Blur's Alex James' idyllic farm life after splashing '£1m on drugs and booze'
Iconic Britpop band Blur are back at the top of the charts with their most recent album - but bassist Alex James says he loves his life on an idyllic farm over the glitz and glamour of the rock n roll world.
The 54-year-old star is a founding member of the iconic group - which includes frontman Damon Albarn and the band produced huge hits including Parklife and Girls & Boys. But away from the chart topping group, Alex has a peaceful life living on a farm in Oxfordshire with his wife of 20 years, music video producer Claire Neate, and their five children; sons Geronimo, 19, and twins Artemis and Galileo, 17, and daughters, Sable, 17, and Beatrix, 13.
He hosts a festival that combines music and food called Big Feastival, and has also won praise for his cheese making skills, and is now branching into the sparkling wine market. The musician says that his idyllic country life is a welcome alternative to his hell raising rock n roll days of the ‘90s.
The musician previously confessed in a documentary that he took cocaine at the height of his Blur fame - and in his autobiography he claimed to have spent over £1 million on champagne.
Blur bassist Alex James loves his life down on the farm (PA)He told OK! Magazine: “They [his kids] ask me about that time and I say. ‘Well, f*****g read the book,’” he laughs. “I actually made that up to help sell the book and everybody believed it. It might actually be true, it probably is by now.. But now it turns out it was just research for Britpop sparkling wine, so money well spent!”
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Discussing his more relaxed life, Alex continued: “A lot of musicians end up living on farms, I think it’s all those years living out of the suitcase. It’s a chance to put down some roots. I didn’t really choose for Blur to stop when it did [the band went on hiatus from 2015 until last year], but fortunately I was still young enough to have the energy to embark on another mission.”
Blur are back at the forefront of music with their number one album, The Ballad of Darren, and have also been on a hit 35th anniversary tour. But Alex says he is not as wild as he used to be.
He confided to the publication: “I’m no angel but I think the anchoring influence of a family is massive. They say some adults make babies, but also some babies make adults. Being in a band gives you everything you want when you’re young.
“Young people want to drink and s**g and you just do that to a greater extent when you’re in a band. But it’s a hard thing to contain. I definitely met my match with Claire. She was the making of me.”
Alex is now a renowned fromager as well as a chart topping band member (@alexjameshq/Instagram)While Blur might be one of the biggest bands to make it out of the UK, it seems they feel conflicted about Britain because of Brexit. Frontman Damon, 55, says he hates the fact that the group is described as a ‘Britpop’ band - a titled shared by chart rivals Oasis - because he hates the ‘Brit’ aspect of the moniker due to Brexit.
He told fans at a concert in Webley earlier this month: “Maybe everyone can kind of sense in Europe that we’re not Brexiteers, you know? Maybe there’s a change happening in the country.
“Maybe finally, we’re going to have a bit of a shift back to a more Eurocentric, a more reasonable, a more - dare I say - cultured approach to governments. Fingers crossed.”
He told fans that he finds the resurgence of Britpop “irritating” and considers himself “more Europop than Britpop”.
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