Boys from Britpop back in business

April 22, 2015 5:24 pm 2 comments Views: 13

Boys to Men … Blur in 2015 — Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree, Damon Albarn and Alex James.
Source: Supplied

GRAHAM Coxon was once seen as the reason British band Blur fell apart.

After an arsenal of hits including Parklife, Song 2, There’s No Other Way, For Tomorrow, Girls and Boys, Charmless Man and Beetlebum, Blur the band closed for business.

Frontman Damon Albarn moved into projects including Gorillaz and a solo career, something Coxon also embarked on. Now Coxon has not only rejoined the band, he steered Blur’s first album in twelve years, The Magic Whip, compiled from 40 hours of jamming in Hong Kong two years ago.

Blur premiere Ong Ong from The Magic Whip

After an aborted attempt with the Big Day Out, Blur will finally return to Australia this year to headline the Splendour in the Grass festival.

Blur recorded The Magic Whip in Hong Kong in 2013 and you retrieved the tapes and made it into an album at the end of last year. How did you keep a new Blur album secret for so long in the modern age?

Graham Coxon: We just thought of it as being such a fragile process we didn’t really tell anyone. I didn’t even tell my parents or my daughter. We kept it quite quiet. We didn’t want to say anything before the very last vocal had been done because we didn’t really know if it would work. But it was a very smooth process in the end.

Did recording in Hong Kong make it easier to be off the grid?

The people in the studio there knew, obviously, but they didn’t say anything. When I was going in the studio in London with (producer) Stephen Street to finish it I’d see friends and had to make up stories about why I was there. Alex (James, bass player) came in one day, he had to lie about when he was there. I feel I need to apologise to a few people about telling a few lies.

Blur song Go Out, first single from The Magic Whip

You recorded 40 hours of free-form material in Hong Kong. Was that an unusual way for Blur to work?

We just jammed. We’d done that with the album 13 as well, but this was rather more abstract. We had some ideas, Damon (Albarn) had some chord sequences and some ideas that were weirdly unique, these Garageband recordings, recordings from the TV, synthesiser sounds, little beats. That was what we had to go on. We crowded in the control room and shouted out the chord sequences to each other. We just went around and around the chord sequences until we were totally bored and went onto the next one and we did that for five days, eight hours a day.

The boys in the band … Blur first formed in 1988.
Source: News Limited

It’s the first Blur album in 12 years. Did the fact it’d be seen as an ‘event’ to a lot of people weigh on your minds?

We were under pressure to make a record for a while. When the opportunity came to record in Hong Kong we just thought ‘Let’s just book a studio and do it’. It didn’t work out quite that way. You can’t just stick anything out. It had to be good. Those recordings were a bit stark. There was something about the sound of it which was a bit different. We were off the leash a little bit when we were jamming. There was no one telling us to tune up or saying `Crikey that’s a horrible noise’. There was an awful lot of material, 40 hours of material. That’s what stopped us getting on with it for a while, it was an overwhelming idea to trawl through all that stuff and make sense of it. So I thought Stephen Street would probably get a kick out of doing that.

He produced the classic Blur albums of the ’90s

Once I had the idea to make an album of all the Hong Kong material I got Damon’s blessing, then rang Stephen. I could tell he was just containing his excitement. I knew he’d be good for the job. He’s someone we’re familiar with. I knew I could be honest and open with him. I knew he’d have respect for the material we recorded in Hong Kong but he’d also know what was good and what was rubbish. Damon hadn’t worked with him since 1997 or 1998, a long time. They were both unsure of how it’d go.

There Are Too Many of Us: Blur from The Magic Whip

Do wot? … Classic Britpop era Blur.
Source: Supplied

After leaving Blur in 2002 and continuing your solo career you rejoined Blur in 2009 and have been touring on and off with the band ever since. After a nasty split it sounds like you’re back in love with being in Blur?

Being on your own is hard work. I like to work hard in Blur, that’s a good job. With this album, in the studio, I was able to do my favourite job to the fullest extent I could. Playing shows with Blur, to big audiences, it’s fun. It’s a good bunch of people to go around the world with. It’s tiring, it’s totally boring at times but the show is always great fun.

It’s a nice happy ending that you’re friends with Damon again.

Friendship existing alongside a professional relationship is never that easy, especially when you’re under pressure. With this record my idea to take it on myself was to spare Damon the pressure I thought he felt, that we were all waiting for his next move on it. So I think he was relieved that I took the reins. That was one way of me saying ‘I’ll carry a bit of this weight’. We didn’t really have to stress about whether our friendship is all right, we don’t have to worry about it now.

I see red … Blur rode the Britpop wave and its inevitable backlash.
Source: News Corp Australia

There’s a theory you finishing the album yourself was a way of apologising to the band for leaving.

Whatever chapter of Blur this is, whether it’s the last one or not, I wanted to be part of it again and I wanted it to be a good one to show Damon and the boys and the fans that I had a genuine commitment to Blur. I suppose you could call that making amends in a way.

Is it true you had to have mediation to work together again?

No. I’m not sure where that story came from. It’s not true. We didn’t need it. The only therapy we had to do was to play music together again.

There’s a song on the album, My Terracotta Heart, that seems to be about yourself and Damon?

I think it’s about a long-term friendship. Long-term friendships have their ups and downs, especially if you’re in a band with your friends as well. When I sat down and Damon had done his vocals for that I had a listen and went ‘Oh hang on a minute, he’s kind of singing about when we were teenagers and now and in-between’. It’s still quite vague, thank god, that you don’t know exactly what he’s saying. We still catch each other off balance, even now. The album is about human beings and about Damon and about us and about us being in a strange place, being almost invisible in Hong Kong pretty much. We stick out like a sore thumb in Hong Kong but we’re pretty much ignored. There’s that feeling of dislocation throughout the record.

All the people … so many people watching a reformed Blur in Hyde Park.
Source: Supplied

What’s your favourite song by Damon you haven’t been involved with?

I like that Kids With Guns song (by Gorillaz). I really like it live too. I’m a big fan of when Damon is telling us what he feels, the melancholic stuff.

Damon said the lyrics to There Are Too Many Of Us were inspired by being in Sydney last year during the Martin Place siege and being stuck in his hotel and unable to play the Opera House as it was in lockdown.

He said he was watching it out his hotel window and on TV at the same time. Technology and the whole world getting sucked through the internet and spat out at everybody is quite prevalent through the record.

Man down … The Graham Coxon-free era of Blur in 2002.
Source: News Limited

If you recorded 40 hours of material what’s left over from these sessions? Enough for another album?

Who knows. When you make records that have been almost a stream of consciousness and tidied up it’s almost like someone’s personal diaries someone’s made an autobiography out of. I’m sure you could make a version two of this album that is some weird altered reality. I said the same about 13 as well, you could probably make another album, but it might not be as good though.

Blur were meant to play the Big Day Out last year, then mysteriously were dropped from the bill. But you’re coming back?

We know there is some eagerness. People have been on telephones. We’re quite willing to do some work and some travel after this record comes out. Not exactly world tours, we don’t want to kill ourselves, but we do want to go and see some people we haven’t seen for a while.

HEAR: The Magic Whip (Warner) is out tomorrow.

SEE: Blur, Splendour In the Grass, July 24-26, North Byron Parklands. $ 155 — $ 365, On sale 9am today. Moshtix