Graham Coxon

	Graham Coxon
Background Information
Born	Rinteln, West Germany
Occupation	Musician
Instruments	Lead Guitar, Drums
Active Years	1980's -present
Associated Acts	Blur, Duran Duran
Musician

Graham Leslie Coxon (born 12 March 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur. As the group's lead guitarist and secondary vocalist, Coxon is featured on all eight of Blur's studio albums (although 2003's Think Tank only features his playing on one track, due to his temporary departure from the band during recording sessions for the album). He has also led a solo career since 1998. As well as being a musician, Coxon is a visual artist: he designed the cover art for all his solo albums as well as Blur's 13 (1999).

Coxon plays several instruments and records his albums with little assistance from session musicians. Q magazine critic Adrian Deevoy has written: "Coxon is an astonishing musician. His restless playing style – all chord slides, rapid pulloffs, mini-arpeggios and fractured runs – seems to owe more to his saxophone training than any conventional guitar tuition." An innovative lead guitarist, he has been described by Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher as "one of the most talented guitarists of his generation.". Coxon was voted the 15th greatest guitarist of the last 30 years in a 2010 BBC poll.

Early Life[]

Coxon was born in Rinteln, West Germany, where his father, Bob Coxon, was stationed as a clarinet player and band leader in the British Army. As a child, he moved first to Spondon, Derby, England, a period during which he became a fan of Derby County. He then moved to Colchester, Essex, in South East England, where he grew up and met fellow Blur member Damon Albarn at The Stanway School, then known as Stanway Comprehensive, at the age of 11. He appeared on the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter twice.

Music Career[]

Blur[]

Coxon studied Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London, for two years, where early on he met bassist Alex James. In his time there he mixed with upcoming talents such as Damien Hirst, Michael Landy, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Abigail Lane, some of the future leading lights of the Britart movement. He quit college due to the increasing success of his band at the time, Seymour, which later changed its name to Blur because the recording company, Food Records, thought Seymour was too 'student-ish'. They presented a list to the band of preferred names which included "The Shining Path" and "Blur". As well as providing all guitars, backing vocals, and occasional drums, Coxon's lo-fi and alternative musical style and tastes influenced the band's less commercial music in the late 1990s. He sang lead vocals on songs including "Red Necks", "You're So Great" from the album Blur, and "Coffee & TV", as well as a section of the chorus of "Tender", the bridge of "Lonesome Street" and a section of "Thought I Was a Spaceman" on The Magic Whip.

During the 1995 period of the media-dubbed 'Battle of Britpop', Coxon became increasingly weary and suspicious of the music industry. His behaviour was occasionally awkward, such as refusing to appear in the video for Blur song "Country House" unless he could dress as a milkman and take no part in any action with which he felt uncomfortable.

In November 2001 Coxon was admitted to the Priory Hospital for 28 days to be treated for alcoholism. During this time, Blur began the recording sessions that would produce the material for their next album, Think Tank. In February 2002, Coxon rejoined the band in the studio for the rest of the recording of Think Tank but after five days was asked by then manager Chris Morrison not to go back into the studio as the other members of the band had reported that the session was not going too well with him present. Coxon took this as a sign and left the band. As he stated in an interview in 2006, "I had a breakthrough, I think my life just became calmer, I gave up drinking. My priorities changed as I had a young daughter. The group didn't want me to record for the Think Tank album, so I took it as a sign to leave". His last contribution to Blur was a song called "Battery in Your Leg", the closing song on Blur's 2003 album Think Tank, before leaving the line-up. Damon Albarn later revealed that the song "Sweet Song" was written after he had been looking at a photograph of Coxon.

After Damon Albarn's revealing that he and Coxon had rebuilt their relationship, on 9 December 2008, Blur announced that the whole band would reunite for a show at Hyde Park on 3 July 2009. More dates were announced and the band played festival dates at Glastonbury, T in the Park and Oxegen 2009 as well as headlining shows in Manchester, Newcastle, Wolverhampton, Goldsmiths College and the East Anglian Railway Museum in Colchester. Blur also played one show in Lyon, France.

On 17 April 2010, the band released their first single since 2003, "Fool's Day", for the Record Store Day event as a 7" limited to 1000 copies.[7] The band released the single as a free download on their official website the next day. More recently Blur announced via the NME website that they would reunite every so often and record more singles, preferably on 7 inch. However, Damon also stated that an album was not on its way as they were all too busy with their own individual projects.

