Graham Coxon first burst into public consciousness as part of Britpop pioneers Blur.
Now, with Blur on hiatus, eight solo records and four film scores under his belt, and a new solo album, Castle Park, out in June, Coxon is reflecting on how having his songs rejected by the band’s primary songwriter and frontman, Damon Albarn, actually helped kickstart his solo career.
“A neighbor of mine was writing this film about an old bare-knuckle boxer in the Victorian era,” he tells Guitar World in an upcoming interview. “He came around to my house and was like, ‘I’m making this film. You’re in music. Do us a couple of songs.’ I was like, ‘Yeah… what?’
“But I tried to write a couple of songs and just got into it. I kind of liked it, so I wrote more. And I wasn’t even going to put it out under my own name, I just thought, ‘Well, I’ve got these songs, and I don’t know what to do with them…’ I said to Damon, ‘Come over, check them out, and see if there’s anything we can use in Blur…’”
Turns out, Albarn wasn’t as keen. “I played the songs for him, and he said, ‘No… I don’t think we can use any of that.’ I was like, ‘Right. Cheers,’” he adds with a laugh.
“And then our manager said, ‘Graham, don’t worry. Just stick your name on it…’ So, I have my old neighbor to thank – or apologize to the world about – for encouraging me to write music.”
As for whether Coxon felt more comfortable contributing his songwriting chops to the band once Blur’s classic lineup reunited in 2009, the guitarist replies, “I think it did. With Damon, I can’t pretend that he’s not a great fucking songwriter. But if you flex those muscles like he did…”
He continues, “Damon got very good, so yeah… it was pretty hard to be trying to write songs suddenly with Damon around… especially when he was rejecting your songs,” he quips. “But it does take a while, though the more you do it, the better you get at it.”
Guitar World’s interview with Graham Coxon will be published in the coming weeks.
In a previous interview, Coxon described the process of finding a new guitar identity beyond Blur through his other band and folk-rock project, The WAEVE.
