Six youthful troubadours, who collectively form one of the most exciting new bands in years. They choose styles and specialise where no-one else would even think to tread. Minor key ballads infused with the spirit of the Wild West under moonlit bayou, for example. How cool is that? You’d be impossibly pushed to find a comparison amongst their peers, a band so young and yet so progressive - they've both eyes on the future and a finger in every musical pie.
Indeed for some so early of years, The Coral are prodigiously aware. Like some wheeling cultural kaleidoscope they pick up everything from the WWF to Origin Of The Species, Hemingway to Huckelberry Finn, eclectic yet accessible. Everything they come into contact with is assimilated, cogitated and brought to be in the overall perspective. Marley. The Beach Boys. The Doors. Treasure Island. The American Civil War. BMX bikes. You name it - they dig it. As James himself says, "Inspiration is absolutely everywhere".
So how did they get from there to here? Six years ago the band formed from a group of mates at Hilbre High School, Hoylake. James and Ian took guitarist-to-be Lee home for tea, convincing their mother that he was "one of them Kosovan refugees", picking up Paul, Nick and Bill along the way. They learned some old favourites (Oasis, mainly) and wrote some new ones, about pirates and Sheriffs and men who look like plants.
And so they went, retiring to a disused shelter by the sea to practice - and smoke - to their hearts content. They worked part time to cover the costs of their endeavours, knocking out demos in between. It was Alan Wills, once the heart of Shack's beat machine, who picked up The Coral and launched Deltasonic from their capable backs after being impressed by a mere rehearsal.
"The way I think of making music is that it has no rules. If it sounds good, it is good" - James
(Official Biography by The Coral)
