Coil interviewed in their home in London 
February 1990. This interview was originally published in 1991.

OH:For most people it may seem that Coil haven’t done 
anything at all since the release of Hellraiser in 1988. What 
are you actually up to these days?

PC:Well, we have recorded a lot of new material, but until now 
only a couple of tracks have appeared on various compilation 
albums.

OH:Rumours were saying that when you made Horse Rotorvator you 
had enough material to release a double album, but choose to 
make it a single album. Does that mean that the new material 
comes from the same session as the Horse Rotorvator?

PC: Some of the recordings on Gold Is The Metal are recordings 
that were made at the same time as HR, whilst other tracks were 
experiments from other things. When we did HR we thought that 
we had enough material to do the new album which we were going 
to call The Dark Age of Love pretty quick, but actuallay we had
not.  The Dark Age of Love simply does not exist!  What remained
of that session mostly went over into ‘Gold’ which is sort of a 
mirror image of Horse Rotorvator:It starts and ends in the same 
way, but in a strange, distorted way. So the new album will not
be The Dark Age of Love, but completley fresh and different from
“the old Coil”.

OH:You have used a lot of sampling technology on your latest 
releases. You’re not afraid that this will give you a static and 
sterile sound?

PC:I think that when you have a very clean and straight sound, 
there might be a chance that you will make sterile music. But if 
you use a sample from something which is dirty and perverted, 
you can make music that is dirty and perverted.

OH:But still;aren’t you afraid of ending up sounding outdated 
after a while by using samples that are very popular at a given 
time?

PC:It is obvious that you do things you like at a certain moment 
in time. There is a flute sound on ‘The firts five minutes after 
Death’ which was very popular in commercials at that time. We 
did it on purpose  -we thought it was ok to use something that 
was really silly in a serious way.Generally speaking we may say 
that our new album will be less exentric and slightly more 
optimistic. But it is that sort of optimism you may find at a 
party the night before you know something special will happen 
the day after. It is a kind of psychotic party music, if you 
like.



OH:Could Horse Rotorvator be seen as a  kick against Western 
society’s denial of death?

JB:Yes, becuase our attitude towards death is so different from 
most people’s. But it is a long time since it was made, and I 
think we are completely different persons now. Many of our 
friends have died, or are dying. At that time some of them 
had already died, and there was some sort of a threat that hang 
over us. Therfore it was a definitive sadness in some parts of 
that record. But now we are in the middle of the second wave of  
death, and one must simply  try to cope with life as it is.

PC: There’s really no point in being dpressed because of this. 
One may just as well try to do the most out of life while one 
can. But we try to put in a kick against, or as you say, or an 
antidote to the western view were death is the end of everything.

OH:How is you relationship to the record companies you put 
out music on earlier -Laylah for example?

JB:Laylah owes us money, and they cannot pay. They’re afraid of
us, and they won’t answer the letters we send them, and they 
refuse to talk to us on the phone. They owe us 7000 pounds, and
instead of paying us waht they owe us, they continue to relase
new material. It is somehow always an excuse, like for instance 
that the distributor has all the money, or that they have problems
with the factory that makes the records.

PC:Generally, we may say that we have a tendency to attract 
companies that are complete aresholes when it comes to paying 
for the expenses we have had.

OH:What about Some Bizarre? 

JB:WE have left them for good  -they are even worse than Laylah.
They owe us 10 000 pounds. And the worst thing is that they give
the impression of giving the bands fair treatment, this is 
something which concerns all independent labels. Even if I go 
around smashing offices now,it still won’t lead to anything. We 
will not get our money anyway.

OH:Would you say that it would have benn better if you were on
 one of the big companies?

PC:Absolutely not!

JB:Well, maybe. At least they would have given us money. But 
we do things now without getting paid in advance.

OH:There was some talk of you working together with The Anti 
Group a couple of years ago?

JB:Yes, that is still in progress. But they are just as fond 
of isolation as we are, so it has been difficult to organize 
anything, at the same time that htey are just as much 
perfectionists as we are.

