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CASH FOR QUESTIONS
Graham Coxon
You
asked Graham Coxon about life after Blur, what he made of
Think Tank and if he takes his specs off during sex. In
return the eccentric guitarist revealed that, yes, Alex
James is a "pompous knobhead, but in a good
way..."
 raham Coxon isn't hungry, but the
Camden pizza restaurant we're sitting in has certain
policies to uphold.
"Is it OK if we
just have a drink or does the law require us to
eat?"
Though it's 3pm and
the place is almost deserted, the waitress isn't sure
that the house rules can be flouted, even for the
borough's favourite son. Her manager gives the nod,
deciding that Coxon warrants what star treatment the
establishment has to offer.
It's only when the
drinks arrive - a latte for him, a beer for me - that the
teetotal Coxon appears to become rather distracted, his
gaze resting on the bottle of lager between us. After a
couple of minutes I ask him if it's bothering him at all.
"Oh no, no, no.
God, no," he says with a smile. "I don't miss
alcohol at all, I just have to make sure I'm not thirsty
when it's hot. It's been a while - 2001 I stopped - so
it's not a huge deal, really. In fact, I quite like it
when people are drinking. I don't want to be this kind of
person that people feel nervous of behaving like
themselves in front of. I'm not a fascist."
Though the guitarist
parted ways with Blur almost two years ago - and is about
to release his fifth solo album, Happiness In Magazines -
he is politely wary of the imminent line of questioning.
"They're not too
nasty are they?"
Let's see...
 What
would you have done to improve Think Tank?
Jim Wood, Nottingham
Chucked the computer out and actually worked on making
music instead of playing with Lego electronics, I
suppose. That's about it... and written songs [laughs].
Sorry, I try not to be bitchy because bitchiness is just
stupid. I don't feel bitter about it, it's just funny,
really, and I can't help being cheeky because I know that
they're probably being cheeky about me. It was always a
thing with Blur, that we were cheeky about each other
behind each other's backs. I don't mean to be... I mean,
I'm not being angry about it.
Do you think that
Alex James is some kind of pompous knobhead?
David Sterling, Tyne
And Wear
The thing is with Alex... the reason why I would ever
have had problems with him is that he is someone I know
who is totally honest and will say exactly what he
thinks. When my cup was owerflowing with a lot of anger
and control freakishness and low self-worth I would take
a lot of what he said personally when I needn't have
done. It's his truthfulness and his genuineness, whether
I agree with what he's saying or not, that makes me have
a lot of respect for him. So yeah, he is a pompous
knobhead, but in a good way. Also, his pompous
knobheadedness, if I wasn't being so up my own arse when
I was getting angry with him about doing that, is quite
hilarious.
Strange question.
When you have sex, do you leave your glasses on?
Christie Walsh,
Urbana, USA
That's funny, I was going to experiment with that. I kind
of like to put my glasses on them... actually no, that
would be scary. I wouldn't normally leave them on, not on
my head anyway.
How do you feel
about some of the more excitable female fans at your
gigs? You had a few offers at your Bedford Esquires show
on 11 March 2004.
Fliss Collier, London
I did! The problem about these offers is that they were
during a show and there wasn't an awful lot I could do
about them. I've never been told that before and
I think I feigned being shocked quite well. It was quite
forward of this young lady but it was very nice to hear
as well, in a perverse way.
What did she say? She
said, "I want to suck your dick". It was really
loud and the whole venue heard. It was during a quiet bit
in between songs when I was stuttering for something to
say and, of course, I stuttered even more after that.
What's your
"country house" like? Very big?
Lance Gray, St Mawes,
Cornwall
Not really. It's freezing cold and very basic. It's
somewhere I go to meditate and get rid of my impatient
city-ness. Also, I like to get grubby with machinery and
it's a safe place to mess around with motorbikes or
lawnmowers. I've got a studio in a barn where I paint,
too. I haven't been there for a while. If I'm in need of
a lot of stimulation then I stay in London. Where is it?
