The Coral... are back

[Welsh Rich]

I've always liked The Coral... think their set at Glastonbury this year was one of the few highlights and proved they've got a great back catalogue...

 

Anyway, they're back!

 

Arctic Monkeys are not a band known for dishing out lavish compliments to their fellow musicians. Earlier this year, however, they singled out one group for special praise. Asked by an exasperated journalist to name one band who they thought had "got it right", they shot back with the Coral. That band they explained, embodied precisely the kind of characteristics they felt were important: they were highly productive, and "free of bullshit".

 

You can see why Arctic Monkeys would look up to the Coral. Like them, they were catapulted to fame at a tender age: when the Coral's debut album was released in 2002, frontman James Skelly was 20, which made him the oldest member. Like them, they developed a reputation both for a distrust of music industry hoopla (when they were nominated for the Mercury Music prize, they declined to attend the ceremony, instead sending a video of themselves in a Jacuzzi with a Freddie Mercury lookalike) and for a certain kind of unmediated plain-speaking: in one of the great biting asides in rock history, Skelly famously described Bruce Springsteen fans as "the kind of people whose neighbour has built a fence three centimetres into their land and it's killing them". And like them, the Coral's fanbase extends far beyond the usual confines of the indie scene: Skelly describes their average audience as consisting of "a mad hippy dancing at the back, a few little girls at the front, some 40-year-old blokes, and a gang of scallies over there pissing everyone off".

 

Nevertheless, as Skelly and keyboard player Nick Power sit in the offices of their London publicist, fresh from a European tour in the company of Britain's biggest band, any suggestion of paternal influence over Alex Turner and co is greeted with hoots of derision. "The worst thing that could possibly happen to the Arctic Monkeys," says Power, "would be for them to listen to our advice about anything."

 

Today, Power and Skelly laughs a lot, and discuss their forthcoming album Roots and Echoes with an undisguised zeal. It streamlines the band's disparate influences - psychedelia, doo-wop, the 60s R&B of the Yardbirds, and the smooth crooning of Nat King Cole and Neil Diamond - into a coherent and polished rock album, and there is much talk of renewed enthusiasm, and use of the word "boss".

 

It makes for a marked contrast with my last attempt at interviewing them, in the front room of Skelly's tiny terraced house in his hometown of the Liverpool suburb of Hoylake, four years ago. Their debut album had sold half a million copies, their second, Magic and Medicine, was about to enter the charts at No 1, but an atmosphere of celebration was distinctly lacking. Skelly spent most of the afternoon colourfully lambasting his record label, which had apparently incurred his wrath by the simple expedient of promoting the band's forthcoming album (at one juncture he bewilderingly, described them as "the kind of people who go to fuckin' parties and think, yeah, that's a fuckin' great record that Come on Eileen".) When the man who had signed the band telephoned and suggested visiting in order to smooth things over, Skelly threatened to lock him out of the house, then, revising this plan slightly, threatened to murder him.

 

Today, he winces at the memory. "I was just mentally fucked," he sighs. "I just couldn't believe the music industry. Now I'm not as naive, I know how it works, but at the time, I just couldn't believe it, and I think it sent me mental. My dad managed pubs, my granddad worked in a factory, so I thought, how can I really complain about this, but at the same time, it was wreckin' me 'ead. It was sending me a bit, like, schizophrenic. We got signed and we were going to France in a tranny van with a load of bevvies and I was 20 and it was boss. But then suddenly, you're into touring, you've got a No 1 album, it all happened dead fast. I thought, who the fuck am I?"

 

The situation was apparently made worse both by the fact that the Coral didn't actually have a manager and by their enormous intake of marijuana and hallucinogens. One European tour ground to a halt after the band arrived in Amsterdam and elected to go on what Power calls "a three-day magic mushie mission" instead of playing any gigs, a decision that, the keyboard player ruefully notes "probably fucked up our chances in Europe for a good few years".

 

None of their excesses or woes seemed to impact on their British success: even 2004's limited edition experimental album Nightfreaks and the Sons of Becker made the Top 5. But by the time their 2005 single In the Morning became the second most-played track on British radio that year ("after Beyonc

[bobbob1313]

"Dreaming Of You" is one of the best songs of the decade.