OH:Do you like their stuff?

PC:Some of it. I think we are actually more fond of Adi Newton 
and his attitude. There is never any bullshit with that guy, he 
never accepts anything half heartedly. I think we share more of
 his attitudes than of his personal taste.

OH:How come you Peter never get involved with musical projects
outside of Coil, while you John have been involved in a lot of 
different projects during the years,as for exaple Zos Kia, 
Death In June and Current 93?

PC:I’m not really  very interested in music. I very seldom listen 
to music, but when I do it is music that is very different from 
so-called alternative music. As for this, I do not consider
myself part of that scene.

JB:I listen to certain types of dance music, some parts of the 
Acid House scene. Apart from that I do not listen to anything 
unless people give it to me directly. I do not listen to what
is called Indie-music, and I do not pay attention to the 
alternative scene.

OH:It is diccult to find things that may have obviously inspired 
you in terms of music.

JB:I wouldn’s neccesarily go out and copy those things that 
inspires us. But it happens thatwe come across music which 
inspires us. As for instance when we were in Burma and heard
 a peculiar, strange kind of pop music that was extremely 
catchy. That inspiered us. It constitutes the framework of 
the song ‘Another Brown World on the Sub Rosa compilation 
Myths Instruction No. 4.

OH:You obvioulsy travel a lot. Does travelling evoke certain 
impessions/expressions in you?

PC:It is not true that we travel that much, we only make sure 
people hear about it when we do. Generally I think that the 
good qualities of the Europeean countries has been forgotten 
or has been hidden away by the people who live there. It’s 
particularly true in England , whichactually has a number of 
good qualities. But they are more or less ignored, very often
you cannot see them despite the fact that you live there. I 
would imagine it’s the same thing in therest of Europe, but 
in many other cultures those good qualities are closer to the
surface.

JB:Things have been done to death in England, the resources have 
been completely destroyed. People do not take time to bring 
them out again. I think actually that our new album is more 
Europeean than the previous ones we have made.

PC: I actually disagree with you there, because I think all 
our records are Europeean in the topics they deal with. 
I’m thinking about ‘Ergot’ and ‘Cathedral in Flames’, for
instance. The symbols are Europeean.

JB:We have our background in bands like Throbbing Gristle and 
Psychic TV, and I think that the power of the symbols have been
removed in a way.



OH: Are there parts of the PTV/TOPY image you were particularly 
keen on getting away from?

PC:What I persoanlly feel in as much as I was partially 
responsible for the shaping of that image at the time when it 
all started is that ii today seems like a naive 
oversimplification of how the world actually is. And it is 
quite clear that one of the reasons for us wanting to move
away was that it all became to obvious and silly. But they
wanted that everything should continue in exactly the same way. 
The way they focused on religious imagery gradually
became completely meaningless.

OH:How do you survive finacially?


PC:I have a separate business. I make videos for people. 
Recently I’ve made videoes for people like Cliff Richard,
Erasure,Van Morisson and Robert Plant. But I try to avoid 
making music videos nowadays, because that form has literarly 
become uneccesary andstupid. Image and symbols has been used
too muchA swastika for instance no longer carries any 
meaning for most people, and in a way it is exactly the 
same with music videoes. They all look more or less the same 
now. I try to make T-commercials which gives musch more money
and are much funnier to make. It is also much more honest
since it is obvious they are made to sell a product.

OH:Do you use subliminals in your music?

JB:Perhaps, but we don’t do it in an obvious way. In PTV 
there were a lot of backmasking and subliminals, but we do not
focus on that in Coil. I am a bit sceptical towards the acual 
effect of all this. If I wanted people to worship Satan I would 
have said it straight forward,and not backwards. I don’t think 
it works like that. I don’t think the brain can hear things
backwards and then turn it around and comprehend it.

OH:I have waited a long time for your Bar Malodoror live album 
and video which you were 
going to release a long time ago.

PC: So have we! Take it easy, it will come. On one side of the
record we will make some kind of a live performance for the video, 
and we will also make a video for the new song ‘Love’s secret 
Domain’ on the new album.

