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 Back to: Archive · 1997
Altered States

Melody Maker interview with Damon, 21 June 1997. By Mark Sutherland.

As moments of looming cultural significance go, the timing couldn't be better.


You join us on Virgin Airlines flight V009 from London to New York, where we are tuned to the in-flight 'CD Review' service. As luck would have it, this month's featured album is none other than 'Blur', the latest album by the band of the same name, and the reason Melody Maker is on this flight in the first place.


We've been in the company of 'Blur' on and off for over five hours now. We've chortled as Graham Coxon declared, "This album will scare small children," just before the dreamy pop of 'Beetlebum' leaked through the headphones. We've cracked open the Red Stripe to the snarling rock soundtrack of 'Song 2'. We've flicked over to watch 'Men Behaving Badly' on Channel 12 as the atonal racket of 'I'm Just A Killer For Your Love' threatens our aerodynamic equilibrium. Mere minutes ago, we sucked on a complimentary Werther's Original and pondered the majesty of the Hudson River as we began our descent to the oddly comforting drone of 'Essex Dogs'.


We've come a long way with this album. Quite literally. So, we know that anyone who listens to 'Blur' all the way through usually ends up a tad confused. Anyone who listens to it on Virgin's 'CD Review' slot, however, is in danger of suffering permanent bewilderment.


Why? Because, after 'Essex Dogs' has finally muttered and Hoover-noised its way to a halt, you find yourself confronted with something even weirder than the hidden track that usually follows it.


'E lives in a 'aus, a very big 'aus in ver count-er-ee...'


Yes, they've decided to jolly things up a bit by including some of the band's greatest hits. Specifically, the chirpy, cheeky, Cockernee knees-up hits that represent some of the best pop music of the 20th century, but those that Blur would rather we forgot about now, thanks all the same.


Fortunately, on this occasion, the pilot is on their side. Just as 'Country House' strikes up, the in-flight entertainment system is shut down and their none-more-POP! albatross is severed with an almighty screech of 'underground'-friendly feedback. Two minutes later and we've landed in America. Where Blur, conversely, are just about to take off.



Today, Damon Albarn is King Of New York. Yesterday afternoon his band played alongside REM, The Beastie Boys and Alanis Morissette at the city's Tibetan Freedom Festival. Despite the heavyweight competition, it was Blur's spiky set that proved the highlight of the day. As proof, New York's 24-hour TV news station has spent this morning pumping out an hourly bulletin which states, seemingly without irony, that they "rocked", "kicked ass" and generally "ruled".


Meanwhile, a few channels down the dial, MTV regales its army of Beavis & Butthead-esque viewers with an hourly heavy rotation Buzzbin alternative-crossover screening of the 'Song 2' video.


As a direct consequence of such things, this week another 50,000 US citizens will allow the off-kilter charms of 'Blur' into their homes, sending sales of the album soaring towards the half million bare minimum requirement for gen-u-ine Stateside success.


Damon is smart enough to know that, by this evening, The Big Apple will probably have clasped someone else to its rotten core and proclaimed them il capo di capos. But, for the next few hours at least, he is The King Of New York and, to celebrate, he has come dressed as an American.


If you want to know just how seriously the 'ex-kings of Britpop' (© every magazine in the world, ever) are about finally making a dent in the American consciousness, you don't need to interview them. You just need to look at what they're wearing. In fact, you need look no further than Graham Coxon's chin, where a few gingery hairs betray his imminent acquisition of the ultimate Stateside alterna-rock status-symbol. Yup, Graham Coxon, erstwhile Ace 'Face' On The Camden Mod 'Scene', is growing a goatee. They'll never let him in The Good Mixer again. If only because the one-time Patron Saint of the all-day session has packed in the sauce all together. Blimey.


All right, so stout-hearted drummer Dave Rowntree still sports the Colchester Geezer look he had made his own, but will you just look at Damon. The one-time purveyor of football terrace casual chic now dresses like one of those B-Boy wannabes you see in the background on 'Beverly Hills 90210'. He looks cool, of course, but clad in floppy Kangol hat, swimming goggle shades and the sort of voluminous skate 'pants' that could conceal an Uzi automatic, a Big Mac and a cherry red Corvette convertible (whatever that may be), he's more East Village Dude than EastEnd Boy. Yikes.


Still, here comes bassist Alex James, fashionably late and floppy of fringe as ever, to save us and - yesss!! - he still dresses like a particularly seedy member of the sixth form at a minor English public school. He, at least, can surely be relied upon not to cop any US underground straight-edge 'attitood' or NYC-style accessories.


