Blur (2009)
Interview Background
Blur and the mid-‘90s British acts who filled the pages of entertainment magazines such as NME, Select and Melody Maker opened my eyes to new musical realms beyond local radio stations such as Triple M’s relatively limited scope. Attending Blur’s 1997 performance at Adelaide’s Thebarton Theatre was an exciting expedition for my share house friends and me; a chance to see these exotic music press cover stars up close in our own city! Guitarist Graham Coxon, who wore a local band’s T-shirt during the Thebby Theatre gig, was out of Blur within four years of this tour. By the time of his departure ahead of the release of Blur’s 2002 album Think Tank, it was clear Coxon was struggling with addictions. Thankfully, after a stint in rehab, the guitar hero was able to curtail some of his demons and returned to music, first with solo albums and then as part of the reunited Blur. Like a few of the other Britpop heroes I’ve included on this site, this interview was predominantly promoting Graham’s solo material rather than new Blur music, however the quietly spoken and fragile-sounding Coxon didn’t shy away from discussing the band once I’d shown interest for, and appreciation in, his new album, The Spinning Top.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, November 2009.
Graham Coxon - Guitar Hero
by Scott McLennan
In a 1996 Blur interview, English musician Graham Coxon admitted contrariness was one of his biggest sins. Despite his guitar work in Blur being praised by fellow English musicians such as Jonny Greenwood and Noel Gallagher, the bespectacled Britpop instigator has always plotted a course of dissidence with his own output.
Always a step ahead of the tastemakers, Coxon’s interests had already moved onto Boston punk act Mission Of Burma by the time England had fallen for Blur’s suburban swagger. A brief Blur reunion for festival dates over the UK summer has done nothing to curb the guitarist’s hunger for new influences, with his latest album The Spinning Top reflecting a wealth of ‘60s influences including Ornette Coleman, John Martyn and Davey Graham.
“I’m still quite happy sitting there in the late ‘60s in a way,” Coxon states with a hint of nervous excitement. “I’m still discovering great stuff from then, although I’m not frozen in time or anything in that way. My influences are pretty widespread and one of the reasons I got [bassist] Danny Thompson in was because he played on some of that really groovy folky jazz stuff from Incredible String Band, Davey Graham and Nick Drake. He also played on Spirit Of Eden by Talk Talk from the late ‘80s, which is one of my favourite albums as well. He was definitely brilliant to get on the record and he’s just so great at that, and also getting a jazz drummer in gave us the space to have a jam rather than playing everything myself, where I have the tendency to make everything overly structured.”
As a schoolboy in Colchester, Coxon was a proficient saxophonist and passed his grade five theory before switching to guitar. The Spinning Top finds him embracing the instrument again.
“I quite like the sound of the soprano saxophone. It’s quite a high one and it’s not as easy to play as the one I used to play, but I wanted it to have an exuberant sound like a rabbit in springtime, you know?”
It’s not an instrument you’ve used that much in your career, so was it easy to pick it up again?
“Yeah, well every now and then I have a toot on the sax. It’s not an instrument I’m brilliant at although I learnt it classically, but really where the sax shines is in jazz so I wanted to try my hand at some of that groovy stuff. I’m not an amazingly technical player, but I suppose with the guitar as well it’s an emotional channelling rather than anything else.”
Whereas some previous solo tracks and Blur songs such as Country Sad Ballad Man have found Coxon recording his guitar work in one take, the musician admits to having nerves with this album.
“Some of the takes were pretty easy, but I do have a sort of weird red light phobia when the record button is on. I do tend to get a bit stiff with my playing, so I had to get over that as I wanted the music to swing nicely and be kind of relaxed, so that was the effort really. That’s what I wanted to do with Foxy [Graham Fox] the drummer and Danny on bass, I just wanted us to play like musicians. I just wanted to use acoustic instruments but still get a dynamic thrill out of it and keep the rawness to it like the old soul and jazz recordings. They are exciting sounding things to me, but somehow music these days doesn’t quite hit it for me. All of that made it sound quite classic in a way, without it being a nostalgia trip.”
For Coxon’s last solo album Love Travels At Illegal Speeds, his hand-drawn cover art was bright and intense. The muted pencil sketch sleeve of The Spinning Top suggests an entirely different mood.
“In a way I realised that perhaps my album sleeves can scare people away before they pick it up out of the racks at the record shop. I just wanted the album sleeve to be a bit more seductive rather than insane. A lot of my covers just look like I’m a madman and I really just wanted a beautiful cover, so that’s it really.”
As Coxon looks back for his inspiration, technology is taking his legacy forward. With characters based on Blur featuring in the new Lego Rock Band, it must be strange for Coxon to find a new generation learning his music via games such as Guitar Hero and SingStar.
“But they’re not learning it really are they? They are learning to hold a hunk of plastic and hit it in rhythm, which I suppose is okay, but it’s a bit easy isn’t it?”
Hopefully some of these people will then go through the Graham Coxon back catalogue and be inspired to take up guitar through?
