UK rock icon opens up on ‘really tough’ times and Oasis rivalry

More than 30 years since the infamous Battle of Britpop, the Blur bassist also conceded that Oasis have “gained my respects” with their “great songs” and the “sweet groove” of Wonderwall.

In August 1995, the rivalry between the northern and southern bands erupted publicly as Blur’s Country House went head to head with Roll With It by Oasis.

The ensuing chart competition hit the headlines until Country House outsold Roll With It by 274,000 to 216,000 copies to reach number one.

Now, 57-year-old Mr James has admitted his admiration for the Gallagher brothers as he tours his new show Alex James’ Britpop Classical with a setlist of hits from the 1990s – including Oasis songs – brought to life with a full band backed by musicians from the London Concert Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

Hay man!: Alex James

The bassist, who has become famous for his award-winning artisan cheese made on his 200-acre farm in Kingham, near Chipping Norton, said: “Well, do you know what? They’re great songs, we’ll have them.”

He added: “It’s like 30 years ago, but I think in the intervening years they’ve certainly gained my respect.

READ MORE: Winston Churchill ‘seen as too divisive’ to feature on £5 notes

“And not least for the basslines. I mean, obviously, great songwriter, amazing singer, but it’s wonderful to get the opportunity to give all these songs some patient study because they are all, at the end of the day, just great songs.

“You would get goosebumps if you just played, sung along with an acoustic guitar. Adding in the orchestra and the special guests and the stars and the production and everything knocks it out of the park.

“It was wonderful to just actually spend some time with all these songs, learning them and Wonderwall was actually about the trickiest.

“It’s such a good, sweet groove, it’s really gentle, lilting. I bumped into Andy Bell, the Oasis bass player who I’ve known for 100 and I was like, ‘Jesus, man, that’s f***ing tricky’. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know’, so nothing but respects.”

Mr James, a father-of-five, said that he loved revisiting the songs of the Britpop era, adding: “I think the food of your childhood and the music of your youth is just absolutely baked on to your hard drive, you can never stop liking them.

“Even music I didn’t like very much when it came out when I was a teenager, I hear that now, I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s great’.

Alex James performing at the Big Feastival this year (Image: Tim Hughes)

“I think what’s interesting about these songs is that for all the people kind of my age, who grew up with them, they’re baked in, they still give us goosebumps.

“But what’s interesting – and I think why this works – is because all these songs have found a whole new audience.

“I was flabbergasted when Blur got back together like how many of my kids’ mates, who never speak to me when they come here, they all bought tickets to the show, it was the same with Oasis.”

Mr James said he believed that young people had rediscovered music from the previous generation because not enough new bands had been emerging recently.

He said: “These songs have found a new audience, I think it’s partly for two reasons. One is everybody’s got access to everything, you know, we’ve all got massive, incredible jukeboxes inside our computers, so that stuff is just waiting there to be discovered.

“And the sad thing is, there’s just not many new bands coming through. I was speaking to somebody from a big management company last week, she was saying she hasn’t broken a new band in four years.

“And I think it is really, really tough. You know, a big artist is still a really, really big one, you know, Adele’s bigger than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones put together.

“Big still works, but kind of medium, and certainly not small, no chance. You’re either massive or you’re nothing.”

He explained that a large number of small music venues had closed down in recent years leaving festivals – such as Big Feastival which he runs on his farm in August each year – the main place to find new music.

He said: “They were all those places that they were the best fun places to play too, they’ve all gone, it’s a real tragedy.

“However, we do have a really vibrant festival scene. If you want to go and see a band, a festival’s best place to do it.”

Alex James Image: The Big Feastival

Mr James said he was inspired to create the Britpop Festival show when he booked Ministry of Sound Classical to fill the gap after a headliner pulled out of his festival.

He said: “It was a brilliant show for rocking a big crowd and I just went running backstage afterwards, saying, ‘Look, we’ve got to do a Britpop version of this’.

“It just sort of kind of made sense to me, let’s just give people what they want – 90 minutes of hits with a bunch of great rock musicians, a bunch of great, incredible classical musicians, great singers, and some star power.”

He added: “I think there’s a fundamental kind of human need to all come together and have shared experiences, and music is a really good way.

“If you can bring people together in the sunshine and hit them with 90 minutes of hits, it can make life-long memories.”

Asked which songs were his favourite for the show, he said: “There’s a lot of winners, I mean they are all really great songs and they’ve all got great grooves.

“I’ll tell you what is really incredible is how the Pulp songs go down. It turns out everybody knows every single word. Yeah, I mean, Common People is just a gift to a festival crowd because it just builds and builds and builds and builds.”

When asked if he could see himself performing into his 80s like Sir Paul McCartney, he said that music was an important part of his identity and said: “You know, why wouldn’t I want to? My dad died in 2020, he was nearly 90 but he had dementia.

“He was a piano player but even when he didn’t know what my name was, he still played the piano, he could still play Blue Moon badly.

“And because music uses more of your brain than any other activity because there’s emotion, there’s motor control, you’re basically doing formulae when you’re playing musical phrases, it’d kind of a bit mathsy, so it’s both parts of your brain.

“And that’s the way I remember everything about my life is by what Blur record was out or what Blur tour, or who’d left the band at that point.”

On the prospect of another Blur album, he said: “Well, I’m going to see Damon (Albarn) at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (for a Gorillaz concert) in a couple of weeks… but I’m always the last to know that.

“The shows we did in 2023, the best shows we’ve ever done without a doubt.

“That’s the first time we’ve ever got to the end of a tour without at least one of us going ‘F*** off never again’.

“We’re so lucky to have all those years of playing together, you know, when we do get back together, it just snaps back together straight.

“It was a gift, being able to play with the same people every day, year-in year-out, we were able to learn musicianship as a craft, you know. That is actually the only way to get good at anything is just to spend all day doing it for years.”

Alex James Britpop Classical will be performing as part of the Southampton Summer Sessions on Saturday June 13 before touring the UK and Australia.