13 August 2023 , 06:00
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As Blur’s floppy-haired bassist Alex James proudly shows us around his sprawling 200-acre Oxfordshire farm, it swiftly becomes apparent that the 54-year-old is fully embracing this “second act” of his rock-star life.
It’s a world away from his rather hedonistic early days in Blur, the band that dominated the Britpop music scene in the mid-90s with the likes of Song 2, Girls & Boys and Parklife.
Late nights of drinking have been swapped for cosy breakfasts, feeding his family “à la carte eggs” (he likes his mixed with a dash of cream and baked in hot butter, for the record), healthy workouts in the home gym and meetings for his annual Big Feastival – a sort of Glastonbury-meets-MasterChef mash-up.
Flanked by his five teenage children, who he shares with his wife of 20 years Claire Neate, Alex takes us for a stroll around the grounds of his stunning 18th-century home, complete with its polytunnels, orchards, beehives, woodlands, walled gardens and animals.
Alex James lives in a sprawling 200-acre Oxfordshire farm with his family (OK! Magazine / Nato Welton)He has shared the rural idyll – the love of his life, as he refers to it – for almost two decades with his wife, a former music video producer. Completing the set-up are sons Geronimo, 19, twins Artemas and Galileo, 17, and daughters Sable, 14, and 13-year-old Beatrix, whose wardrobes have now expanded considerably thanks to our shoot, which Alex jokes “is easier than taking them all shopping” for them!
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“Claire and I bought the farm on our honeymoon at the point when Blur needed to go off and do other things and I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into it ever since,” he tells us.
He adds, “A lot of musicians end up living on farms, I think it’s all those years living out of a suitcase. It’s a chance to put down some roots. I didn’t really choose for Blur to stop when it did, but fortunately I was still young enough to have the energy to embark on another mission.”
That “mission” involved renovating the huge estate with its traditional yellow Cotswold-stone house, building a music studio (a favourite of all the family) and disco-balled outbuildings for entertaining purposes. But more surprisingly it also saw his own transformation from grungy rocker to a well-respected food writer and cheese maker (with an aptly named No 5 Grunge on the menu).
Alex with Claire Neate (OK! Magazine / Nato Welton)
Alex and Claire with sons Geronimo and twins Artemis and Galileo, and daughters, Sable and Beatrix (OK! Magazine / Nato Welton) And, he’s keen to tell us, the release of his new Britpop sparkling wine – a five-year labour of love that has just arrived from Dorset in time for The Big Feastival, the three-day family-friendly
music and food festival held at the farm, launched by the couple in 2011.
“I think if success is going to come in the music industry, it tends to come quite quickly and at quite a young age. And that can give you a massive ‘second act’ problem,” he says, referring to the common issue of figuring out what on earth to do with the rest of your life when you’ve apparently peaked so early in your career. “But I think all of Blur have managed to have a second act of some kind.”
The band are enjoying a reunion and are back on tour for their 35-year anniversary. So does Alex still consider himself a bona fide rock star? “I’m no angel but I think the anchoring influence of a family is massive,” he says. “They say adults make babies, but also 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 tells us his first-ever job was working in his chef grandad’s kitchen, and that he’s always “loved, loved, loved eating and good food”.
So while buying a run-down farm and its land seemed like a hare-brained honeymoon idea, it’s now a no-brainer and all five kids are keen to be involved. Alex adds, “Food is a really good way to connect with all ages, and my kids have always loved helping cook since they were little.
Alex with their adorable dog (Ok! Magazine / Nato Welton)
Buying a run-down farm and its land seemed like a hare-brained honeymoon idea, but it’s now a no-brainer and all five kids are keen to be involved (Ok! Magazine / Nato Welton)“You learn quickly when you’ve got a big family that it’s hard to keep everybody happy, but food is a universal pleasure. Food and bubble baths are the things I rely on to keep everybody happy!”
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He’s referring to the “money well spent” £300 inflatable outdoor jacuzzi tub that’s regularly occupied by Claire’s mum, who lives with them, and at least one of the children.
The farm is also home to chickens, pigs, ducks, pet dogs, cats and around 200 to 300 sheep – Alex has lost count of the exact number.
Inside the sympathetically decorated house, there are various musical instruments lying around – three of the James’ kids are trumpeters and, of course, Alex is never many steps away from a bass guitar.