OH:What exactly is Bar Maldoror in this setting  -is it a 
particular place? Originally it was a surrealist cafè back 
in the  1920’s, wasn’t it?

JB:Yes, but it’s not that whvic is the point about this concept, that 
is’s supposed to be a partcular place. It could be anywhere. It 
is Bar Maldoror in the minute you want it to be. When we 
travelled around in  Thailand we filmed certain places, and 
these places became Bar Maldoror the minute we started. It 
doesn’t have to be a bar or anything, it is a floating consept.
We will record the whole session next year with Steven Stapleton 
from Nurse With Wound, who has also relesed a record in this 
series where Current 93 was the first release.

OH:What does Horse Rotorvator actually mean?

JB:It is apocalyptic. It has already been, and what we have 
left is the remains. It’s over  -finished .(laughs)

OH:But the title was also related to a certain action of the IRA?

PC:The IRA blew up a parade of horses and soldiers.

OH:Do you think that was an OK thing to do?

PC:No, we’re not in faviour of terrorist acts. But what actually 
happened was that theymore or less unintentionally created an 
mage which had complications and echoes on a variety of 
different levels.

JB: The title relates to an interpretation of what actually 
happened, with horses exploding and being thrown out on the 
streets. It was a bloody bizarre and sick picture where people
walking in the streets had pieces of horsegore raining over 
their heads.

PC:The IRA did to actons in one week. One of them blew up a 
horseparade and the other one was a bomb explosion in a pavillion 
where military orcestras play. It is this one that is pictured
on the cover of the album. IRA never expressed that there were a
link between the two actions.

OH: Have you mixed politics into all this?

JB:Personal politcs. We obviously have political views like 
anybody else, even if we don’t exactly spread it out all over 
our records.

OH: Once you agreed on doing a liveshow in Germany if your 
request on having a flock of sheeps running around in the 
audience were followed. What happened?

JB:I’m glad you mention it, because I recntly heard that the 
band KLF has copied our idea.The point is that the people behind
the festival wouldn’t allow us to do it, so therefore 
there was no concert.



OH:Have you made any videos for Coil except Tainted Love?

PC:We made one for ’The Wheel’ in 1982.

OH:It’s peculiar that you don’t make more videos when Peter is 
working with that media.

PC:Yeah, but when we make videoes it’s with other people’s 
money, or when others pay for the expenses. In fact we have
made two new videoes, and we will possibly release a
videocompilation with five or six different tracks.

JB:We have also thought about asking Derek Jarman to make a 
video for the new album, but we cannot afford to pay him much.
We are not going to relase the soundtrack for the Angelic 
Conversation as it is now, but we are going to negotiate in 
order to get the film released as video, and then the music of 
course will be on that. It will in that case be released on our 
own company, Theshold House. We would have to restructure the 
soundtrack very heavilly if we were to release it separately,
it would be too boring otherwise.

PC:The new album has things that people tell us is commercial.
We can’t help it.Anyway, the things we find commercial sounds 
threatening in other people’s ears,it is just a question of 
values. Nothing of what we do is meant to be commercial, 
we do it becuase we like it at a certain point in time. 
The new album is more extreme without us sounding like Current
93 at all.

OH: Do you think you following has changed after the relase of 
Horse Rotorvator?

JB:I have no idea. Possibly.... I think people loose interest 
because we do not do that much. People that are concerned about
being fans would probaly find themselves another band, but that 
does not worry me much.

PC:Generally I think people like us especially because of our 
attituteds. More than the possibility of us appealing to people
who want posters and badges with Coil, and run around with
T-shirts to show that they are fans. Generally the people who
likeus are not of the fanatical fan type. We always print 
“contact Coil” on our records,but I must confess that it’s much 
funnier to receive letters from peolpe telling us about 
themselves instead of asking a hell of a lot of questions. 
It is much more interesting when people write about the 
situation thy’re in, for instance “I am dying”(laughs)

JB:We have received letters from people in the USA that have 
Aids, who says they have gained a lot from listening to Horse 
Rotorvator. They said that it matched their own attitudes, 
and generally a lot of people were greatful that we made that
album at that time.