Kent.
What's
your favourite coffee? And TV show?
Richard Barker,
Earlsfield
I like lattes with hazelnut syrup in them and Malcolm In
The Middle.
 How's sobriety
treating you?
Maurice Steward,
Stoke-On-Trent
It's treating me well so long as I carry on treating it
well. Do I have the odd beer? No, no drugs and no
alcohol. Anything else that can alter your moods I have
to watch, although I do drink coffee and have cigarettes.
Did one incident make me want to stop drinking? It was a
bunch of incidents, really. I'm not sure whether I really
did hit "a bottom" as they say, but I was very
close to it. I didn't lose my house or... I messed up a
relationship, I've probably messed up all of my
relationships with boozing and I had a very
young baby daughter.
I basically really
couldn't carry around all the shame and the guilt that I
felt about how I was conducting myself. So the easiest
and the hardest way of dealing with it was to stop and
reconstruct my [pause] vandalised mind, I
suppose.
Who had the
biggest gay following in Blur?
Alan Kerr,
Bidford-on-Avon
Alex probably followed the gay thing more than anybody
else, but I don't know whether that meant he had a bigger
following. He had more gay friends because of his club
life that he would lead.
Can you remember
being knocked down by that car [a
drunk Coxon was photographed laying in the road in 1995]
or did you find out when you read the papers in the
morning.
Matt Goold, Beeston
I've been knocked down twice. Once when we first got
signed, and I remember being hit and going to hospital.
It does sober you up. The second time was leaving some
sort of fashion party. I remember gritting my teeth and
waiting for the impact, a very strange sensation. None of
them were stunts, either. Both genuine accidents.
Did you get just the smallest
bit of pleasure seeing Damon fall off the stage at last
year's Reading Festival?
Rhys Griffiths,
Wendover
I didn't see it so I wouldn't know. What's the point in getting pleasure
out of something like that? I don't really wish anybody ill. Does the
indignity appeal to me? Well, the thing is that Damon doesn't have to
fall off a stage to look undignified - none of us have to do anything so
slapstick. I think I displayed more undignified behaviour than anybody
else had or ever will do in Blur and it's really not a big deal. Falling
off a stage is actually good if you get back on with some trophies like
a cut eye. I don't know if that happened to Damon, but that's kind of
cool isn't it?
I have read that
you dislike the word "quim". What other words
do you dislike, and why?
Alex Smith, Preston
"Gorgeous", I don't like that word. I hate
saying it, I hate hearing it. "Milk", I don't
like that word, or "cake" very much. Do I like
milk and cake? Yeah. "Cock", I don't like that
word either.
How do you rate
Damon as a guitarist?
David Wonpu, Las
Vegas, USA
I don't think he's a guitarist. He uses the guitar to get
over some sort of point. Like a lot of instruments that
can be available to people who are musical, a lot of the
time you don't quite know how to go about playing them
and that's a good thing usually. He plays it like it's an
exotic instrument, in a primitive sort of way, and
there's nothing wrong with that. I'd be very, very
surprised if he ever did something like Eric Clapton on
the guitar.
Do you still go to
The Good Mixer [infamous Camden
Britpop pub]?
Joseph Pasztak,
Liverpool
I haven't been for ages. The last time I went in there I
was caught short and needed a wee. The gents was locked -
you have to ask for the key now. I don't think I've been
since year 2000 apart from to go to the loo that once. I
very rarely go into pubs. I very rarely socialise,
actually.
What has Taylor
done to be described as a "scum-sucking shitty
guy" [in Song For The Sick from
The Kiss Of Morning, 2002]? Do you
really wish him dead?
Pete Donnelly, Glasgow
He did nothing, actually, that I didn't do myself. That
song was to exorcise anger about somebody that would have
been better directed at myself, it's just that Taylor,
unfortunately, was a guy who the song got written about.
