LONDON CALLING

Rip It Up, Issue 204, 1 August 1994, Page 23

LONDON CALLING

An inteview with Blur’s Damon Albarn

In Britain they’re calling it Blurmania and no wonder — a number one album in Parklife, which is spawning top ten singles like "Girls and Boys’, a recently completed and hysterical sell-out tour of Britain and a headline spot at the Glastonbury festival. So how’s the band coping with all this attention?

“OK, it’s not as if it’s the first time around for us," explains Albam from his flat in London. “It’s our third album and we could see the whole hype that you get in this country and we view it with a sense of humour now. We got caught with success too early and we found ourselves against the rails, it’s virtually unavoidable. Early success is a disaster. You won’t know yet but Suede have split up, today officially in the NME so there you go." Suede, you’ll remember, were hailed by the press as the saviours of rock n’roll on the strength of their first couple of singles. That’s a helluva cross to bear.

“That’s right. It’s a load of bollocks because it destroys music, bands never get a chance to do anything half decent. Noone’s first album is really their best unless you’re the Stone Roses and it’s your only album. And they spent eight years writing that and they didn’t record it until their late 205.”

And their next one’s due in their late 40s.

“Yeah, maybe. But the papers are pushing Oasis, who’re exactly the same as the Stone Roses, they look and dress the same." And like Suede, they’re being touted for greatness on the evidence of two singles by a British press eager to be the first kids on the block. It’s crap.

“I know," agrees Albarn, “but the press are still very powerful in this country. Once you’ve got over a certain amount of sales and you're shrewd enough you can survive without them but up to that point you’re completely at their mercy.” Blur have had their fair share of ups and downs with the music papers, particularly NME who were right behind the band on their Leisure debut but then considered them passe, just before the mould breaking, brilliant Modem Life Is Rubbish. The NME had to do a hasty about face to slip the album into seventh place in their end of year top fifty.

“It annoys the shit out of me that just before we put out Modern Life the press viewed us as some archaic oddity because we weren’t going to be the next big thing as they thought British music had had it. I couldn’t believe that they were so anti their own bands. But it’s because they like new things, that’s prevented British music from progressing further than Britain in the last ten years. “So once a band’s had its eighteen months as the next big thing they want something else and so they find it very difficult to get excited again about a band, especially one like us whom they’ve written off.”

So by now Blur have learned to manipulate the press.

“I wouldn’t admit to that, but I know how to cohabit with them.”

Backtracking to Leisure which was released amongst the flurry of independent releases in 1991 and ended up being categorised (wrongly) as the new indie guitar babe largely on the strength of the unrepresentational ‘She’s So High’.

“We weren’t entirely sure what on earth we were or what we were doing in the pop arena. In that sense the album’s a mish-mash. In hindsight we were lucky because it avoided any real definition as to what we were about and it gave us a bit longer to get ourselves sorted out. I’m not ashamed of ‘She’s So High’ but we did improve noticeably after it. ”

The story goes how founder of Food records and ex-Teardrop Explodes’ David Balfe tried to steer the band in the right direction. “He didn’t help us, he tried to divert us up a road we refused to go. He has a history of intimidating people. I put it down to the fact that he can’t actually write songs himself so he’s always been in the frustrating position of being a director as opposed to a creator. I’m very fond of him but when we decided to change we went through a very bad year with him. He’s actually sold Food records now and he’s left the record business.”

So what did Blur envisage as their new direction after Leisure?

“It was very clear. Just stop mimicking and

state our case and at that time we had no time for America — we hated the excessive export of American culture and we despised every band and every journalist because we wanted to find our own music and it wasn’t even faintly nationalistic, just our roots. We did what we wanted to do regardless of whether it had links with anything that was going on at the time and at the time we were out on a limb as no-one

was interested in that. You have to do that if you want to make half-decent music and we learned the hard way, I’m sure there’s

more sensible ways of doing it.” So Blur rescued themselves from certain failure by following their own instincts and joined that revered and growing list of London/British bands with the backbone to write truthfully about their own environment.

“Ray Davies is an unavoidable influence although when he was writing his best work in the 60s it was the end of the British Empire and there was some sort of sense of loss. Whereas for my generation it was lost a long time ago and so the subjects I sing about are much more about people escaping, trying to get the hell out of it but having nowhere else to go "

Did the Jam have much impact on the band?

“They did, quite a lot. Paul Weller had a very strong soul influence though he was really into his northern soul music and I am too but I just haven’t got that kidn of voice. And for Graham Coxon, our guitarist, Weller was an idol and he met him for the first time last week and couldn’t actually speak!” To Parklife, definitely the year’s premier album to date; a continuation and development of the syle pioneered on Modern Life.

“Yeah it is. We never stopped recording from Modern Life to Parklife. Songs like ‘Girls and Boys’ were recorded while we were still putting singles out off Modern Life. So they’re very close and that’s why they’ve both got Life in the title and we may make it

a trilogy, a final one in the series.” Irritating or inspirational, it’s hard to ignore ‘Girls and Boys’, the opening track on Parklife and given a new dimension by the Pet Shop Boys remix.

"That was never released, it was for the clubs only, they asked us if we’d like them to remix it and we thought their associat i o n with the song would give it extra spice a s

it is about anal sex, not graphically or in any particular context, but in the chorus. “The brilliant thing is in America all the reviews think it’s ‘Girls who love boys who love girls who love boys’ which is an innocuous thing. It’s actually ‘Girls who do boys who do girls like their boys’. It works with the Pet Shop Boys and they like it for that reason. They make it sound like the Pet Shop Boys, which they’re very good at.” What pleases you most about Park Life?

“The nicest thing about it is that there’s enough in there to talk about to discuss. I just met Hanif Kureishi, the writer of My Bedroom Suburbia and My Beautiful Laundrette and we were just chatting about the album. He’s a writer and it’s nice that something you do has enough going for it that people can talk about characters etc. I think a lot of songwriters are just frustrated authors.” But the acid test for any band is how they cut it on stage and here Blur have also conquered Britain, with lampshades! “Yeah, we try to create an environment. I like to transport people, give things a sense of theatre.” And on recent video evidence you think you come across as a geek on stage? “Yeah, it’s not intentional. I’ve never tried to analyse what I do. It’s your oddity that people are interested in and as individuals we never see ourselves as odd, we see ourselves as perfectly normal like everyone else. It’s best not to think about it."

But final proof as to what a fucking good band Blur is happened on the final night of their British tour when two kids (of different genders this time) decided to have a shag against the stage.

“I didn’t actually see it but I’m all for that really.” GEORGE KAY