The Coral's James Skelly interview: 'We’ve always been more Co-op than Waitrose'

The Coral’s lead singer talks about success, the Stockport band Blossoms, their art exhibition and their return after a five-year hiatus with the album ‘Distance Inbetween’ – from the Coral Caves rehearsal room in their hometown of Hoylake

The Coral: Paul Duffy, James Skelly, Paul Molloy, Nick Power and Ian Skelly

The Coral singer James Skelly is already looking forward to the band’s Christmas night out. “We’re going to watch Status Quo,” he says. “We’re taking it through ’til Christmas. If you don’t go you’re fired. And everyone has to wear denim. Denim socks, denim undies, everything. It’s going to ruin everyone’s Christmas.” Keyboardist Nick Power agrees. “I’m not gonna make it home. I’m going to end up getting divorced.” Skelly laughs. “I’m gonna be sliding home for Christmas!”

We are sat at the band’s Coral Caves rehearsal room in their hometown of Hoylake on the Wirral peninsula, and this is exactly what I imagine chatting to The Coral was like 14 years ago. Back then, they were a rabble of mischievous kids (Skelly was the oldest member at 20) whose eccentric psych-pop saw them bestowed with the unlikely tag of “the next Oasis”. That was in no small part thanks to the tremendously entertaining interviews they gave, with scant regard to the consequences on their career, going off on tangents about taking mushrooms, Jeremy Beadle and Bruce Springsteen fans (“the kind of people whose neighbour has built a fence three centimetres into their land and it's killing them”). “We’d always wanna confuse people on purpose for some reason,” Power says, smiling.

These madcap missives were as out-there as their sound, a genre-fluid mix of their obsessions – Captain Beefheart, Can, The Doors, Love – held together by Skelly’s way with a melody. That some people were unsure what to make of them – “I don’t blame them, I look back with a mixture of shame and confusion” Skelly laughs – did nothing to halt their sudden commercial march. Their brilliant 2002 self-titled debut won a Mercury nomination – naturally, rather than attend the ceremony they sent a video of themselves in a Jacuzzi with a Freddie Mercury lookalike – and 12 months later its follow up Magic and Medicine went to number one. Not that it changed them.

The Coral returned in 2016 after a five-year hiatus with the album ‘Distance Inbetween’

“We were just so stoned we didn’t notice any difference,” Skelly says. “We still lived here and there was still a hierarchy where plumbers were above us. There’d always be a fit plumber in Weatherspoon’s and people would be like, ‘oh, here he comes’.”

“That still exists” says Power, sat opposite rolling a cigarette. “I don’t mind it though” says Skelly. “I need a plumber more than a plumber needs me.” Were they ever tempted to move somewhere where their chart-topping status would be more celebrated? “Nah,” says Skelly. “We’ve always been more Co-op than Waitrose.”

Twenty years since forming at school, The Coral are enjoying their most fruitful year since that early unanticipated success. Glowingly received new album Distance Inbetween, a heavy, dense, psychedelic trip, marked their return from a five-year hiatus. The pause was necessary: having racked up an extensive catalogue with a productivity not seen in indie circles since The Smiths – six albums in eight years, five of which went top 10, and a collection of singles so timeless they could be on rotation on a long lost jukebox – by 2011 the tank was empty. “We’d become, well not lazy, but lost a bit of enthusiasm,” Skelly says. We’d lost a bit of energy on that level.”

There had been clues all was not well – guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones, now a solo act of some acclaim, left, re-joined and left again, citing stress and nervous exhaustion – and by 2010’s Butterfly House The Coral’s presence was like a clock on the wall, always there but taken for granted. “I do that as well,” Skelly admits. “I was like, ‘oh, it’s just another Supergrass album, oh, it’s just another Super Furry Animals album’. We needed a break for everyone.”