“Yeah, that would be great. If Guitar Hero eventually makes you pick up a real guitar then that’s pretty cool. I suppose it’s not much different from when I used to pose in front of the mirror with something like a tennis racquet playing along to The Beatles before I went to school.”
Although the four members of Blur have returned to solo activities following their emotional summer reunion shows, Coxon says memories of their gigs at festivals such as Glastonbury remain strong.
“It was a brilliant time, absolutely. They were excellent shows and the rehearsals were so much fun. Getting back in the groove with my old mates felt really positive and the affection from the audience was pretty staggering actually. I thought it was just great to realise that any problems we’d had in the past could be blown away with just a run through of She’s So High. That’s the song we first played in rehearsal and it made us all quite happy, really. It was really great and really positive.”
The Spinning Top (Stomp)
Unpublished Interview Material
You’ve drawn a figure wading in water in the Spinning Top booklet, which is striking a similar pose to the figure on the cover of 13 – how intentional was that?
“Oh, the boy? It was intentional in as much as my hands draw him, but he’s just someone I’ve drawn over the years and I don’t know who he is but I quite like him. He’s very similar to the 13 cover, yeah (laughs).”
Were there a lot of live takes used on The Spinning Top?
“I rely on a really great engineer and we recorded a lot of it on old analogue and tape, so that the drums and things would sound really good, basically. A lot of it was live with bass and drums and then there were other bits I had to do separately and edit in, so there was a lot of chopping around. Some of the live sections though are favourites – most of Sorrow’s Army is a live take and Brave The Storm. When you’re making a record on you’re on it’s rather odd putting all the music down yourself and I was wondering if I was losing a lot of the feel because of that, so it was a way of seeing if things would sound better.”
Have you ever played any of those sorts of Guitar Hero games with your daughter Pepper?
“Nah, but she always reminds me, ‘There’s a Beatles Guitar Hero coming out Daddy, I’m sure you’d really like that’. But I quite like playing Beatles songs on real guitars – it’s a little more fulfilling.”
You said in 1997 that you “want some day to make a record that no one likes or understands”. Do you still want to do that?
“Not really, because I think it would be quite a waste of energy. But who knows? I might think up a really important record one day and no one will understand it or like it. I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t think I’d purposely try and make an album like that. I don’t know whether I’d do it on purpose just to be a pain in the arse or if I thought that one day I’d be so highly developed as a musician that no one would know what the hell I was on about. I doubt that will happen though.”
Blur and the mid-‘90s British acts who filled the pages of entertainment magazines such as NME, Select and Melody Maker opened my eyes to new musical realms beyond local radio stations such as Triple M’s relatively limited scope. Attending Blur’s 1997 performance at Adelaide’s Thebarton Theatre was an exciting expedition for my share house friends and me; a chance to see these exotic music press cover stars up close in our own city! Guitarist Graham Coxon, who wore a local band’s T-shirt during the Thebby Theatre gig, was out of Blur within four years of this tour. By the time of his departure ahead of the release of Blur’s 2002 album Think Tank, it was clear Coxon was struggling with addictions. Thankfully, after a stint in rehab, the guitar hero was able to curtail some of his demons and returned to music, first with solo albums and then as part of the reunited Blur. Like a few of the other Britpop heroes I’ve included on this site, this interview was predominantly promoting Graham’s solo material rather than new Blur music, however the quietly spoken and fragile-sounding Coxon didn’t shy away from discussing the band once I’d shown interest for, and appreciation in, his new album, The Spinning Top.
The following is an edited version of an interview first published in Rip It Up, November 2009.
Graham Coxon - Guitar Hero
by Scott McLennan
In a 1996 Blur interview, English musician Graham Coxon admitted contrariness was one of his biggest sins. Despite his guitar work in Blur being praised by fellow English musicians such as Jonny Greenwood and Noel Gallagher, the bespectacled Britpop instigator has always plotted a course of dissidence with his own output.
Always a step ahead of the tastemakers, Coxon’s interests had already moved onto Boston punk act Mission Of Burma by the time England had fallen for Blur’s suburban swagger. A brief Blur reunion for festival dates over the UK summer has done nothing to curb the guitarist’s hunger for new influences, with his latest album The Spinning Top reflecting a wealth of ‘60s influences including Ornette Coleman, John Martyn and Davey Graham.
“I’m still quite happy sitting there in the late ‘60s in a way,” Coxon states with a hint of nervous excitement. “I’m still discovering great stuff from then, although I’m not frozen in time or anything in that way. My influences are pretty widespread and one of the reasons I got [bassist] Danny Thompson in was because he played on some of that really groovy folky jazz stuff from Incredible String Band, Davey Graham and Nick Drake. He also played on Spirit Of Eden by Talk Talk from the late ‘80s, which is one of my favourite albums as well. He was definitely brilliant to get on the record and he’s just so great at that, and also getting a jazz drummer in gave us the space to have a jam rather than playing everything myself, where I have the tendency to make everything overly structured.”
