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| Interviews: Ash |
Blur's just so keen
for you to listen Blur's Alex James: 21 November 1995 this was supposed to be an intevriew with damon, but first he went missing, and then he turned up pissed. no matter. i talked to bassist alex james instead. fritz: are you worried about breaking big in the u.s.? alex: well, we're #1 in britian, #1 in iceland, #1 in hong kong, #2 in denmark and #2 in sweden - it goes on and on everywhere, apart from america, where we mean jackshit. the whole world wants us, except for america, so america's a market we're determined to crack. we're ridiculousy busy. i can't believe how busy we are - it's stupid. so we're just doing a little bit now, and we'll come back next year, when the ball's rolling, hopefully. i really don't know - record companies aren't usually very keen to send bands off on month tours of america. if radio stations like the record then they'll play it anywhere. it don't know how much good it does, really, but it's nice to be here. we're having a lovely time this time. f: except for the little incident with damon and the gun ... a: well, damon's a cheeky fucker. i was sitting next to him in the car, and what happened was damon was giving the beady-eye to some homies in a car next to the cab. and i know how he looks at people - he was probably asking for trouble. actually, damon was probably taking the piss out of the guy, so the guy got his gun out and went 'pow-pow.' i don't think it was a close look thing, it was more of a `dont fucking come out here you limey git or i'll shoot you.' f: that altercation aside, how's the tour going? a: the tour's been going really well. it's great to be on a decent record label now, and this album is probably more relevant to our american cousins than our previous work, which is more in the English idiom. f: parklife is an extremely "english" album, and it's got such a "british" feel to the songs ... a: we're english boys. the thing that's always bugged us is that american people can sing about america and that's fine in the rest of the world, which sort of gobbles it up. it's a big deal if you sing from england and you come about england. it shouldn't have to be a big deal - it's where we come from and it's what we're best at doing. we're part of a tradition. f: how do you think you can overcome that? a: what? f: the problem of getting americans to understand it. a: i think america's getting a bit bored with hootie and the blowfish. grunge has been completely absorbed by the mainstream and it's really not a cutting-edge thing anymore - it's a really dull thing. i don't think america's got a voice at the moment. it's a really sad thing, because they've been making the best music in the world from nirvana on, it had a way to express all its fear and self-loathing and angst. but i think everybody's bored with that now. we wouldn't change to make a record for germany, so we wouldn't change to make a record for america. either it'll happen or it won't. f: every review of parklife i've seen says something about you guys representing the english working class. do you think that's a problem for the u.s.? a: i'm middle class - we flirt with working class imagery, certainly on Parklife. but this album is more across the board - the characters come from all walks of life. f: are you trying to pick up a late '60s-kinks sort of feel with all the character songs? a: i think the character songs hawk back before that - the tradition of music hall or something. you know, the people the people in the 60s were influenced by. i guess that was a prevalent thing then, but it's all just damon singing about himself in the third person, really. f: well, who were you influenced by? a: i haven't got a clue, actually. i was just thinking about that in the car today because damon was doing an interview and somebody was asking him that. i think you just pick up stuff from everywhere, really. obviously there's music you choose to listen to, but there's also music you don't necessarily choose to listen to, especially here in america. every bar you go into, there's really loud music playing. there's music in the taxi, there's music playing in the shops, pizza hut and wherever. there's music everywhere, and i think it all goes in subconsciously ... i don't know, really. it's a funny thing to talk about influence, because it suggests something of the subconcious. it's a fairly intangiable quantity. it suggests you're not in control. but i think we're happy to steal off anybody who's really good. once something's been done well, it's a paradine, and everything that comes after it has to live up to it or be better. f: well, on the new album, i mean, "fade away" has such a specials feel to it ... a: yeah? f: that's what i thought of the first time i heard it ... one of the great things about your albums is that they all have such a wide range of styles on them - do you do that intentionally? a: the sound depends on the context of the song and the subject matter, really. but that song is about coventry and milton keynes and people with no souls leading empty lives, sort of happily. it needed that sort of "ghost town," specials sort of feel - that sort of scary, sinister sort of feeling. but we're genre-sluts, really. we're all good players, and i don't see why we should have to confine ourselves into playing in one particular style. the beatles never did. it's whatever floats the boat, really. f: do you think you'll be able to beat oasis over here? a: i've got better things to think about than oasis, really. i'm not really interested in beating oasis over here, i'm more interested in beating michael jackson or somebody. f: well, oasis got big here and got a lot of radio play last year, which surprised me. a: they rock, don't they? good luck to oasis. good band. f: how did you get ken livingstone on the album? a: phoned him up. f: any particular reason you chose him? a: he's got this little drawly voice that's kind of appropriate. he's also a folk hero in britain. he's an MP who even people who don't agree with him tend to be quite charmed by. he ran the GLC, which was a much loved arts- funding public institution that was closed down by the conservatives when they came into power. kind of a robin hood figure really. that's important to people from britain, really, but the main reason is that (imitates) he's