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Interview
by SashaS
31-7-2002
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| The Coral is our 'new-fave band' |
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Galactic crossroads
The Coral are (our favourite) Mercury Music Prize nominees
It was only the second day on sale when The Coral’s self-titled debut album got nominated for the 2002 Panasonic Mercury Music Award and it should win it. None of the other 11 contenders offer what this band has achieved on their debut disc: they’ve bridged the historical canyons, filled in the gaps and amalgamated the unlikely ends. There is a myriad of styles and genres handled by these youngsters who have the knack to steer any type of songs onto their distinctive galactic crossroads. Delivered with conviction and passion that can’t but shock and delight one, in equal measure, the scope of these dozen tracks (including the bonus) simply electrify with its pioneering sonic spirit.
The way this album makes one feel is the same the legendary John Peel discovered after years of spinning prog-tastic tracks, man, on his ‘Perfumed Garden’ radio programme; upon emergence of punk in the 1970s, he concluded, “I didn’t know what I was missing!”
Of the six members of this Hoylake, Merseyside combo, four are present and one is busy skinning-up (but whom we’ll not name) while all talk about the new album, ambition, other artists, but first we touch on the Mercury Music Prize.
“The competition is The Streets and The Doves and…” singer James Skelly runs out of names. “God, Doves will sound dated next year. It sounds so even now… But, it doesn’t bother me if we win it or not. It would be nice but… How much do you get? 20,000? That’s all right then… I could do with that…”
The week before they taped their maiden Top Of The Pops appearance where they should become regulars…
Mad aesthetic
‘The Coral’ album was produced by The Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie who helped the members to release and enhance the band’s sound rather than make it palatable. It is a wide-ranging disc that is almost difficult to imagine this band making after having seen them at the beginning of the year, at the NME Brat Tour, when they showed promise although far from this kind of mastery.
“We’ve grown since then,” Ian, drummer, designer of the band’s artwork and James’s bro, reposts, “and have learnt to play our instruments. Toured…”
“That was our first proper tour,” James explains, “that taught us a lot; we learnt how to and not to do things and the process of making the album was a lesson as well. Our producer really helped us to open up and encouraged us to go for it but mostly everything was worked out, all the arrangements, the keyboards, the horn parts... Some songs were written three years ago, some we demoed five times…”
“But, ‘Skeleton Key’ was a bit of a surprise for me,” J. Skelly continues with measured enthusiasm, “It was like ‘Wow!’, I didn’t expect it sound like that. Broudie had the experience to turn our ideas into reality… ”
The Coral are in a very envious position for majority of young bands: they are managed by a former drummer of Shack, Alan Wills, and are signed to his label, Deltasonic, and only distributed by Sony. The Coral can be and do whatever they want without anybody reprimanding them; they’ll also have no-one to blame.
Ramraided awakening
The Coral came together in 1995 but the next five years were spent in the band’s ‘preccy room’ where the Skelly bros, organist Nick Power, guitarists Lee Southall and Bill Ryder-Jones and bassist Paul Duffy learnt, practised, made mistakes, reconstructed… Their first (of three) EP, ‘Shadows Fall’, only came out in June last year, to presage something different heading towards discerning ears.
The Coral are all about honesty and when they claim to prefer S Club 7 to Doves (the former do not pretend anything) or that “’The Coral’ is better than The Who’s first LP or The Small Faces’…” Or The Stone Roses’... you know they are telling the truth. Not just youthful boasting, defo gov.
“Yes, honesty is the whole point of this,” the singing Skelly nods his head, “there is no lies anywhere. It is the love for music… S Club 7 are no bullshit, it’s hope music, it is positive, kids love it…”
“Yeah, in small dozes,” Nick offers from the side of the oval table, “but there is so much of it to really bore everyone to death…”
“The thing is that what I see about,” James continues without missing a thought, “like the Doves is like New Order again, all depressing and just like horrible, E-mixes, you know what I mean, ecstasy-mixes with too much high frequencies and it’s just awful. That drug has got a lot to do with music going s**t in a lot of way.”
The more you listen to these ‘sweet leaf’ disciples talking, or sticking the album on ‘repeat’, the more convinced you become that The Coral aren’t weird, everyone else is so bloody ordinary. It also demonstrates how old-fashioned and stale Coldplay, Starsailor and Idlewild actually are.
“We just wanted to make good music,” J. Skelly remarks at the end.
The Coral possess the hitchhikers-guide to cosmos…
*
Tour dates:
01 October - Newcastle University, Newcastle
03 October - Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds
05 October - Manchester University, Manchester
06 October - Sugarhouse, Lancaster
07 October - The Foundry-Sheffield University, Sheffield
09 October - The Junction, Cambridge
10 October - Shepherds Bush Empire, London
11 October - De Monfort Uni, Leicester
12 October - Bristol University, Bristol
14 October - Lemon Grove, Exeter
15 October - Concorde 2, Brighton
17 October - Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton
18 October - Liverpool University, Liverpool
SashaS
31-7-2002
The Coral’s album ‘The Coral’ is available now on Deltasonic
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