The London-based Coates trained as a visual artist before leaving the Royal Academy of Art in 1997 to explore a career in music. Coates names British-based big-band singer Al Bowlly as his primary musical influence, the Real Tuesday Weld's largely electronic music more vividly recalls more standard Europop touchstones like Burt Bacharach, Ennio Morricone, and Serge Gainsbourg.

After a trio of EP releases -- 1999's The Meteorology of Love (originally released under the name Tuesday Weld but cleverly changed after legal threats), 2000's Valentine, and 2001's L'Amour et la Morte -- the Real Tuesday Weld finally released a full-length debut, When Psyche Meets Cupid, in the summer of 2001. Since that time Coates released albums including At the House of the Clerkenwell Kid in 2002, I, Lucifer in 2004, The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid in 2005, and The London Book of the Dead in 2007. The following year's The End of the World focused on the '30s jazz side of Coates' music, but he returned to a more eclectic approach for 2011's The Last Werewolf, a soundtrack to Glen Duncan's book of the same name. ~ Stewart Mason