The Coral: Liverpool lads who just gelled

Twenty years on, that record sounds as fresh and remarkable as it did when it was released on July 29, 2002.

The band’s sojourn into psychedelia and folk rock was refreshing and inventive, compelling and precocious. It helped to change the musical landscape, while also adding The Coral’s name to the remarkable inventory of classic British beat bands from Liverpool – a catalogue that began with The Beatles, in whose famed Cavern Club The Coral cut their teeth.

Universal acclaim followed a record described as being a mass of remarkable contradictions while BRIT Award and Mercury Music Prize nominations were duly conferred.

Two decades provide perspective, of course, and The Coral holds up remarkably well – a testament to the band’s invention.

This signed, boxed, limited edition volume features exclusive commentary from the band as well as previously-unseen photography as it reflects on one of the greatest records of the new millennium.

It’s being celebrated in 2022 and the band have just completed a remarkable tour. Their anniversary shows were largely sold out and culminated with two nights at The Invisible Wind Factory, in Liverpool.

Next up is a lavish, boxed book that’s been signed by members of the band and is available for pre-order now. Limited to 1,500 copies, it tells the remarkable story of how a gang of Liverpool lads came together to record a remarkable collection of songs.

Festival appearances will follow throughout the summer – including one at Moseley, during the first weekend of September, before frontman James Skelly is joined by Nick Power on an eight-date tour this autumn, in which they’ll talk about the record and play acoustic versions of songs.

James Skelly says the band remain proud of the record and look back at the way they formed with fondness.

“You start off wanting to get out of where you’ve been in normal life. Friendship, becoming a gang; that’s the first thing.

“You don’t start off thinking you want to make Astral Weeks or emulate Oasis. That might loom into view eventually, it might become a gateway, but the first thing is starting that gang. That’s how you get your identity. You start the gang, the gang becomes the band.

“You’re just a blank page. That’s all you are when you leave school.”

James’ brother, Ian Skelly, adds: “The band pretty much started in school.

“At that time, there was just me and Paul (Duffy) playing in the basement of my mum and dad’s pub, in Wallasey.

“For about two years, we were playing drums on cardboard boxes but in the end we forked out and got some drums.

“Then, slowly, we got the other members. Bill and Lee were next, then James joined. Nick was always knocking around for a couple of years, in other bands, trying to get into ours.

“In the end, we felt sorry for him and let him join.”

Nick Power remembers the advent of Oasis helping to spur the band along.

“I think the way it opened for me was with a world of happy hardcore. Then Oasis and guitar bands came along and there was a real push and pull between kids who liked one or the other.

“If you liked one, you had to hate the other. That’s the way it was.”

Paul Duffy has similar memories: “I was still in school, I was probably about 13 or 14. James was working the pubs for his dad, just glass collecting. He started to pick up a guitar because Oasis came along, which changed everything for young lads in the 1990s.

“So he picked up a guitar and started to join us in the basement. He just started writing songs, messing around.

“One of his first tunes was called David Watts, something like that, a Jam-Kinks rip-off.

“You have to start somewhere, don’t you?”

The release of the band’s debut album was momentous. They’d cut their teeth playing clubs and pubs around Liverpool, including a residency at The Cavern, the former home of The Beatles. They were well managed and when things took off they moved very quickly.

James said: “We found an identity together. We just clicked. By the time it came to making an album it was almost telepathic.

“We almost lived like a mini cult. We just did the album ourselves.

“In some ways, the album was almost an afterthought. Making a record wasn’t even really discussed, really. It was just telepathic.

“Getting started was the main thing. People normally have a few different band members where things aren’t right. Then gradually everyone gels and it falls into place.

“When we started, we went in all sorts of crazy directions. We had a moment where it was like being in The Verve, or something. That was when we were still in the rehearsal rooms.

“Then there came a time when it just flipped and it was like Captain Beefheart and Love. We did this little session in my bedroom, where we did Skeleton Key and this tune called Come Home, and they were so different to any other band.”

The hit, Dreaming Of You, took The Coral into the public consciousness. Two decades on, it’s as refreshing and relevant as ever it was.

James remembers writing it. “We went to this little studio with the first guy my dad put us in with, this guy called Andy Wilson. He was brilliant. He’d record your tune live.

“We recorded the first version of Pass It On with him. I remember he had Shack in there too.

“There was the whole myth of Mick Head and that kind of stuff. As a kid, you’re taken in by the whole thing.

“Andy invited me down and I’d seen them playing a song and I met Mick and we talked about Arthur Lee. You buy into that whole thing when you’re a kid, it was great.

“I remember feeling my heart skipping a beat, I was buzzing. I remember running down the road, I was living at my nan’s at the time, my heart skipped a beat. I got in the house and wrote Dreaming Of You in 5 minutes.

“When it’s happening, it’s just happening. If you give yourself to your imagination, you can do stuff like that.

“It was the same with Pass It On. I was on the train, going to Nick’s, I must have been about 17. I had a guitar. I just wrote that tune and had the melody in my head.”

As the band’s success grew, things snowballed. The Coral were – and are – unique in that each member of the band brings considerable creative gifts to the party.

Unlike the first version of Oasis, for example, it’s led by all members, rather than one or two, with each playing an equal creative part.

Paul Duffy remembers the momentum growing as word spread about their music.

“When it was all coming together, it was just like a snowball, just gathering, I couldn’t tell you how it happened. I just remember it happening. It was all that we were good at, and we were good at it.

“I couldn’t tell you why it happened, really, it’s almost beyond me now. There’s no formula, you know. I suppose it was unique that we stayed together.

“It’s not unique for any teenage lad to start a band but to be mates and stick together is definitely unique. It’s something that we had, it’s a strong bond, it’s what we were good at.

“The fact of sticking together and having a buzz was it, really. We didn’t take it that seriously. It just all kinda fell into place, just us being who we are and what we all stood for and our interests. That’s what happened.

“We were all just collected into this melting pot which became The Coral.”

What happened for them was part of a remarkable journey. Success came hard and fast – and was richly deserved.

Nick Power recalls: “I can’t remember one review for the album. There was a buzz, definitely. I think it was like The Strokes were out and The White Stripes were out and they wanted an English answer to it.

“I remember reading one review and it said ‘this is an amazing journey’ or something. We were all sitting on James’ nan’s step, smoking rollies or something, and that was the photo of us.

“And then it blew up and I guess we wondered how it had all happened. But also, I kind of did expect it in a way. I wasn’t surprised by it. I think it was the whole scene that happened. All the timing coincided and everything was simpatico for a while. All the planets aligned for it.”