The Coral documentary ‘a coming-of-age portrait’

A new documentary about Merseyside indie band The Coral is a “coming-of-age portrait of six friends”, its director has said.

Dreaming of You: The Making of The Coral, had its premiere screening on The Wirral, where the band is from, on Friday at The Light cinema ahead of its nationwide release on 12 September.

Director James Slater said the film, which is narrated by the band, follows The Coral’s six original members from their childhood in Hoylake to becoming “this really influential band”.

He said: “For me, The Coral are a little bit unheralded in terms of the influence they’ve had on many bands, many artists.”

“There was something different about them, they had their own inner language,” he said.

The Coral, who were formed in 1996 and became a five-piece after the departure of guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones in 2008, broke on to the British indie music scene with their single Dreaming of You in 2002 from their Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut album.

They were also nominated for three Brit Awards, and have gone on to release 12 albums.

Frontman James Skelly said the film featured archival footage the band filmed themselves over years, which captured the importance of their friendship.

“It was more about the friendship than anything else,” he said.

“Music was just a by-product.”

Skelly said the group came together because they did not fit in anywhere else when they were growing up.

He said: “We were the freaks that the freaks did want to hang around with.

“We weren’t quite lads, but we weren’t quite art school or trust fund kids, so we had our own little world.”

Skelly said, as well as friendship, the band’s home had also been a major influence on the music.

“There’s something about the twitching curtain aspect of suburbia I’ve always been drawn to in art,” he said.

“And I could never be away from the sea, I think I’d feel its call wherever I went.”