[The Zion Egg]: Articles (Press)

Thanks to David W aka King Of Cretins for typing it out!

The mad, mad world of the coral inside the egg-fixated, dwarf-addled, beautiful minds of Britain's strangest band:

James Skelly's bedroom is all you need to know about The Coral, contained in
four small walls. It's the frontman's entire world, which is, in turn, the nerve centre for the most disarmingly fascinating band in Britain right now. There are classic film posters on the wall, the odd backstage pass, CD's and videos on every available surface and an aged bottle of Lucozade to hand in case of dire hangover emergencies. On one shelf, there's an array of guitar manuals, an Oasis biography and a huge book called The History Of Punishment And Torture. The window opens so wide it's virtually a door, ideal to lean out, smoke and not disturb the homeowners, James' gran and grandad, downstairs (James having recently vacated his own place after a bizarre flooding accident). All told, it seems to be a good place to try to glimpse the universe as seen through the eyes of manic Merseyside six-piece, The Coral; to try and uncover where they find the peculiar, anthemic sparks of genius in records like new, iridescent EP, 'Skeleton Key'. Yes it certainly is a strange world they live in...

THE DISULLUSIONMENTS...

James Skelly (guitars/vocals): "The music industry is too much bullshit to ever conceive in your brain. It's too much for one human being to ever understand. I just looked at the contract (The Coral recently signed a deal with Sony worth a rumoured £1million) and thought, 'Ugh, boring'. Just signed it. That's the truth and I'm not even gonna lie and say I read it."
"I'd never seen 6 cases of champagne before," Bill Ryder-Jones (guitar/trumpet) adds, "so I thought 'Yeah, I'll sign that and take one of them home for my mum'."
"If someone gives me a piece of paper that says you're gonna get this much money if you sign this, I'm gonna sign it," drummer Ian Skelly shrugs, "And then if, a few years down the line, it bites me on the arse I'm gonna get off to Mexico and take up surfing."
"When we signed," James remembers, "I passed out. I had all these mad black spots in front of my eyes. We had to sit in this room with the lawyer for so long."
Organist Nick Power: "It was like being in science at school when you're really bored on one of those rainy days when your school kecks are soaking. The kids are dead moody and the teachers are having a bad day."
"Or," Bill adds keenly, "when you've had PE and you've got double French and you have to sit there and listen to words you don't understand."
"Other than that," Ian notes, "not much in our lives have really changed except we get paid."
Nick nods. "You get a new jumper every month. You get images in your head of what it's gonna be like and it's not like that at all."
"Yeah!" James agrees. "I thought it'd be like meeting other minds and shit and you'd suddenly be like Thomas de Quincy when you had a deal.
Nick: "With your books out and stuff."
"It's not like that at all," James says sadly.

THE GLAMOUR...

"You know what I can't deal with," James begins, "is sandwiches made by other people."
"Or ham from other fridges," Nick adds seriously.
"Yeah," agrees Ian, "I have this thing on tour where I can only eat food I've cooked myself so I know it's been cooked properly. Soup and Pot Noodles too. I don't trust meat cooked by other people. Meat to me is a sacred thing."
James: "I tell you what though, we're experts on how not to pay for food at service stations."
"They're just sound with it," Nick confirms a touch improbably. "If it's that late at night they just don't care."
Ian: "Mad stuff happens at service stations though. Weird League Of Gentlemen stuff. I got attacked in a service station once. Some woman bumped into me and I said, 'Sorry love' and she pulled this weird face at me and all, this lot started laughing and she came back and sparked me, hit me in the face! She offered me outside for a fight and I was like, 'What?!'"
"Honestly," James notes wisely, "the devil breeds in service stations."

AND THE INSPIRATION BEHIND IT ALL...

"Thundercats did it for me," Ian states proudly. "That was about hope. He-Man was good too but Skeletor was too gay for me."
"No," James protests, "He had that feminine evil. You know how women can be devious? Skeletor was tapped into that feminine evil. I've locked into He-Man- it was amazing. Most of my morals are based on He-Man. Castle Grayskull as a symbol of hope."
"HMV is my Grayskull," Ian says, "I feel safe when I enter that one in Liverpool. It's like a church. I used to work in a kitchen and I'd just go in there every break and it'd be dead warm in the winter. And I'd just walk around."
"It's like a massive stereo," James sighs, "It's boss."

