Fresh start for The Coral (From Daily Echo)

Fresh start for The Coral

2:57pm Saturday 21st August 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

THE Coral are standing outside the BBC’s Broad-casting House in the centre of London.

They’ve just completed a session for Clive Anderson’s Radio 4 show Loose Ends, and up walks a man in his 50s with a camera and notepad asking for a quick snap and an autograph.

The trio – fourth and fifth members Nick Power and Ian Skelly are missing – look a little surprised, but duly oblige. It’s safe to say they’re not used to being recognised on the street.

Unstarry characters they may be; their music is anything but.

“This is our best record,” says James of Butterfly House, released last month. He’s happy now he’s tucking into a few plates of tapas, although it takes a while for him to loosen up and properly start chatting.

“In a way, you have to think that about each record you’ve made, but with this one I really think it.

“It’s the most consistent, and will stand the test of time better than the others. The first album (The Coral, 2002) will always be great, it’s got something magic about it, but this album will age the best of all of them,” he says, before taking a bite into a chicken wing.

There is something special about Butterfly House, the Merseysider’s sixth album if you count the limited-edition psychedelic oddity that was 2004’s Nightfreak And The Sons Of Becker.

There’s nothing particularly new here in terms of influences – The Byrds, Love, Crosby, Stills & Nash etc – and the band have lost none of their original, typically English spark. The songs are just better.

“We just did our thing as always,” says James. “We weren’t trying to rip anyone off, but there’s something on this that we’ve all related to, and we’ve played to our strengths.”

For Butterfly House, James and keyboard player Nick remained main songwriters, although with each track, there’s a lovely story of how a misunderstood comment, misheard idea or throwaway line was picked up by another member of the group and turned into something worth holding on to.

“On More Than A Lover, Ian thought I was singing ‘Too much to carry on’, which I wasn’t but soon changed it to, because I knew exactly what it meant.”

Another case was Roving Jewel, which was kickstarted by James mistaking the lyric for “I used to call ‘at’ the Roving Jewel” rather than “I used to call ‘her’ the Roving Jewel”.

Subtle, maybe, but significant enough to change Jame’s train of thought and, within minutes, come up with a totally new narrative for the song’s sublime melody.

“It’s about this fella who was trying to write the ultimate piece of literature about his life,” explains James.

“He goes to this place to write it but ends up going insane trying to write, so decides to give up art in the end because he realises he can’t write about a life if he's not living one.

“It’s like The Shining or something. Sometimes you just have to put whatever it is down and live your life.”

For a band who’ve just spent the best part of three years making an album, there’s something poetic about that.

Butterfly House is the first album The Coral have made since losing original guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones.

It’s not a new development, he first left after their 2004 album The Invisible Invasion for personal reasons, but rejoined in time for Roots & Echoes.

“It didn’t have a big impact this time, really,” he says. “When he left the first time, that’s when it was really hard.

“We were really getting onto something then, really loose jamming and I thought that would be our best album, but he had a bad time and had to take a break. Before that, we were just bouncing along, no problems and you think nothing’s going to stop you. Next thing you know, someone who’s been your friend for all those years is gone in a way.

“It was kind of frustrating for two or three years, so when he left it was a release for all of us. It was a positive thing for him and us, and there'll never be hard feelings.

“Working with John Leckie on this album was amazing.

“He’s worked with John Lennon, Phil Spector, Pink Floyd, The Stone Roses, and Radiohead. You don’t get a better CV than that.

“The way we worked, too, just five of us playing in the studio – we’d never recorded like that before, and it gave us a lot of confidence and really moved us on.

“In some ways it feels like we’ve started all over again.”

• The Coral play Summer Madness at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight on Sunday August 29, headlined by Paul Weller.