Life was a Blur

realise that I’ve been an arsehole for a long, long time," says Graham Coxon calmly. "For maybe a quarter of an hour each day I was probably quite nice, probably after three or four drinks. And after that, I was a snarly, nasty, bitter piece of work. Or hung over and snappy and irritable."

Coxon is a recovering alcoholic, single parent, solo artist, independent label boss and, one might reasonably suspect, the "former" guitarist of Blur. Today, he is in the upstairs room of a pub in Camden, North London, sipping mineral water and talking candidly about the past year or so of his life. He’s had quite a time of it, even by his standards, as one of the more eccentric, talented and bloody-minded elements of the Britpop diaspora.

To understand where Coxon, 33, is now, it’s necessary to remember where he was before. For those of us not seduced by the boorish classicism of Oasis, Blur were the British mainstream’s most compelling band of the 1990s. A little too pushy and pretentious at times, no doubt, but their blend of art rock, retro styling, social observation and brazen commercialism made for frequently brilliant music. As, indeed, did the volatile mix of personalities: like Coxon, the guitarist who gave the songs innovative punk rock angles while railing incessantly against everything, not least his band. And who appeared to be unfailingly drunk and embittered, especially when Blur were the most feted group in the country.

Coxon, however, gave up drinking on 15 November last year, after a month in The Priory. On 16 November, he started writing his fourth solo album, The Kiss Of Morning. These folk and blues songs - often shaky, roughly-formed and painfully honest - touched on his alcoholism, but focused mainly on the breakdown of his long-term relationship. Around the same time, though, Blur were reconvening to make preparations for their seventh album.

Over the past few weeks, it has become apparent that Coxon almost certainly no longer has anything to do with Blur. As he sits in Camden, the other three members of the band are in Morocco, finishing the album with the unlikely assistance of Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim. A sober Coxon, it transpires, was a lot harder for them to manage than a stroppy drunken one.

"They think I’m an utter loony, no doubt," he says ruefully. "I think a lot of people thought I was easier to deal with when I was drunk, because I would do as I was told. I was quiet, I was in the corner, just doing my thing. I would just acquiesce. I am on the Blur record. I was in the studio with Blur. I’m just not in there now."

How does Coxon feel knowing they’re in Morocco now? He shrugs. "Glad I’m not there. I don’t want to be in f***ing Morocco recording music. I never even wanted to travel anywhere. When Damon [Albarn] wanted to record in Iceland, I didn’t want to be away from home."

I ask him if he likes the new Blur record and there is a long, long pause. "I dunno, it’s not finished. It was a struggle for me, to be honest, and that’s all I can say. I was only involved in part of it." Will he be involved in promoting it? "F*** no. No way." he laughs.

So, is he actually in the band? "I can’t really say. When is this going out? ... I’m not taking part in anything Blur are doing right now. There’s nothing official yet. I haven’t really been involved in anything with Blur since May."

Was that his choice? "No. Not at all." It was their choice? "Well, they gave me no choice other than to get distant from it." How does it feel? "Oh, it’s great." So, if the choice hadn’t been made for you, would you have had the courage to do this yourself? "Maybe not. Maybe I could’ve carried on being really unhappy for the rest of my bloody life. But something had to give."

This year’s model of Graham Coxon is not entirely unrecognisable from the old one. There’s the same childlike awkwardness, the still infectious enthusiasm for the music he loves, coupled now with a way of expressing his feelings which doesn’t automatically polarise into sulks and tantrums. He talks, a little self-consciously, about "striving for a simple life" and reading self-help books - "help yourself books", he calls them.

"I had a lot of therapy last year," he says, as people who’ve had a lot of therapy do, "and I came to realise that my twenties had been crazy. I’d done so much complaining that I wasn’t really in control of what was happening to me. It’s like that king who tried to stop the tide: if you think you can control anything, go to Brighton and see if you can stop a wave. There’s no f***ing way, so why bother trying?"

The birth of his daughter Pepper two-and-a-half years ago was the initial catalyst for Coxon trying to re-evaluate his life. The break-up with her mother in the middle of 2001 evidently made it all the more necessary. More than anyone decently needs to know about his trauma is recorded on The Kiss Of Morning, an uncommonly emotional album. It’s interesting to place it next to Blur’s last album, 13, which focused on the disintegration of Damon Albarn’s relationship with Justine Frischmann. Coxon’s grief is real and untidy, fluctuating between rage and bitterness and abject misery and melancholy acceptance. In comparison, Albarn’s suffering seems terribly well "organised".

"I think the record’s more focused on some obvious problems rather than me being a screaming brat and not knowing why," he says, "which the past ones seemed to be about." Some songs, like the outstanding Good Times, are hard enough to take for innocent bystanders, let alone the protagonist. "I don’t listen to (Good Times) very often," he admits. "What I do with that one, I imagine maybe I’m in the Smoky Mountains in America riding this horse for two weeks and we get very close. And it’s about the horse … No, it’s very sad. It’s about accepting the end of a relationship when I’ve been kicking against accepting it for a very long time."

Coxon is currently on excellent terms with his former partner, even though the split made previous ones in his life feel like "an apprentice’s version". "Pepper has two great parents, I think, who are really happy."

Unlike a year ago. "I was in The Priory for a month," he remembers. "I went in there really shitting myself. They told me it was going to change my life. And it did, y’know? They give you a chance to enter into a spiritual thing and if you don’t bolt, or be a cynical wanker like you’ve been all your life, you can actually get something out of it. It’s not God Squad or anything, it’s whatever you want it to be. It could be a Spiritualized album, it could be the elves and the fairies. It’s so you feel looked after, so you don’t have to take all this weight on yourself. It’s teaching you to be at peace with yourself."

Why wasn’t he at peace with himself? "Well, I’d drink because of social inadequacy, or nerves, shyness. If I drink this I can actually talk to people. I can make people laugh - shit, people like me. Then it turns into a coping mechanism, especially gigging. You’re all hyped up after a gig and there’s nowhere to put the energy, so you drink and you party and then before you know it you’re up and down and all over the bloody place for ten years. Then somehow you’ve got to get off it and it’s really difficult, because it’s become part of who you are. It’s a big change."

Coxon might sometimes talk like a textbook recovering addict but, mercifully, his music remains gristly and characterful. Albarn’s side project, Gorillaz, is glossy and superficial, a post-modern subversion of the international charts. Coxon’s new album, meanwhile, is conscientiously small-scale and personal, the work of a man who loves music at its most spontaneous and unadorned. The first single, the splenetic and appositely titled Escape Song, hints at all the changes that have gone on in his life of late. Most surprising of all, he’s even considering leaving his beloved Camden.

"I’ve put a big toe in the bath of Kent," he grins, "I’ve bought a place for survival purposes and so Pepper can experience something more of England than just Camden Town. I was taking Pepper to school this morning and there was a huge crack deal just round the corner from my house, including about ten people. It was pretty nasty. That scares me."

A more worthwhile response, finally, than being a nervous wreck because of his band’s success. "I’m quite a lot happier," Coxon says, in what may be an understatement. "I can give whatever I want my fullest attention, whether it’s my music or my daughter. Instead of being full of grudges and self-obsessed nonsense, I actually just walk down the street and think, ‘Wow, what a nice day’."

The Kiss of Morning is released on 21 October on Transcopic

John Mulvey

© 2002 The Scotsman

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