[solace]

they're opening for the Arctic Monkeys in the US this fall

[Welsh Rich]

Another feature today in the Independent:

 

You can tell that The Coral have grown up together. In the dressing room where we meet, where the six members have been passing time during filming for The Friday Night Show, they come across as a brotherly gang. Casually slouching, surrounded by boxes of left-over pizza crusts, the lead singer and principal songwriter James Skelly mumbles between picking bits of today's lunch out his mouth and scratching his crotch. They may have achieved an impressive eight chart hits, but, clearly, success has not gone to their heads. Now the lads from Hoylake in Merseyside, who formed The Coral 11 years ago are on the verge of releasing their fifth album, Roots & Echoes, and it could well be their most cohesive and soulful effort to date.

 

At 26, Skelly is the oldest band member and was just 20, (the youngest member was 16) when the band signed their record deal. A Mercury Music Prize nomination for their 2002 debut, four top-five albums, much touring (and excessive smoking of weed) down the line and the band found themselves exhausted. When their guitarist, Bill Ryder-Jones, quit touring due to personal difficulties in 2005, it was time things were put on hold for the band to do some thinking.

 

Skelly reflects: "We hadn't stopped until after the last album. Everyone was like, 'what's going on?'. We had a big break. We didn't know what was going on with the band. Now we've been around the world, done all these things, and we've stopped and had a chance to take it all in for the first time."

 

The simple reason, the keyboardist and songwriter Nick Power explains, was being in a contract aged 18 and "winding up" at 22. The band had lost that sense of brotherly unity and, according to Skelly, had found themselves on "different pages".

 

"No one argued with anyone for about two years, and that was one of the worst points," he recalls. "Everyone had become individuals. We got off the roller-coaster in the end. Then we could start making an effort to get it back together again, like a band. It's an attitude. It's something you can all tap into instead of on your own."

 

The way Skelly and Power interact, completing each other's sentences and continuing the other's train of thought, shows that the band's period of distant tension is over. And they have rediscovered the hunger.

 

"You've all just got to get on it and want it again. You're all there and you want to practice and you want to do music and you want to get it out there to people again," Skelly says. "You take it for granted for so long when you're doing it. It's the best thing you'll probably ever do in your life," adds Power.

 

"Yeah, it is," agrees Skelly. "When we're all together it's like a rare thing that no one else has got, because we were all mates since we were kids."

 

When Ryder-Jones left the band mid-tour, David McDonnell temporarily played guitar. While everyone accepted Ryder-Jones's need for time out, according to Skelly, gigging without him was "like having a fight with your arm behind your back. McDonnell's an amazing guitarist but he'll tell you himself it can never be the same, because the Coral is about a friendship and about tapping into that thing."

 

Skelly wanted to be writing songs rather than touring and the band found themselves fracturing. He recalls: "Performing was pissing me off because I wanted to be writing. I was only interested in Dylan Thomas. But you've got to get out there and sing because that's part of why people like you."

 

Skelly, though, remains resolute and realistic now. "Every band has to go through that point and come out of it. You have to reinvent yourselves."

 

It took some time to build up to where they started, but with the help of their fans the Gallaghers, who lent them free use of their Wheeler End studios to record the album, they pulled through. After the break Skelly resumed songwriting with Power, Ryder-Jones rejoined them and, before long, they were discussing things and writing as in the early days before they were signed. When the whole band played live together again for the first time at the end of 2006, The Coral were complete.

 

Skelly recalls the significant moment: "We hadn't played with Bill for ages. We did this gig at Christmas and we played together live and the crowd just went mental. It was like, we're a band again! It was like a new lease of life for everyone, I could see it in everyone and everyone's confidence went up and we started writing more then."

 

There is a strong sense that, aside from The Coral being in their blood, they feel that they owe their music to the public. Skelly says: "I think we're one of the few bands that can go into the mainstream with different types of music and interesting music. People deserve good music. When the Beta Band quit, I was gutted. They were one of the few bands that were doing something different. I think the best thing about The Coral is we take strange influences and make it accessible."

 

One of the most celebrated aspects to The Coral's music is their authenticity, incorporating the late Sixties psychedelia of Love's Arthur Lee and Scott Walker while making it sound their own. Skelly says: "If you're original then your music's going to be original, because you're playing it."

 

Their music is full of literary references

[jff]

Aside from the first album, which I don't care for, I think the Coral have produced some fine albums. I hope I'll get a chance to see them in concert not as an opening act.

[Welsh Rich]

They're a great live act... I think, in fact, they're better live than on record.