OH:Do you have any relationship to the Situationist Movement 
and their ideas of theimportance of abolishing the Western 
value system?

JB:Yes, indeed.  The only problem is that we are so involved 
with the media and all sorts of technology, and it is bloody 
difficult for us to prove that we are real human beings in 
the way the Situasionists talked about being real human beings.

OH:You worked with Boyd Rice aka Non on the ‘Sickness of Snakes’
session. What was that like?

PC:We organized structures that he moved in, and he suggested 
a number of things. It was very simpe ways of working, and it 
all happened very quickly. I find him most interesting
when he works with other people. On his own he has a tendency 
to end up in powernoise that in a way becomes too ambient.

OH:How did you organize the structure on ‘Sicktone’, a tune you
claim could have certaineffects on the psyche of the listener?

JB:The sick tone came from a cassette I received from something 
called the Chaoscahmber, people working with magic. There were 
two tones on the tape,and they said;whatever you do,don’t put 
these two tones together!

PC:Which we did!(laughs)

JB:When putting these two tones together we sthrenghtened the 
effect, and we added a beatthat ran as fast as a stessed heart. 
On full volume it certainly has a psychological effect.

OH:How did you arrange ‘How to Destroy Angels’?

JB:WE used bullroarers, an instrument used by the Australian 
aborogines, and we performed specific rituals before the 
recordings started. Vi put in as many connections and 
implications as possible. We received reactions from people 
who wanted to use the song as we suggested on the cover
(ie for the accumulation of male sexual energy).
Many wrote and said it didn’t last long enough. When it gets 
down to it, who can have sex in only 17 minutes, one can hardly 
get started! The next thing we’re going to record is a cd 
with ritual music related to Mercury, and it will last for 
75 minutes. But it is very hard to find the right kind of 
instrumentation.

OH:Rose Mcdowall, originally of Strawberry Switchblade, sings 
on your new single. Can you tell me a little bit about her?

JB: She’s completely crazy. She once was apassenger on a flight
that were about to crash. Everyone around here naturally were
hysterical, but she just sat there completely calm and said:
”Wow, this is brillinat!”. She just sat there completley relaxed 
and enjoyed the whole thing, she thought it was the greatest 
feeling she had had in her whole life. She distorts every 
expected human emotion you’re supposed to have. I work 
together with Rose’s old boyfriend Drew in a band called Black 
Light District, we make house music. In the right conditions 
acid house can work fine. But everything that is independent, 
everything that has a new and creative energy in this country 
gets absorbed by the system.

OH:Are you so fond of isolationism that it borders on 
misantropy?

JB:Well, there is some truth in this. We do not suffer 
fools gladly. It is extremely seldom we invite people to 
our house for tea, to put it that way, and when we meet 
strangers we are usually in opposition.  We may perfectly 
well reduce people to shit within two minutes.



OH:John, are you constantly living on a razor’s edge, do 
you push yourself to the limit in every circumstance?

JB:No. Well sometimes, but it’s impossible to live like that 
all the time. When I writelyrics Isometimes do it on 
amphetamine, but it is dangerous in the lang run. If you stay 
on your own the whole time you may flip out quite radically in 
madness without being aware of it, but the minute you meet 
other people you may feel completly crazy, and thatmay ruin you
completely. It happens that I push myself over the limits of s
anity, but I can come out on the other side and still be sane. 
There are always changes in one’s life, it is something you
just have to accept, as long as it doen not hurt you or other 
people. We have a friend who’s an epileptic. His only problem 
is that he’s afraid of others reactions when he has a fit. I 
always tell him that it doesn’t bother me, just collapse 
and feel free.

OH:What does living here in London give you?

JB: A headache! Please remind me of the the advantages of 
living here. I would much rather live somewhere else, but one 
gets stucked and dependent of all the advantages.

