After “all the years of rock and roll with Blur”, nothing comes close to the “mayhem and carnage” of parenting teenagers, says Alex James.
Best known as the bassist for Blur who later swapped music for cheesemaking on his Cotswolds farm, James shares five children with his wife, Claire Neate: Geronimo, Artemas, Galileo, Sable and Beatrix, aged between 14 and 20.
“It’s always, always, always about to kick off,” James, 55, says of parenting a gaggle of teenagers.
“My daughter’s always wanting to have a party, and 16-year-old parties are the absolute worst to deal with, because 16-year-olds – all they want to do is get pissed and shag. You can actually drink legally in a home setting at 16… but not everyone is 16, so in terms of liability it’s an absolute nightmare.
“In all the years of rock and roll with Blur, nothing comes close to the mayhem and carnage of [parenting teenagers]. It’s absolutely terrifying, but it’s actually wonderful.”
Not that James has completely left rock and roll behind – last year, he reformed with his Blur bandmates, lead singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon and drummer Dave Rowntree, to make a new record, The Ballad Of Darren, a play a series of gigs, including a headline Wembley stadium show.
The band burst onto the scene with their debut album, Leisure, in 1991, going on to become defining figures in the Britpop movement and scoring 13 UK top 10 singles and seven number one albums.
James’ new book, Over The Rainbow: Tales From An Unexpected Year, tracks the making of the album and performing again, alongside running his Cotswolds farm and its annual food and music festival, The Big Feastival.
When James got the call-up to get the band back together, he said “it wasn’t even a conversation”, he just “instantly and obviously” knew he was going to say yes – which was, in of itself, a surprise.
“We had got back together, we tried to have a meeting two or three years previously – and it was just ugly. I don’t know why, I can’t even remember why, but being in a band is like a marriage with four people in it, or a sibling relationship,” James explains.
“Any relationship that’s lasted that long is bound to have its ups and downs, especially when there’s four of you in it. I guess the time was just right.”
That’s not to say the initial meeting wasn’t a little tentative. “We have very little contact with each other at all” outside of when they play together, James says. “So there’s five minutes of a little bit of awkward squeakiness when we were back in the room together, but as soon as we started playing together, it was instantly like, oh my God, why did we ever stop doing this?”
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the whole year was the fact that they made it to the end in one piece. “It’s permanently on a f****** knife edge,” James says.
“At any point, you never know when someone’s going to blow a gasket and go, that’s it. This is actually the first time we’ve ever got to the end of an album tour cycle without at least one of us going: ‘F*** that, f*** you, never again’.”
Outside of Blur, James has made a name for himself in the world of food and drink – making cheese on his Oxfordshire farm, as well as sparkling wine that is aptly called ‘Britpop’, in a nod to his musical background. So going from his farming life back to the stage was admittedly something of a gear change.
“I was living this faintly monastic existence, just trying to stop parties happening in my hermitage, where I’ve [gotten] just about on top of everything – this sort of crazy world that I built over the last 20 years, since Blur stopped being my full-time job,” he says. “Then, this big Blur monster arrives and blows everything to bits.”
First, James realised he had to get into shape if he was to perform live again – making him perhaps one of the few rock and roll stars where the lifestyle has actively encouraged him to be healthier. “It’s normally rock and roll that sends people off the rails,” he jokes. One thing he definitely wasn’t joking about? Getting fit – which involved gruelling gym sessions, often twice daily, and forgoing lunch from January until Easter in 2023.
So what’s harder, running a farm and a big family or playing bass for Blur?
“People said, ‘Touring, getting the band back together – you must be exhausted’. Literally being at home and washing up for five kids – that’s exhausting. Playing the bass in a rock band is literally the easiest job in the entire world. All the stuff around it, like the travel – that’s hard work – the gym, that was a nightmare.
“But the actual thing of playing the bass, it’s literally like riding a bicycle downhill, a real, life-affirming energy, giving a constant source of joy, especially with these people that I’ve been playing together with for so long – because we don’t play very often.”
That being said, James does understand why he’s not the only rockstar who’s swapped the stage for a more rural existence. “A lot of musicians end up living on a farm – I bumped into Matt Bellamy from Muse last night and he was talking about his farm. I think it’s all those years living out of a suitcase in hotel rooms, it’s a chance to put down roots as soon as you get a chance.”
It was important, James says, that the band made a new album to go with the tour: “I think if you don’t keep evolving, you very quickly become just your own tribute band, or a kind of parody of what you were. It was vital that we did make that new record, and somehow or another, it felt like one of the best records we’ve ever made.”
With the success of the album and accompanying tour – plus the evident joy that James got from being reunited with his bandmates – you might think that Blur is very much back in business. But that’s not necessarily the case, James says – at least not for now.
“It would have been great to do more, but as long as we treat it respectfully, we don’t overcook it, then hopefully we can keep coming back to it for as long as we live, because it’s far too precious a thing to spoil.”
Over The Rainbow: Tales From An Unexpected Year by Alex James is published by Particular Books, priced £18.99. Available now.