It could have really been anybody. Am I friends with
Taylor? I'm not friends with him but I'm not not
friends with him. If I saw him tomorrow...I don't know
how it would be for him but I wouldn't mind, he's a nice
guy, to be honest [laughs]. Is Taylor the real
name of the subject? [Smiles, silence, we move on.]
From everything
you did with Blur, what are you most proud of?
Chris Barraclough,
Leeds
Probably the Blur album and Modern Life Is Rubbish. Apart
from that, nothing really. No particular moment or
evening? No. If things went well it was always the result
of some subtle - or not-so-subtle - desperation, an
out-of-control careerism that I felt like a massive
current washing me along with it all. If I try to think
of individual events it's the whole of my 20s, really,
and it's so smashed through with altered states that I
can hardly focus on anything specific that I thought was
really cool. Was I mainly a boozer? Yes, I would get so
out of my face on booze then God knows what else would go
into me... but alcohol was pretty much a favourite.
Did you name your
daughter Pepper after the rapper Pepa? Would you call
your next child Salt?
Alan Kerr,
Bidford-on-Avon
No, it was to do with
the book Pepper by Tristan Hawkins that was based around
Camden. If I had to name her after a rapper it would have
been Charlie so I could shorten it to Chuck and then her
middle name would start with D because Chuck D [Public
Enemy frontman] was the man, really. Do I like Salt
as a name? No, that sounds quite distasteful.
Does your daughter
like your records?
Nick Booth, Jersey
I'm not sure but she
always knows when I'm on the radio. I'm not quite sure
she knows why it's on the radio but it makes her laugh a
bit. She's four so she responds to music in a really
genuine way. She likes Talulah Gosh and Steeleye Span,
they're her favourites.
Did you ever feel
like bailing out of the Country House video shoot? You
look so pissed off in it!
Peter Willy, Dorset
[Immediately]
Absolutely, yes I did and, thinking back on it, I should
have done. Just because a famous artist does something [Damien
Hirst directed the video] doesn't mean it's going to
be any good. It's an awful video and it will remain
awful, but most Blur videos were afwul. It's just not
something we were ever good at.
What made you get
into motorbikes? Did you feel too old to be
skateboarding?
Gabi Fauri, London
I don't think you're
ever too old to do anything really. Really, in the end,
because of cigarettes, skateboarding became too much
effort and I went onto motorbikes instead, which is a
similar sensation but faster. I saw a picture of Bob
Dylan on a Triumph in '66 or something like that and I
thought, God, I want one of those, so I bought a Triumph,
a Tiger Club actually, which is only 200cc, and I took
all my exams and did all my training and that was it.
Because I'd gone sober I wanted to learn something that
was going to be enjoyable and handy and useful.
What was the final
straw with Damon? Do you still speak to Alex and Dave?
Jonathan Bramall,
Huddersfield
I don't think there
was a final straw with me and Damon in particular. I
think the final straw was a lot more to do with them, how
they saw my behaviour really, or misunderstood it. I
occasionally talk to Alex but they've been very busy and
I've been very busy and we didn't socialise very much
anyway. But me and Alex meet up to go around posh shops
in London and stuff like that. So I think the last straw
was an invisible straw. If there was one then I didn't
see it or feel it, but they might have done. You'd have
to ask them.
Do you get fed up being asked
about leaving
Blur?
James Vaughan, London
Not really, because how I feel
about it can change. I'm still working it all out. I know for a lot of
people who have written in with questions, in press terms, it doesn't
seem to have been a very long time ago, but in living day-to-day terms
it is, it's been two years. I can understand that people want to know or
be cheeky about it. Am I conscious that the band might read what I say?
I am, and I don't want them... I
don't feel bitchy towards them, I just feel like I've gone onto a
different life. Better? Yes. I have a lot more space and home life. I
was given the opportunity to leave and I knew I should take it and I
did. I didn't know what I was going to do apart from look after myself
mentally and look after my daughter. That was all my plans were, kind of
like some romantic Grizzly Adams... but in Camden.
Ben
Mitchell
Typed up by Veikko's Blur Page
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