating in a group called Pectoralz.[11] Later, Guy Berryman, a classmate of the two, joined. By 1997, the group, who had renamed themselves to Starfish, performed gigs for local Camden promoters at small clubs.[12] Martin also had recruited his longtime school friend Phil Harvey, who was studying classics at Oxford, to be the band's manager.[13] (To this day, Coldplay consider Harvey to be the fifth member of the group.[14]) The band's lineup was complete when Will Champion joined the band to take up percussion duties. Champion had grown up playing piano, guitar, bass, and tin whistle; he quickly learned the drums, despite having no previous experience.[11] The band finally settled on the name "Coldplay" which was suggested by Tim Crompton, a local student who had been using the name for his group.[14][15] By 1997 Martin had also met then Classics student Tim Rice-Oxley. During a weekend on Virginia Water, they asked each other to play off their own songs on the piano. Martin, finding Rice-Oxley to be talented, asked him to be Coldplay's keyboard player but Rice-Oxley refused as his own band (Keane) was already operational. Days after, this event would shape the second line-up of Keane and keep Coldplay's unaltered, thus leaving both bands as quartets.[16]

In 1998, the band released 500 copies of the Safety EP.[17] Most of the discs were given to record companies and friends; only 50 copies remained for sale to the public. In December, Coldplay signed to the independent label Fierce Panda.[17] Their first release was the three-track Brothers and Sisters EP, which they had quickly recorded over four days in February 1999.[17]

After completing their final examinations, Coldplay signed to Parlophone for a five-album contract in the spring of 1999.[18] After making their first appearance at Glastonbury, the band went into studio to record a third EP titled The Blue Room.[19] 5,000 copies were made available to the public in October,[20] and the single "Bigger Stronger", received Radio 1 airplay. The recording sessions for The Blue Room were tumultuous. Martin kicked Champion out of the band but later pleaded with him to return, and because of his guilt, went on a drinking binge. Eventually, the band worked out their differences and put in place a new set of rules to keep the group intact. First, the band declared an all-for-one approach: Coldplay was a democracy, and profits were to be shared equally, taking a page from bands like U2 and R.E.M. Second, the band would fire anyone who used hard drugs.[21]