On 19 February 2015, Coxon and the band announced on social media that they would be releasing their eighth studio album on 27 April, titled The Magic Whip, Blur's first album in 12 years and first in 16 years in their original lineup.

Transcopic and other contributions[]

Coxon's independent label, Transcopic, was co-managed with his friend, and then business partner, Jamie Davis. Davis now runs Independent label Ark Recordings. Coxon illustrated and designed all of his own album art, and collaborated with his friend Nick Craske creating abstract digital work for the release of The Spinning Top; they also filmed two music videos, "Sorrow's Army" and "'In The Morning". Coxon also continued painting a series of personal work, most of which remained unseen until 2004, when he exhibited at the ICA in London.

Coxon has also produced albums by Mower and Assembly Line People Programme from his Transcopic label.

In 2013, Graham Coxon was involved in a musical project where artists re-recorded the classic Beatles album Please Please Me.[20] The Blur guitarist recorded the song "Baby It's You" live as part of a 10-hour recording session hosted by BBC Radio 2 to mark the 50th anniversary of a challenge set by recording company EMI to The Beatles to record a whole studio album in one session.

In November 2018 (Source), Coxon became involved with the writing process of the Duran Duran album Future Past (Duran Duran album), which reached No.3 on the UK Album Charts and No.1 on the UK Independent charts. He told the UK Independent Newspaper that Duran Duran are "All really nice and they’re not, as individuals, dissimilar to Blur.” Coxon performed with Duran Duran at the 2021 Billboard Awards Show, and also at the BBC Radio Theatre for BBC Radio 2's Duran Duran 'In Concert' series, 2nd Dec 2021.

Personal Life[]

Graham lives in London. He has two daughters, Pepper Bäk Troy Coxon, born 7 March 2000, and Dorelia Talys Bee, born 20 October 2012. His long-term partner is the artist Essy Syed. Coxon moved to America in 2018 but longed for England too much, so he returned home in 2019.

When Blur were at their peak, Coxon was debilitated with undiagnosed anxiety. He drank heavily to ease the pain and ended up in rehab, later being sacked from the band. “I was drinking a lot because it knocked off the anxiety, but then I just couldn’t stop. Thirty years ago, nobody was saying, ‘This is anxiety,’” Coxon recalls. “I was drinking a lot because that was the only thing that knocked off the anxiety, but then I just couldn’t stop. Then I’d get a hangover which made me anxious all over again. No one then was as obsessed with mental health as they are now. It was a bit like, ‘Buck up, you idiot. What’s the matter with you?’ A slap on the back if you’re lucky and ‘Get out there and get on with it.’”

Incessant touring schedules meant his condition worsened to the point where he hated going on stage. He says he’d “really had enough” and felt like his “state of mind wasn’t being taken into consideration” in an industry where demands were incessant. “There was nothing worse for me, in 1998, [than] going on stage and feeling resentful to the audience. It wasn’t a very nice feeling,” Coxon says sorrowfully. “I spent a lot of my twenties going from this very quiet, anxious, brooding person to, within an hour, being completely different and difficult to handle and not knowing quite why. I’m a lot better now because I can see it in action. I can see how I’m wired and how easy it is for the template in my brain to click to default and be exactly as I was at seven, 18, or 21.”

After some years of therapy, he reflected: “Creative people have to be creative,” he says, on what keeps him going. “Songs are good places to process any kind of disturbance, sadness or anger; internalising it isn’t going to be any good.” He looks assuredly into the camera, for once. “Drawing, making music, it’s a subconscious clean-out for me in a way. I’ll always have to do it… as me or somebody else.”

Duran Duran Connections[]

Graham was the lead guitar player on the album Future Past. Graham and Erol Alkan began demo sessions in November 2018. Graham Coxon, Mark Ronson and Likki Li were in the Californian Zelig Studios with Duran Duran in February 2019, working on more demos and songs. The only song which made it to the album from those sessions was Wing. Graham returned with the band back to England, and continued making music with them during their sessions at Assault and Battery #2 Studio in London. Nine of Graham's contributed songs were released on the Deluxe Edition of the album Future Past.

Music Credits[]

References[]

Graham Coxon Wiki
Independent Newspaper interview, Aug 2021