The band stayed close, working on each other’s projects – most of The Coral played on Skelly’s underrated solo album Love Undercover – and reformed, of a fashion, to release “lost” Coral album The Curse of Love in 2014. But their return was as unexpected as their heftier sound. “One of the reasons we went that way was because people wouldn’t expect us to do it,” Power says. It isn’t just sonically where The Coral have extended themselves: Power has kept online tour diaries and their December shows coincide with an art exhibition Distance Inbetween, celebrating the “music, artwork and stories” behind the album, at Harrogate’s RedHouse Gallery, where previous artists in residence include Peter Blake and Pete Doherty. “You can’t just come with your seventh album and say, ‘here’s some tunes’,” Skelly says. “You’ve got to come with more than that.”

Separately I speak to Skelley's brother Ian, band drummer and the man behind all of The Coral’s psychedelic album covers. “We’re a cultured band, we’re geeks really, we’re just well into good stuff” he tells me, and a look around the Coral Caves proves as much: the walls are adorned with posters of sci-fi and horror movies and pop culture icons, action figures (including a bust of Walter White), recordings of Lester Bangs and scores of CDs (everything from prog rock to J Dilla.) “So the exhibition is a natural progression for us. It’s all home grown just done by me, done like a scrapbook with everything that went into the album. The cover [black birds circling on a white background] has obvious elements of light and dark and symbolism that you can’t get rid of evil as it’s the opposite of good, and it’s a good basis for an exhibition. Hopefully there’ll be a full retrospective down the line.”

It was the band’s artwork that first brought them to the attention of Alan Wills, one-time drummer with overlooked Liverpool dreamers Shack, who went to watch an early Coral show on the basis of the gig poster, which depicted a “grandad’s head exploding”. He was so impressed he started Deltasonic Records (later home to The Zutons), and signed the band. Mentor, manager and friend throughout their career, Wills was tragically killed in a cycle accident in 2014 just as the band were reforming. “I’m sure he’d have been involved with us again,” Skelly says “But it’s not about that, it’s about missing your friend. He was just one of my best mates. Albums and stuff are the least of it.”

Before he died Wills had turned Skelly onto a young, then unsigned, Stockport band Blossoms: Skelly was such a fan he released their early singles on his Skeleton Key label and produced their debut album, which reached number one this year. The Coral will support indie music’s great hopes at a big Manchester gig next summer. “They are smashing it,” Skelly says “and it’s a good chance for us to play in front of 8,000 young people. We get offered all these festivals with old bands but we don’t want to do them because we’re not that old yet, we’ve just been doing it for years.” There was some eyebrow-raising at the masters supporting the apprentices. “It’s where you’re going to be on your 7th album. You’ve got to remember if you’re in The Coral world, you love The Coral. But younger people didn’t live it, they weren’t there. How do you get to them?”

Isn’t this the kind of deliberate move that The Coral would have scoffed at in their fledgling days? “You’re like that when you’re young though, aren’t you?” Skelly says. “In our heads real bands were just mad. We didn’t trust bands that made career decisions. We didn’t trust Radiohead. I love them now, but then I was like they’re not a real band. They are lawyers in a band.” Is this why The Coral were never likely to live up to the “next Oasis” tag?

“Yeah, we just didn’t have the drive of Noel. In the Oasis film (Supersonic) they get to that point where they’re all on crystal meth and Noel leaves, but when he comes back it’s Noel’s band, he takes control. We just had the crystal meth and went, ‘this is boss’ and went home. We did that without anyone saying we need to stop, this can’t happen. I thought I was that member to drive us, but I wasn’t”. Does he regret that?

“No, because I’m happy. If I was absolutely skint maybe I would, but I’m comfortable with where we are. At least there’s a story to tell.”

“Our tunes have always been more famous than we have,” Power says.

“We’ve got three tunes in the public consciousness,” Skelly says. “With a lot of people, they’re in the public consciousness but their tunes aren’t. I’d take it the way we’ve got it any day.”

The Coral tour until 17 December. The Distance Inbetween Exhibition runs until 22 December at RedHouse Gallery, Harrogate. The album ‘Distance Inbetween’ is out now on Ignition Records.