"I've given up drinking," he states, dramatically. "But I still can't get rid of the twatty affectations that go with it."


And then he lights up a Big Apple-sized cigar and suggests we walk to the photo shoot. The horror!


All this comes as a bit of a shock, quite frankly. It was only five years ago, after all, that a tour intended to break Blur in America ended with America very nearly breaking Blur instead. Even less since Blur press photos consisted of dressing up in a series of 'British images', while the accompanying interviews consisted largely of vitriolic attacks on "Yankee mall culture". At the height of their UK notoriety, if Damon had started going on about 'Big Apples', we'd have thought he'd lapsed into Cockney rhyming slang to describe a particularly large staircase. Then again, only one year ago, he famously opened his mouth, inserted his foot and mumbled through a gobful of toenails: "The only thing we've got in common with Oasis is we're both doing shit in America."


The States fell for the Gallaghers about five minutes later. Now, it seems, America finally loves Blur and Blur, at last, have learnt to love America back. Nowadays, when Blur declare 'There's No Other Way', the way in question is the American one. And the questions in the way are: How did this happen? How did they get here? And: do you want fries with that, buddy?


"Yesterday, I felt like I'd arrived at a totally new place, both emotionally and musically. I finally left that whole headspace of Britishness."


Today, Damon Albarn is the happiest bunny in the whole of Manhattan. Curled up on the Philip Starck-designed sofa in the lobby of his swank midtown hotel, he exudes good health, mental confidence, proper pop star charm and personal contentment.


But this is not the old Damon Albarn. He no longer spits out soundbites left, right and centre. He regularly thinks long and hard before he speaks. He's humble about even his most spectacular achievements and honest about his mistakes. Later, he'll even be quite nice about Noel Gallagher. Sort of. But for now, he's enthusing about America like a native.


"It's so exciting coming here nowadays," he grins. "It's nice to be seen as a new, young, up-and-coming band and have 16-year-olds think 'Song 2' is our debut single. In the past, we've come over here, played to our friends and consoled ourselves with the fact that we're a cult. Now the gigs are just full of... punters."


And not many, one imagines, of the same 'punters' who bore witness to Blur's disastrous US tour of 1992, when record company politics, personal disarray and public disinterest pushed them so far over the edge that they could only recover by making three whole albums about how rubbish America is.


"Yeah, it is a bit different over here now," ponders Damon. "There's a fraction of the drinking, which helps, obviously, and we're not deliberately spiting ourselves. And we don't have to do all those meet-and-greets and in-stores which drove us up the wall. Not that I remember much. I've erased all memories of the early Nineties."


Well, let's refresh your memory. At one point, your hatred for the place was so strong the original working title for 'Modern Life Is Rubbish' was 'Britain Versus America'.


"I know. God. And we were going to call 'Parklife' 'London'. Phewee, eh? God knows what I was thinking."


Damon claims his new-found love affair with America actually began at the end of the 'Parklife' era and was triggered by leaving their American record company and actually acquiring some American friends at their new label. As a result, one of the best tracks from 'Blur' urges us to "Look inside America/It's all right".


The admiration is mutual. 'Blur' has already sold more copies in America than all Blur's previous albums put together. Although, ultimately, that's not really very many. The US success of Oasis, let alone Bush and the Spice Girls, is still a long way off.


"Well, yeah, but I don't want to be THAT massive. The thing is, you can sell one million records here and not really be that big. We've got credibility here, and I don't want to lose that. Same as I know we're cool in England again - and to get that back from being in our position is incredible. It's taken me a ludicrously long time to realise this, but all I really want to do is make the music I want to and not get so uptight about being the best and the biggest."


In other words, Blur just do what they do and if one million Americans like it, that's a bonus. If one million Brits like it, however, they'll be very surprised.


"'Blur' will never sell a million copies in the UK," asserts Damon. "It's just too darned good."


Well, so were 'Parklife' and 'The Great Escape' if you ask this journo, and they secured Blur back-to-back million sellers in their homeland. But this time around, 'Blur' is still limping forlornly towards single platinum status and is already perilously close to dropping out of the UK Top 50. Still record sales most bands would kill for, obviously, but practically a flop by their standards.