ON OASIS...

Nick: "It's piss easy to get doing what you wanna do as long as you use your head a bit, like you would in a job, you know what I mean? If you wanna be the best fucking lawyer, you do your work and become good at it. To be in a band, all you have to do is learn a few skills and a few tricks. It's all about feeling from there."
Bill: "I've used the same tricks on so many tunes."
Nick: "Bob Dylan only needed D, A and fucking G. So did Oasis."
"Well," Bill counters, "Oasis could've done with a few more like F minor, Oasis were just like, 'Yeah D, A and G, that's sound. That'll do!'"

AND, ER, PHIL COLLINS...

James: "He's top isn't he?"
Bill: "He lost the passion when he stepped off the the drum stool though."
"I like him," James repeats firmly.
"You know what it is?" Ian askes from over the window. "It's the blue blazer with the sky blue jeans and the trainers. the Lovejoy look. It's the best."
James: "He's the best at it. Sting goes too far."
Nick: "He's too European for me. Too worldly." There are silent nods around the room, digesting Sting's worldliness.
"He is," James agrees, "like Chris De Burgh."

ON (SAFE) SEX...

"There's four types of sex," Ian states firmly. "Not in my world but I know it exists. There's the sympathy shag, there's the porn dirty shag, there's the intense lovemaking and then there's routine. Then there's the backhander..."
James: "But that's business..."
Ian: "Yeah, it's business and we're talking about leisure."
Bill: "That's what groupie shags would come into. Business. I would imagine. I'm not really interested in groupies."
James: "Nah, me either. To me, that's just like asking for AIDS. Asking for chlamydia. Just play it safe with someone you like. I know my girlfriend's safe and I love her. I wouldn't even touch a groupie. If one of the other lads in the band wanted to, I'd say yeah! You might as well do it if they're offering. Just be safe."

RELIGION...

James: "It provokes war."
Nick: "I take the bible more as a book of tales."
James: "It's like believing Peter Pan. When Jesus parted the waves, it's like believing in Alice In Wonderland !"
"I reckon," Nick ponders, "it could be a case of Chinese whispers between wise men. I don't think you should ever count out the obvious."
James:"I wouldn't say that's the obvious though..."
"At the end of the day these holy men are the same as everyone else except they wear a robe," Ian shrugs. "They still get up in the morning and shit. They're not above anyone."
James: "I had this woman say to me once, 'God made you' and I was like, 'No, people made God 'cos they made the word up'."
"God," Bill says philosophically, "is just dog backwards."
James: "It is. It's that simple."

OH, AND DID WE MENTION SEX?

"Have you seen the porno Twin Peaks?" Bill asks suddenly.
"No," James answers. "But that one you had depressed me! There was this clown and he kept appearing, then it'd go to a fat woman in the bath with blood..."
Nick: " No, it was beans..."
James: "Bathing in beans. But she was obese, spilling over the bath."
"The most disturbing one I've ever seen," Ian continues, "was when I was about ten. Dwarf porn. Gave me a surreal outlook on life since. It's not that I have anything against midgets-I think they're lovely people-I'd just rather not see them in sexual activities."
Bill: "Ian, you could never do like Comic Relief or anything like that
because you'd get mad flashbacks..."
"Well," James adds far more disturbingly, "I've seen The Seahhorses singer in porno! He's grinding Barry McGuigan. It was unbelievable.
Nick sighs. "We're gonna be exposed as mad pervs, man."

AND, DARE WE ASK, THE FINAL MESSAGE?

Ian: "That we don't eat egg sarnies. That's the one thing we want people to know about us."
James: "It says everything."
Ian: "There's just something about an embryo, a life living inside it."
James: "We come from eggs. Eggs are more than what you just buy. People should look into the egg."
"It's a whole other concept, the egg," Ian ponders entireley straightfaced. "We haven't got enough time to get into the egg."
Nick: "You come from an egg. You might end up as one. That's who you're eating, reincarnated people."
"Yeah," James agrees, having the last word as ever, "you're eating dead souls. You could've eaten Van Gogh. Ugh. That's sick."