Why did you work with Clint Ruin (Jim Thirwell Foetus)?

ST [Stephen Thrower]: Because I know him for years and he's one of the only person I can get along with. We have common self-interest and have knowledge on topics that people often want to avoid. Then, when I listened to his records, I immediately wanted to work with him. Because he makes his records by himself, except the help of a sound engineer, it seemed logical to us that he would work with Coil. A well kept secret is that the first appearance of Coil consist of John Balance, Jim Thirwell and myself. We announced both ourselves for the Equinox Music Fest in 1984 but we finally decided that they really don't worth anything... Clint is a sound genius, a brilliant et skilled engineer full of imagination: he's some kind of catalyst. We wanted someone who would be able to coach us and to help ourselves to organize. He pushed up the energy level in our studio: we are better working under pressure. Nevertheless, we won't work with him for our second album (The Horse Rotorvator). But we are planning to work with him later, he's an excellent friend!

How about Boyd Rice?

JB [John Balance]: I always admired NON, his perverse attitude and vision of the music. Like with Clint, we have common interest. And Sleazy know him for sure since TG [Throbbing Gristle]. I wrote him and when he went here to record a LP under Mute Records (which is not yet released), it was ideal to make something common. The Nightmare Culture has been released on this precise occasion. Boyd spent sometimes with Current 93 to record some tapes that appear on the Current 93 track called A Fire Sermon (Killykillkilly). And we spent nine hours to record several tracks for Sickness of Snakes (this title comes from the Icelandic Rune Lore), on the very right moment in a pretty short time. We also released one track out of this session under the name of Coil (simply to throw off some people...) And this appear on the ultra limited sampler of the German label Dom. The track is named His Body was a Playground for the Nazi Elite, which is for sure very impertinent...

What would be your second album? And its concepts?

For the moment, our next album's title would be The Horse Rotorvator. The title will be explained when the disc will be released, but it comes from a dream I had. The topics are the logical following of Scatology. We have about 20 different titles in stock within we will eventually choose one. I already can say that the music will be more rough, much more closer to the inner ideal we have... what Coil must more musically looks like. The whole thing is quite orchestral, but with more energy with some impossible noise excerpts. Perverted sound arrangement that has been beforehand described as a medical plague. The music elevated at the right moment: the return of the harmful past. The music has an extraordinary intensity and clearness. But it's not psychedelic because it copy what has been done in the past. We have been influenced as many by Stravinsky than by The Butthole Surfers. I read the Stravinsky had a small piece of metal in his head and when he moved his head in a special way, he was able to hear some music... He was a talented composer so he was able to transcribe the music he heard in his head into readable partitions. A musical genius by chance, the result of a lesion... I think it's an excellent gift!!! So the topics of The Horse Rotorvator are the movement, cycles and repetitions in the musical and natural structures, the thinking process and cyclical modes. Also visionaries like René Thom the theory of the disasters in the compulsive liar mentality from which he says that phenomenon that seems natural and hazardous have in fact an hidden structure which can be calculated. An hidden order in the chaos. This us very interesting for the "Quabalist" who has for sure discovered by the mean of the magical intuition, the psychological sharpness and astral study till the every day's life how to work with hidden parallels and relations.

Thanks to Dimitri Alla Faille for the French translation.