Graham Coxon
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxonis an English musician, singer-songwriter and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur. As the group's lead guitarist and secondary vocalist, Coxon is featured on all eight of Blur's studio albums, from 1991's Leisure to The Magic Whip, despite being absent from the group from 2002 to 2008 owing to a dispute with the other members. He has also led a solo career since 1998. As well as being a musician,...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth12 March 1969
CityRinteln, Germany
CountryGermany
With my daughter, who at the time was one, my domestic life needed to take more precedent and really with my own self I needed to develop quite a bit more. So that put Blur down the list of priorities quite a lot by the time I came to thinking about it.
It's a bit loose and the people in my group have got other groups. They don't have to have a total allegiance to me. I think that's really a bit weird and showing some weird insecurity.
Manchester has it's own pride and London has it's sort of pride and sometimes we can be a bit mean to each other, but I think if we dig the music we can get on really well.
I think of someone like Mariah Carey as a singer.
I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.
I don't think of myself as a singer really.
I think it's better if blokes can admit that they can have crushes on other blokes. I've probably had crushes but never really sexual crushes on men.
I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking.
There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same time, but I think what is harder is bass players that can play the bass and sing.
When it happened, it wasn't a shock. It was something that we'd all been half-expecting. It was, 'When is the world going to realise that we're making excellent pop music?' And they'd finally twigged.
But those audiences in Spain, they were just so stoned. I don't like playing to audiences like that because they just don't do anything. I'm up here with my band and we're working really hard and they are just stoned.
I would do as I was told, but I had a growing resentment about what was happening. It damaged my relationship with the rest of the group and it made my personal relationships very difficult. And there was so much drinking.
This set-list is strange because there's a big bit in the middle where we really have to concentrate, and then we just go a bit mad.
The other guys drink, but they don't drink anywhere near what I used to. And I think they're slightly respectful of the fact that I'm off it, so it's not a problem.