But then 'Blur' is an awkward bugger of a record, obscuring the band's traditional strengths (cracking tunes, ironic pop swagger, the usual) under an avalanche of influences from weird-beard lo-fi folk that no one's ever heard of. True, it's got Blur across to people who always hated them previously (including half the Maker office and John Peel - who has never played any previous Blur record) but it's also confused the hell out of the teenage girl and terrace lad element of their fanbase.


Which was almost certainly the idea, but at what cost? Britain was booming - why let Blur blow it? Time, surely, to put Damon in the dock and try him for crimes against Britpop.



Accusation 1:

That you did wilfully and deliberately tailor your music to the US 'market'!


"I just don't understand that. I mean, 'Song 2' is the song doing it for us here and I never imagined for one minute that Americans would like that. It hasn't even got a title, for f***'s sake - that's how throwaway it was.


"And, y'know, we've also cracked the German market for the first time with this album. I suppose we deliberately geared it to the Germans, did we?"


Well, there was the much touted Krautrock influence...


"Oh, piss off. We've made it in Spain as well, but there aren't any flamenco guitars on it, are there?"


OK, not guilty. But wait, there's a counter-charge (possibly from your record company)...



Accusation 2:

That you did deliberately attempt commercial suicide without due consideration for the knock-on effect on the British economy!


"Oh, come on. It's sold nearly 300,000 copies and given us one Number One single and another Number Two - and that was only 800 copies off being Number One, actually. At the time, I didn't give a f*** if it was commercial suicide, but if it had gone completely down the toilet I would have found it pretty traumatic. I mean, I did used to think, 'Well, we're going to be as big as U2 around the world soon,' which just seems insane to me now. But, even so, by the end of this campaign, this album will have outsold all our others worldwide. That's a lot of records for commercial suicide."


OK, we'll let that one slide. But there's still more to answer to The Maker. Let's try this one then.



Accusation 3:

That you insulted your loyal teenage fans who made you millions by assuming they only want to touch your bottom and won't 'understand' all this Pavement gubbins.


"I have no problem with 12-year-olds screaming at me and I believe it's totally possible for them to grasp what we're doing. I hope they do. But at the same time, we made this record for ourselves. Why should I give a f*** if people are insulted? It's none of their business, really."


Hmm. We'll call that one a plea bargain. But surely you must cop for this one. Right then,



Accusation 4:

That you did spoil the Britpop party by making a 'we are weird' album and causing everyone from Supergrass to Radiohead to copy you.


"In the past, I probably would have claimed that everyone was copying us but I know full well they were making those records anyway. Anyone with any sense realised that Britpop was getting to be an embarrassing MOR thing. And all it requires is for this LP to end up being successful and people won't be making bland conservative records in Britain, because they won't have to."


Damn it all! But this one will get him...



Accusation 5:

You're a right cocky little bleeder, aren't you?


"I'm aware that people think that about me, obviously, but I don't really understand it. The funny thing is, I'm a lot more genuinely confident now, but I don't seem to wind people up as much. But cocky? At what point was I 'cocky'?"


Well, the 'Country House' point certainly springs to mind.


"Ah, yes. The thing is, at that point, there was a genuine chemistry between me and Liam. We were these two larger-than-life characters vying for attention. In any other walk of life, if we were at school or something, we'd either have had a big fight, or we'd have become mates. But because of who we were, it went on 'News At Ten'. Within my own persona, I understand what was going on but, yeah, if you look at it from the outside, it just looks like I was off me head."


Gotcha! And while we're here, what about...



Accusation 6:

That you shamelessly adapt yourself and your music to whichever way the Zeitgeist breeze is blowing. In other words, you are the Tony Blair of pop.


"Oh God," he stutters, "I don't like that at all. I mean, I do these things before the climate changes, rather than afterwards. I can always see these things sort of coming. But I suppose, having met Tony Blair and had a G&T with him, I can relate to that side of him. It made me smile to see him with Clinton and Yeltsin because that's all it takes to get there - having the ability to understand what's going on and what people want. But does that make him a great person or a great leader? Probably not. Maybe I have been guilty of that way of perceiving things. But now I'm just interested in being honest."


Ha ha! Guilty as charged! Clap yourself in irons and go directly to Britpop jail! Or, as an alternative punishment, go and 'check out' Radiohead live.



Oddly enough, considering a couple of years ago the two bands were practically polar opposites, Damon sees Radiohead - who he does, indeed, 'check out' at New York's Irving Plaza this evening - as one of Blur's few kindred spirits on the UK scene.


