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Back to: Archive · 2009 "I'm a modern man" From thesun.co.uk, 8 May 2009. By Jacqui Swift.  Graham Coxon is not a man to do things by halves. What with Blur's comeback shows just weeks away, his recent work with Pete Doherty and then the arrival of his seventh solo album The Spinning Top, it's turning into a hectic year. Even as we speak the Blur guitarist is "multi-tasking". "I'm packing, getting dressed, making coffee and speaking to you - all at the same time," says Graham in his gentle voice. "And that's because I'm a modern man. Others just can't do it. I don't seem to make things easy for myself, do I? But it all seems to be going well. I've got the big boy's band gigs coming up and then playing with my own group, which is really hard music to play and, of course, talking to lots of newspapers about it all." Rekindling his friendship with Damon Albarn and reuniting with the rest of his Blur bandmates might have grabbed most of the public's attention concerning Graham, but there's also the matter of The Spinning Top, an album that introduces a new side to Graham's songwriting. "People are used to my last few singles which have been electric guitar, post-punk tracks. This is different. I've made a few songs in this vein before but not as far down the line as this. It was listening to folk singers Nick Drake, Bert Jansch, John Martyn and discovering the music of another folk musician Davey Graham which led to The Spinning Top's acoustic style and, in particular, the finger-picking technique of guitar playing. "I've always been influenced by Nick Drake but John Martyn was reasonably new. I'd never heard much by Davey Graham, though - it was my friend Nick who got me into him. He forced a man in the pub we were in to put his music on and I was, like, 'Wow!' It was hard to get hold of old Davey Graham records although now his records are going to be re-released. He also died last year, a month before John Martyn, so I made this album in memory of those two great guitar players." Graham says he's been perfecting his finger-picking guitar style for the past five years and for this album wanted to achieve the raw quality which good folk-influenced music has. "It's a technique which British guitar players took from American blues and country and made it British. It's been such an influence on me as the sound isn't too clean. You can hear the wood and the guitar creaking. I find a lot of acoustic music today disappointing. Some of it's nice and sweet but you can have too much of that. The best has a raw quality to it." Turning his back on the frenetic pop-punk of his last solo has been a great learning experience for him. He explains: "This album is something I had to get round to doing. I'm learning all the time." Graham is a self-confessed workaholic but found working with Pete Doherty on his debut solo album Grace/Wastelands, brought him relief. "I can stay in the studio for weeks without food or sleep which isn't healthy. But working with Pete and Stephen (Street, producer) I found structure to my day. Stephen always kept the studio the same so when Pete came in there was no surprises. It was pretty organised. "Me and Pete are very similar in some ways. Personality-wise he's more confident, or just better at covering up his shyness. And we both come from Army backgrounds and have the same birthday. I think he's coming out of his darkest times now, but you never know. I thought I'd got my problems sorted when I stopped drinking. I felt brilliant and was so healthy but really I wasn't right still. I was still a bit mad. "Pete's massively romantic and hugely talented. He's got a lot to offer, not just musically but is good to be around as he's funny. I'm really glad that he's shown some people what he's made of. And he's still got more in him. I think he's only just started." Subject-wise, The Spinning Top is a concept album which follows a man from birth to death. Graham explains: "As I was writing, these songs got more elaborate in my head. They were all suggesting lifetime events. There was a song about war - Sorrow's Army, then November - which sounded like a funeral. Before I recorded the songs, I added a story to them, so I could focus on them in order. It's not something which is really important to people listening, though - if you like the story that's fine. I don't want to over-egg the custard on that one." Moving to the Kent countryside to record part of the album was another factor to this being a more introspective record. Graham says: "The music gives some space to the songs. Half the songs are longer than three-and-half minutes and with a more contemplative mood to them. And it means you don't have to get up and put it on again after two minutes. I like the song Perfect Love because it's my lunatic attempt at a bossa nova style. I was always a fan of Stan Getz's The Girl From Ipanema. Very Sixties, very smooth with a slightly Latin feel. I just wanted to do that but really fast. It's got (Pentangle bassist) Danny Thompson on it and Graham Fox plays drums. I play a little saxophone on that to conjure up images of rabbits in fields as there were millions of them everywhere in Kent." Now Graham is preparing to pick up his guitar pace again with Blur, who he split from in 2002 during the making of Think Tank. "A lot of that crazy madness has gone from late Nineties. I'm a lot better as well. We just didn't communicate well. When talk of these concerts came up, there was a lot of pressure on me and Damon and we had to talk. It was nerve-wracking meeting him." And so I ask Graham, the Blur question we all want to know. Will there be a new album? "I really have no idea," he says. "There isn't one planned at the moment as it's just about the concerts. There's no way we can write new songs at the moment when we have 80 songs to rehearse too. After the concerts, I don't know. Right now we just have a lot on our plate as it is." |