Graham Leslie Coxon was born in a military hospital in Rintein, near Hanover in the old West Germany. His dad, Bob, was an army bandsman. He would teach jazz at Saturday morning classes. His mum Pauline, worked for Nestle. He has an older sister called Hayley who is about 6 years older than him. “Hayley Coxon is my sister. She’s a 30 year old nurse, a sister in fact, and she works in close conjunction with a lot of heart surgeons in the operating theatre. I admire Hayley especially because she helps save lives for a ridiculous amount of hours a week for next to no money. Purely for love. Ironically, she never noticed when I got ill the other week.” The family stayed at the military base for five years, then they moved to Derby to live with his grandad. Three years later they moved again to Colchester. It was here that he started to take notice of the music around him. He taught himself to play the saxophone and then the guitar. When Graham was 14 he meet Damon Albarn who was a year ahead of him at school. The two had similar likes in music and soon became friends. After leaving Stanway Comprehensive School, Graham went to the North Essex School of Arts and joined a group called The Curious band. After graduating Graham went to Goldsmiths College. Here he studied fine arts. Damon also went to Goldsmiths and at the time was in a group called Circus. Graham and Damon became two parts of Circus as well as his new friend Dave. Graham and Dave were in a band called Hazel Dean together. Dave had also been given weekend jazz classes by Grahams dad. They used Damon’s access to the recording studios to make a demo but soon after the other members left. Graham had a friend who had a bass guitar and asked him if he could join in. This turned out to be Alex and low and behold an early Blur had been formed. The band changed their name to ‘Seymour’ and after playing a few gigs were offered a recording contract with Food records. The one condition was that they changed their names. Some of the suggestions where The Shining Path, Sub, Whirlpool and Sensitise but eventually they chose Blur. Graham is well known for his drinking. It almost got him into trouble when he was knocked over by a car while he was trying to get a taxi. He quit alcohol altogether in the summer of ‘96. He has recently started again because he said he felt more comfortable when he could drink.