"We've got a lot in common, actually," he smiles, while at the show. "We're similar sort of people, and we've got the same sense of adventurousness in our music. Every other British band is so loutish."


Mr Albarn has precious little enthusiasm for anything else 'happening' back home, though. He "doesn't understand" the fuss over the Spice Girls, although he does have a favourite ("Mel B - she's the best looking by miles"). He can't stand New Grave ("I had enough of Goths when I was trying to avoid them as an 18-year-old in Colchester. That Marilyn Manson guy was at the Tibet gig, ordering champagne. And I'm like, 'Champagne? F*** off! You should be drinking cider and black like the rest of your kind!'") Oddly, the one person he does have a little sympathy for is Crispian Mills.


"Not too much, though. I mean, he does come across as a bit of a twat, doesn't he? But I'm very grateful to him for replacing me as everyone's favourite whipping boy. At least, he's a proper public schoolboy - that was the only thing people have ever said about me that wound me up. I don't mind being called middle-class, but I didn't go to f***ing public school."


Aside from that, it seems, nothing much bothers Damon Albarn these days. Tonight, he's relaxed in the company of the most stellar guestlist ever created (Winona Ryder! Courtney Love! U2! REM! Jamie Theakston! How did he get in!), even when Liam Gallagher spots him in the crowd and ambles over to mumble the usual variations on 'I'm mad for it, me!'


Does this mean there's a truce, then, Damon?


"Well, we're not big pals or anything. I don't relate to them at all. But it's a bit different over here - they're mere mortals like the rest of us. We're playing on the same bill as them at a couple of gigs, which is fine by me. We'd never do it at home, but it's a chance for a less partisan crowd to judge us on our playing abilities."


For a minute, it looks like the old Damon might sneak in through the back door, but instead he clamps his gob and heads off to do a radio interview. Professional at all times, that's the new Blur credo. Even when they later attend a party thrown by Rock Chick Inc - a group of New York lasses apparently on a mission to take the word Anglophilia to its natural sexual conclusion. In days of yore, you might have expected Alex James to stay here roister-doistering till dawn. Tonight, he goes home on his own, just as most people are arriving. The old Damon might have got legless and into a ruck about something, but tonight he just gets pleasantly tipsy and chats about football.


Make no mistake, this is a happy man. A far cry from even the start of this year, when a series of interviews saw him talking about his clinical depression.


"I'm just starting to really sort myself out," he says now. "It takes ages until you can actually identify what you want out of life. I don't even think the information is available until you've been through a lot of different experiences. Occasionally, the symptoms of my depression come back, but I know what they are now so I can deal with it, whereas before they scared the shit out of me."


Good. For a while there, what with Justine complaining about her press treatment, the Coolest Couple In Rock were starting to look like the Whinging Couple Of Old Camden Town.


"The Whinging Couple Of Old Notting Hill, purlease," he smirks. "We've never lived in Camden. But when you're being interviewed you either completely lie, don't say anything or open yourself up a bit. All three will land you in the shit one way or another. And, y'know, Justine has had to face her own demons.


"But we have a unique relationship. Justine's a very relaxed and open-minded person. Which makes me a very lucky man."


Blimey. Is that wedding bells I hear?


"I don't know. All I know is I no longer want to be the biggest band in the world. I just want to be happy, have a family and be good at carpentry. But I've got to get off this world tour first."


You could always have a quickie marriage in Vegas...


"It's funny. I admire Noel for that cos he actually seems stimulated by the big classic rock'n'roll gestures. Like having that bit of stained glass saying 'Supernova Heights' outside his house."


He's got a new house now. Well, mansion, really.


"Where?"


Oh, Buckinghamshire or somewhere.


"Ooh, very nouveau. That's what you do when you're rich, buy loads of houses but never live in any of them. It's ridiculous. I've got three now - one in Notting Hill, one in Cornwall and one in Iceland. I'm a millionaire but I don't feel like it cos I've been in Melody Maker since I had 5p."


But it's not all happy families, wedding plans and property investment chez Albarn & Frischmann. Otherwise the new Elastica album wouldn't be taking so bloody long, surely?


"Oh, I think they just want to make sure it's absolutely right and allow everyone to speculate wildly while they're doing it."


And speculate wildly they do. Wild Saloon Bar Theory No. 1 for the day is: you write all the songs for her.


"Well, I don't," he snorts, looking annoyed for the only time all trip. "They only say that because she's a girl, don't they? They'd never say 'Oh, Justine writes all Blur's songs'."