PC:One take all the advantages for granted after awhile anyhow, 
and one forget what it’s like to live without them. In many ways 
we would have preffered to live in a more isolated part of the 
country, but we need to know what’s going on, we don’t want to 
miss anything.

OH:You seem to have a lot of things you’re obsessed about...

PC:I think obsessions are fine. I don’t understand people who 
are not obsessed by something.I mean that if you are interested 
in something you should follow the line all the way through.
I think it’s wrong to be interested in soemthing without 
trying to find out evrything one can about it, even if the 
interest apparantly may seem to be irrelevant for what you 
are actually doing. I for one is completley hooked up on 
underground tunnels, and I try to find out everything about 
such phenomena.

OH:Are you especially keen on trying to avoid connections the 
various fashionlike occulttrends of our time  -I know magic 
plays a great part in your lives...

JB:I think it’s it’s bad to be connected with it in a shallow
way.

PC: I think an unbelivable huge amount of socalled alternative 
bands uses symbols as pompous tool. It is not something they 
really believe in, they use it simply because it wouldthen look 
like they have some values. And their over-active use of these 
symbols in a way makes them weaker, there has develpoed an 
inflation in them. We have used certain symbols on our sleeves,
but we don’t have a system built on them, and the things they 
signify are not central.  It is things that are connected to 
what we believe in and what we do. But Coil’s use of symbols 
aremuch more complex than just putting on some symbols now 
and then. Symbols seems to reach a stage where they become 
drained and worn out. I really find it difficult to make 
something without giveing a too obvious reference to something
which is done before. And this is the reason why Coil records 
seems to be pretty low-key, difficult to place in a easily 
defined consept.



OH:Could you say something about the different songs on Horse 
Rotorvator?

JB:’Blood from the Air’ is tied up with the frost rune, and is 
based on a poem by PhilipLamantia. ‘Ostia’ is a tribute to a 
friend of ours who passe away, Leon. Dover cameinto the picture 
because another friend of ours jumped over the cliffs. And this 
brings in the subject of beaches. Pasolini was murdered on the 
beach of Ostia. Ostia means sacrifice, in english it means a 
bone;”Throw his bones over....” The mixing of places. Pasolini
comprehended his own death, I think he wanted to die the way he 
did. ‘Anal Staircase’ is tied up with the tantric consept of 
Kundalini. John Peel phoned us and said he liked the song, but 
that he could not play it due to the sound of children screaming
in the background. He had also heard that it was recordings 
of the Moors -murderes Myra Hinley and Ian Brady in the 
background, but neither of  it is true. What you hear is  
the sound of a friend of ours playing with his child,and neither
is there any recording of the Moors-murderers there. The whole
thing sounds suspicious, but it really just innocent play. 
People are so hysterical....

PC:A fundamentally important part of our philosophy is that 
people should be individual thinkers, and experience things in 
their own terms. That may be why we are not very much involved 
in group activity. When people are willing to do anything for 
people they don’t know I think it is something wrong with them,
and that was the fact with many of the persons that came to us
in TOPY. Most of them were preapred to do anything for us while 
we were there, and they had obvious signs of mental or emotional
problems. There were certain types whoneeded this, they had a 
psychological  need for being told what to do no matter 
what the consequences would have been.People with that kind of 
problems is generally very little point in having hanging around,
it only becomes dull, andone feels a responsibility for them.

OH: What kind of perspectives do you have for the future?

JB:I think that in the span of our lifetime we will experience 
a world in complete chaos. It is supposed to be like Mankind has
finally found It’s rythm after all the regimes in Eastern Europe
has fallen, but at the end of the day it is simply capitalism 
congratulating itself becuase the enemies have disappeared. 
They say it is the New Age of Man, and that is completely 
meaningless! What is the the actual benefit of this change. 
What and who comes instead?

PC:The implications of being gay is perhaps the acceptance of 
the fact that society does not continue. We do not fertilize. 
I think there appears to be a relatively small portion of the 
world’s inhabitants worth saving. It probably sounds very 
misantropic, but I’m preapared to die if the rest of the 
world’s population goes with me.