The family are enjoying a rare moment of all being at home together. Alex, who’s about to race to the airport to catch a flight to France, is between gigs on the Blur reunion tour, which has seen him and his bandmates Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and Dave Rowntree play to the biggest crowds of their career.
While he spent years on the road with the band prior to meeting and marrying Claire in 2003, it’s only now that he gets to show the kids what he does when he swaps the cheese-making apron for his guitar.
“As of last month, I’ve now got five teenagers,” he grins. “So the Blur tour couldn’t have come at a better time because they’re all really enjoying the gigs. You know, it’s very hard for a father
to impress a teenager.
Alex strumming his guitar (Ok! Magazine / Nato Welton)
He loves his farm (OK! Magazine / Nato Welton)“The current tour schedule has worked out so well, because it’s quite gently paced – just a couple of shows a week. Claire and the kids came to Denmark with us, which was brilliant. We’ve been making a nice family summer out of it.”
We take Alex’s description of “gently paced” with a pinch of salt given the fact that the band cemented their long-awaited Britpop revival with two sell-out headliner concerts at 90,000-seat capacity Wembley Stadium – a venue that eluded them back in the day.
“The best gig we’d done prior to that was Glastonbury 2009, and I really didn’t think we’d ever top that. But Wembley was next level. It blew us all away. I cried. I cried a lot!”
It was the first time the whole family were there to witness him on stage. His twins slept through the band’s Hyde Park gig in the 2000s, he tells us.
“This time the kids were all there, bouncing up and down to Country House, having the time of their lives. I knew where Beatrix was standing and I knew she’d either love it or hate it. As the lights went up on the crowd I looked over to her and she had her hands in the air, head back, just absolutely loving it. Afterwards they were like, ‘Dad, we’re so proud of you.’ We had the best weekend of our lives, it was truly magical.”
For Alex, being a dad is harder than being a rock star. “Playing bass in a rock band is the easiest f**king job in the world,” he laughs. “Especially compared to things like cooking the kids’ breakfasts and washing up afterwards.”
And in between all the gigs, he’s also elbow-deep in preparations for this month’s Big Feastival, which will see 25,000 people coming to his farm to enjoy music from some of the biggest artists of the moment, including Tom Grennan and Blossoms, Michelin-star chefs, award-winning street food and, of course, lots and lots of Alex’s cheese.
It takes him and Claire virtually the full 12 months to organise, and he’s very proud of what the family pulls together every year. Beatrix is “great at running the merch”, apparently, and with Geronimo back for the summer from Brighton where he’s “living his best life” studying electronic music production, it’s all hands on deck.
Alex says, “Food, music and family are things I really understand. And even though my kids are teenagers now, they’ll start having their own kids soon. And I never want to lose that family element of the festival because it keeps it all together.
The family enjoy mucking in to farm life (OK! Magazine / Nato Welton)“It’s the best kind of party where you’ve got Granny dancing with the toddler, and then Kate Moss turns up, that’s what you’re after.”
While he laughs at his own Kate Moss reference, there’s an element of truth to it. Alex’s reputation as a foodie is now almost as sizeable as his reputation as a musician – and neither is in short supply at the event.
“Music is a huge part of my life,” he says. “But when the kids were younger I didn’t want to spend all my time on tour, so I sort of moved the mountain to Mohammed, and get the bands to come here.”
Alex is particularly delighted by the much-wanted arrival of one particular item this year – his homemade honey which he said involved “lots of money” for the first three years with zero honey to show for it.
On the subject of money, we remind Alex of the now infamous claim that he spent £1 million on champagne and partying at the height of Blur’s success. He made the bold statement in his autobiography, Bit Of A Blur, which came out in 2007 and given that he’s back on the road, we have to ask what his kids think of it.
“They ask me about that time and I say. ‘Well, f**king 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!”
The rock’n’roll vibe is a world away from his second book, 2011’s All Cheeses Great And Small: A Life Less Blurry, which includes tales of him missing out on buying a piece of farm equipment
at auction (a corn crusher, to be precise), and his love of an independent deli.
Clearly, life at the James’ is exactly what Alex wants and needs it to be – full of family, food and his much-loved festival. The Blur reunion – and the band’s new album, The Ballad Of Darren, which went straight to No1 the week it was released – is just the icing on the cake.
“Blur is something that none of us can walk away from, we’ve realised that. It’s going to say ‘Blur’ on all our tombstones.
“But you know, mine is going to say ‘Cheese, father and husband’ as well,” Alex giggles.
The Big Feastival runs from 25-27 August. For more info, go to