got this really drawling voice that was good for the song. f: on this album, for the first time, all the songs are credited to damon. is there a reason for that? a: we worked the same way one this album as we did on the last one. he's a maniac, damon. wants to control everything. but we don't think he's half-bad. f: how do you go about writing the songs? does he just come in and say "here's something?" a: he'll play us something on acoustic guitar, with just a chord progression and some words, and i'll add the bass, graham adds the guitar and dave plays the drums. graham usually arranges the horns and so on. it's a perpetual power struggle, but i think you have that in all great bands - you had it in the who or the beatles. f: what're you looking forward to most on this tour? a: i think we've passed the tourist phase - this is our 7th tour of america, or something. so i'm just trying to get the best pizza in each town. And talk to the prettiest girls. f: what does the title of the album mean? a: what does it mean? i can tell you what the title means to me. people don't look at things enough, especially in america. they don't look at things that aren't there to be done. there's not enough contemplation of the horizon. everything's sort of designed to take you away from yourself, do you know what i mean? you can't have fun without going somewhere that's made for you to have fun, more and more as we sort of career into the future. music is a transporting form of escape from the tyranny of your conscious mind. it takes you out of yourself. so music's a form of escape, but we're all fucking trying to escape from our lives all the time. you read a newspaper on the train, you're taking yourself off the train and putting yourself into the newspaper. do you that karl marx quote that goes `religion is the opiate of the people?' i much prefer it another way. some wag turned it round and said the opposite is true: `opiate is the religion of the people.' we're all trying to get up there all the time. we're trying to escape from whatever and go up to the next level, do you think? that's what it means to me. f: how do you guys feel when you get lumped in with the mod scene? a: we get lumped in with everybody, darling. we played a festival in estonia with a band called saxon, remember them? wherever you go, you get lumped in with different people. but it's best to stand on your own, really, if you can. i don't think we are mods, really. we like the music, obviously. and we like the clothes - being subversive by dressing smarter than city gents. it's the only way to subvert the mainstream now - pretend to be the mainstream. and that's what we've done at him. f: do you think you're disappointing any of your older fans by not playing more stuff from modern life and leisure? a: i think this stuff's better than the old stuff. we play all the hits, so ... f: well, i saw you guys in d.c., and people were complaining that there wasn't enough old stuff, and ... a: that we didn't play their favorite song? f: yeah. a: well, we can't play everybody's favorite song. it's a dilemma when you play live, because you always want to play new stuff. but i know that if i went to see the stranglers i'd wouldn't want to hear them play their new album, i'd want to "golden brown" and "no more heroes." i completely understand what people want, so we play all the singles, but if your favorite song is the b-side of `bang,' i'm afraid you'll be disappointed. but we're just here to please, really. f: going back to the oasis thing, how much pressure is there for you to do better then them over here? a: i thought the oasis thing had been and gone, really. we put singles out on the same day and both bands did well out of it. they're alright boys. they don't mean the things they say. everytime i do an interview, certain people try and get me to say horrible things about them. and i won't, because they're a great band. it's just a shame they can't keep their heads together. i know them, and everytime i see them we get on. they're getting cast as the bad guys, but they're alright. f: what do you think was the defining moment of making the great escape? a: when the universal happened. it all happened all of a sudden. it was really good, we'd been mucking about with it for ages, and then it just went click-click-click, and thought `there's a number one.' f: what was the process of recording like? a: we did about three songs a week. we work in the same place with the same people, so there's no mucking about, really. if it takes a long time for us, then we forget it, knock it on its head and do something else. it's pointless getting precious and taking five years to make albums. i'd rather make five albums in that time. f: what is the song charmless man about? i heard rumors that it was about morrissey, and some of the lyrics, like the ones about being ronnie kray, seemed to point in that direction. a: no, it's not about him at all. it's about people who bother you and won't leave you alone. i think it's damon singing about getting pestered by people, but we all get it. girls get it, definately. f: what about ernold same? it seems a bit of a follow-up to the song parklife. a: there's a little bit of that in all of us. we all do the same things and ask the same questions and answer the same questions every day, don't we? f: one of the good things about this album is how it looks. it just is more astheticly pleasing then some of the past albums - does this have to do with the change of record companies, or ... a: that's the good thing about virgin. we'd been disgusted with the way sbk handled our artwork. the artwork on the previous albums has been up to the same standards as the great escape, but sbk used to do it on the cheap, so we put that into the contract, that we had control of the artwork. f: any reason you chose this cover? a: we just thought it was an ambigious image, and it was blue as well. we wanted it to be blue, because that's sort of the color of escape. the title came first. usually the title comes last. but the title came before the image. f: what's next for the band? a: we fly to copenhagen, stockholm and japan and then back to britain. then christmas, than brazil and down there, and then back here. i love the touring. i can't think of anything better to do, really, than see the whole world, and play my guitar and drink beer. |