Fans of indie game-changers The Coral will surely be climbing over themselves to find out what Bill Ryder-Jones has been doing since he left the band, but there’s just one small problem; the 28 year-old hasn’t got a clue.

“What the fuck happened in the last five years?” he ponders. “I know my mum and dad split up, I left The Coral and there was a World Cup, but other than that I’ve no idea of what I’ve been up to, it’s freaky!”
At least debut solo album If… proves that he’s been doing some work, especially with his symphonious new material falling on the opposite end of the scale to The Coral’s radio-friendly psych rock.
“The whole thing was a bit of a risk, really,” he admits. “I’ve not had the best track record for sticking at things and Domino took a chance on me. They gave me a good bit of money and I said, ‘I want to spend 60% of the advance on a six-hour session with the Liverpool Philharmonic’! We were meant to be doing six tracks in six hours with people who had never seen the scores. Anything could have gone wrong and we could have really fucked up!”
As if things weren’t challenging enough, there was also a mind-boggling concept to work with. The record is a musical adaptation of If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, the 1979 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino.
“It’s probably the book that’s appealed to me most in my whole life,” Ryder-Jones says. “Like all good books, it says something that you’ve always thought but never really pieced together.”
It was certainly a brave move from the Liverpool lad, is he nervous about how it’s going to be received?
“Do you know what I’m worried about?” he asks. “I’m worried that that’s the best thing I’ll ever do! But I seem to have more faith in the modern music listeners than I ever did when I was in a band. I felt in the band that we were geniuses who were grossly overlooked. Now I feel like there’s a lot of quite switched-on people and a lot of great music.”
For my money, If… is a delicate, winding triumph so I’m delighted that Ryder-Jones feels the same way.
“I’m really happy with the result,” he beams. “I’m more intimidated with the result than anything! I do genuinely feel like it’s good. There’s always gonna be a few things, little things, but as far as the writing and the content goes, I’m really chuffed with it.”
So he can’t grumble if it does turn out to be the best thing he’s ever done, then...
“Yeah," he sighs, "but you’ve put me on the spot, now! That’s the thing with interviews, though. I’ve been doing them since I was 16 and when I was in the band I could just talk shit because no-one really cared, it was just a silly Coral interview. But every interview I’ve done in the last week, they’ve asked me questions that I genuinely have never thought about or have thought about to the nth degree and still haven’t come up with a decent answer for.”
Not to worry, Bill. You’ll be churning out robotic, over-rehearsed, Jennifer Lopez-style responses in no time.
“I can’t wait for that!” he exclaims. “At least you’ve got me started...”

If… is out now on Domino Records.