Coldplay do not "deflower virgins" while on tour. The clean-living band insist their backstage antics are limited to changing their clothes and they never take advantage of groupies like a lot of rockers.

Guitarist Johnny Buckland said: "There's sort of a whole heap of things that we do before the show. "Obviously we get changed, we do a bit of singing, play the guitar and just sort of relax for a bit before. But we don't deflower any virgins or anything like that."

Meanwhile, frontman Chris Martin has admitted their live shows are influenced by flamboyant performers the Flaming Lips.

He added to Rolling Stone magazine: "Any theatrics on our part tend to be inspired by the Flaming Lips.

So confetti probably came from seeing their show and thinking, 'Oh, confetti looks good,' and then thinking, 'Well, how can we make confetti our own?' "And we thought, 'Oh, let's make them all little butterflies.' That actually comes from taking my kids to the butterfly house at the zoo."

(China Daily/Agencies December 18, 2008)