As a schoolboy in Colchester, Coxon was a proficient saxophonist and passed his grade five theory before switching to guitar. The Spinning Top finds him embracing the instrument again.
“I quite like the sound of the soprano saxophone. It’s quite a high one and it’s not as easy to play as the one I used to play, but I wanted it to have an exuberant sound like a rabbit in springtime, you know?”
It’s not an instrument you’ve used that much in your career, so was it easy to pick it up again?
“Yeah, well every now and then I have a toot on the sax. It’s not an instrument I’m brilliant at although I learnt it classically, but really where the sax shines is in jazz so I wanted to try my hand at some of that groovy stuff. I’m not an amazingly technical player, but I suppose with the guitar as well it’s an emotional channelling rather than anything else.”
Whereas some previous solo tracks and Blur songs such as Country Sad Ballad Man have found Coxon recording his guitar work in one take, the musician admits to having nerves with this album.
“Some of the takes were pretty easy, but I do have a sort of weird red light phobia when the record button is on. I do tend to get a bit stiff with my playing, so I had to get over that as I wanted the music to swing nicely and be kind of relaxed, so that was the effort really. That’s what I wanted to do with Foxy [Graham Fox] the drummer and Danny on bass, I just wanted us to play like musicians. I just wanted to use acoustic instruments but still get a dynamic thrill out of it and keep the rawness to it like the old soul and jazz recordings. They are exciting sounding things to me, but somehow music these days doesn’t quite hit it for me. All of that made it sound quite classic in a way, without it being a nostalgia trip.”
For Coxon’s last solo album Love Travels At Illegal Speeds, his hand-drawn cover art was bright and intense. The muted pencil sketch sleeve of The Spinning Top suggests an entirely different mood.
“In a way I realised that perhaps my album sleeves can scare people away before they pick it up out of the racks at the record shop. I just wanted the album sleeve to be a bit more seductive rather than insane. A lot of my covers just look like I’m a madman and I really just wanted a beautiful cover, so that’s it really.”
As Coxon looks back for his inspiration, technology is taking his legacy forward. With characters based on Blur featuring in the new Lego Rock Band, it must be strange for Coxon to find a new generation learning his music via games such as Guitar Hero and SingStar.
“But they’re not learning it really are they? They are learning to hold a hunk of plastic and hit it in rhythm, which I suppose is okay, but it’s a bit easy isn’t it?”
Hopefully some of these people will then go through the Graham Coxon back catalogue and be inspired to take up guitar through?
“Yeah, that would be great. If Guitar Hero eventually makes you pick up a real guitar then that’s pretty cool. I suppose it’s not much different from when I used to pose in front of the mirror with something like a tennis racquet playing along to The Beatles before I went to school.”
Although the four members of Blur have returned to solo activities following their emotional summer reunion shows, Coxon says memories of their gigs at festivals such as Glastonbury remain strong.
“It was a brilliant time, absolutely. They were excellent shows and the rehearsals were so much fun. Getting back in the groove with my old mates felt really positive and the affection from the audience was pretty staggering actually. I thought it was just great to realise that any problems we’d had in the past could be blown away with just a run through of She’s So High. That’s the song we first played in rehearsal and it made us all quite happy, really. It was really great and really positive.”
The Spinning Top (Stomp)
Unpublished Interview Material
You’ve drawn a figure wading in water in the Spinning Top booklet, which is striking a similar pose to the figure on the cover of 13 – how intentional was that?
“Oh, the boy? It was intentional in as much as my hands draw him, but he’s just someone I’ve drawn over the years and I don’t know who he is but I quite like him. He’s very similar to the 13 cover, yeah (laughs).”
Were there a lot of live takes used on The Spinning Top?
“I rely on a really great engineer and we recorded a lot of it on old analogue and tape, so that the drums and things would sound really good, basically. A lot of it was live with bass and drums and then there were other bits I had to do separately and edit in, so there was a lot of chopping around. Some of the live sections though are favourites – most of Sorrow’s Army is a live take and Brave The Storm. When you’re making a record on you’re on it’s rather odd putting all the music down yourself and I was wondering if I was losing a lot of the feel because of that, so it was a way of seeing if things would sound better.”
Have you ever played any of those sorts of Guitar Hero games with your daughter Pepper?
“Nah, but she always reminds me, ‘There’s a Beatles Guitar Hero coming out Daddy, I’m sure you’d really like that’. But I quite like playing Beatles songs on real guitars – it’s a little more fulfilling.”
You said in 1997 that you “want some day to make a record that no one likes or understands”. Do you still want to do that?
“Not really, because I think it would be quite a waste of energy. But who knows? I might think up a really important record one day and no one will understand it or like it. I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t think I’d purposely try and make an album like that. I don’t know whether I’d do it on purpose just to be a pain in the arse or if I thought that one day I’d be so highly developed as a musician that no one would know what the hell I was on about. I doubt that will happen though.”
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