Will Champion

William "Will" Champion (born 31 July 1978) is the drummer of the band Coldplay. Champion was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England where his father, Timothy Champion, is professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton. As a youth, his musical influences included Tom Waits and traditional Irish folk music. He grew up playing guitar, but also had experience on the piano, bass, and tin whistle. Before joining Coldplay, he performed in a band called Fat Hamster. He attended the Cantell Secondary School in Bassett, Southampton and The Royal Hospital School, Holbrook, Suffolk before studying anthropology at University College London, where he met his future bandmates and formed Coldplay, despite having no experience on the drums. The multi-instrumentalist picked up the drums quickly and earned fulltime duties on the band. According to lead singer Chris Martin, "Will is like a human jukebox, he's more a guitarist than a drummer. Me and Will used to sit on the stairs at our halls of residence and he'd know more songs than anyone. You name it, he'd play it." In Autumn 2004, Champion and Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman guested on a-ha keyboardist Magne Furuholmen's first solo album, Past Perfect Future Tense. Champion was the first Coldplay member to marry: He married Marianne Dark, a teacher, in 2003. Their first child, a girl named Ava, was born on 28 April 2006. On 7 May 2008, Marianne gave birth to fraternal twins Juno and Rex. Champion is a fan of Southampton F.C. and he is a season ticket holder at the South Coast team. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.