Well, if that one gets your goat, how about Wild Saloon Bar Theory No. 2: that the reason for the delay is both you and Justine are heavily into heroin.


Oddly, the reaction is anything but angry.


"Oh, I heard that one," he smiles. "There's quite a lot of spicy gossip about us, isn't there? Well, of course I'm going to answer 'No'."


Why "of course"?


"What else do you think I'm going to say?"


Well, you might get angry. Have you ever taken heroin?


"Er. Um. [Huge pause] Er, I can't answer that really, can I? No. The fact that you ask a question like that... it's implicit that I'm guilty."


Well, are you? You're saying no, but the way you're saying it...


"...suggests I'm shooting up? Well, here are my arms," Damon smiles, proffering limbs with nary a pockmark on them.


There are other places to inject.


"Well, yes, you can, but I couldn't. I'd faint at the sight of a needle. My pulse rate rises uncontrollably whenever any surgical instrument comes near me. But you know, this goes back to what we've been talking about all day - it's a life choice whether you want to just play music or do all the other stuff that can help sustain your career. In the past, I've let the other stuff do the job, manipulating the media to my own ends, but I don't want that any more. I don't want people camped at the end of my road again.


"But I would say that, as far as heroin is concerned, I've seen so many people erase huge chunks of their lives as a result of it... I just think it's a very dangerous drug for people to take."


You don't seem that bothered by the rumours, considering your vitriolic attacks on people you suspected were using it in the past.


"You mean Brett?" queries Damon. "Well, I do regret that and I've said, on many occasions, that I was wrong. But I'm not puritanical. I've been through a lot in the last few years - all the things the tabloids love. But I've never taken a lot of drugs. I'm one of life's moderates. I'm actually very lucky - I'm one of the few people I know that can take drugs then walk away from them.


"I agree with the whole debate that was kicked off by the Brian Harvey thing because he actually spoke for a huge number of people. There really isn't a huge problem with taking E every weekend - I used to do it. I don't do it any more, but I used to. But then again, I come from a very emotionally stable background and a 16-year-old hasn't got the experience I have. I... I just wish you hadn't asked me that question, really."


Weird. Damon is clearly far too healthy, alert and driven to be abusing any drug at the moment, let alone smack, the ultimate fool's choice. Yet he can't bring himself to give a straight 'No'. Oh well. They don't call him the Tony Blair of pop for nothing.



"It's brilliant, America. All you do is play all your punk rock songs and they love you. It took us eight years to figure that out. Mind you, this set we're doing now reminds me of being in Seymour - fast songs played aggressively with lots of spazzy dancing from me. The only difference is we're not f***ed up, pissed-up and 18 any more."


Damon Albarn is about to go onstage at Philadelphia Electric Factory. His mission: to use punk rock fury to scare the life out of the mall honeys and Britpop wannabes that constitute Blur's old US fanbase while thrilling their new MTV alterna-rock converts. Only a few Britpop chestnuts survive. The message? Never mind all that bollocks, here's the Essex Pistols!


And they're brilliant. The likes of 'Girls And Boys' and 'Stereotypes' actually benefit from the sonic rocket up their arse, while even the weirder songs from the new album finally begin to make sense. They even play 'She's So High' in a style that's alarmingly close to Oasis ("It IS an Oasis song!" Damon smirked earlier. "Just six years before they did it"). By the time they get to 'Song 2', the jock-friendly chorus of "Woo-hoo!"s is deafening and Blur have passed the first serious examination of this American campaign with flying - nay, hurtling - colours.


Afterwards, everyone is so excited they actually go out to a club - except for Damon who has one puff of a spliff, gibbers briefly about Paolo Maldini's imminent arrival at Stamford Bridge and then feels so giddy he has to go to bed. Aw, bless.


Meanwhile, those that do stay up late are treated to the unusual spectacle of an utterly sober Alex James heading off to a drum'n'bass club.


"Just because I'm not drinking doesn't mean I can't chase girls and make a fool of myself," he grins, sagely.



Despite the teetotalism breaking out around him, Damon is the only member of Blur to make breakfast the next morning.


"I wish I was going home today," he says fuzzily, eyeing your correspondent's plane ticket.


No, you don't.


"Well, no, I don't really," he admits. "After all, I do want to be in a position soon where I can say, 'The only thing we've got in common with Oasis is we're both doing great in America'."


Any day now, surely. Blur, this is American Air Traffic Control: you are officially cleared for take-off. Have a nice day now, y'all.