Alex James (musician)

Alex James
Background information
Birth name	Steven Alexander James
Also known as	A. James, Alex James, Steven James, Steven Neate-James
Born	21 November 1968 (1968-11-21) Boscombe, Bournemouth, England
Genres	Alternative rock, Britpop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, cheesemaker, author, columnist, TV personality, model
Instruments	Bass, double bass, vocals, guitar,
Years active	1988–present
Associated acts	Blur, Fat Les, WigWam, Me Me Me, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Bad Lieutenant
Notable instruments
Fender Precision Bass Music Man StingRay

Alex James (also known as A. James, born Steven Alexander James on 21 November 1968) is an English musician, songwriter, journalist and cheesemaker. He is best known as the bass player and occasional vocalist of band Blur. He has also played with temporary bands, Fat Les, Me Me Me, WigWam and Bad Lieutenant.

Biography

Main article: Blur (band)

Born in Boscombe, Bournemouth, he attended the state grammar school Bournemouth School in Charminster. In 1988 James met future bandmate Graham Coxon at Goldsmiths College, where James studied French. Introductions with Coxon’s old school friend Damon Albarn and Dave Rowntree soon took place; at the time Albarn and Rowntree were part of a band called Circus. In 1989 James joined Coxon, Albarn and Rowntree's new band, Seymour, which would later be renamed Blur. While he has been in the band ever since, he now describes the experience as "a past-life". Despite this, Blur got together with returning band mate Graham Coxon to perform at Glastonbury Festival, Hyde Park, Oxegen and T in the Park during the summer of 2009. They also played shows at Goldsmiths, Essex Museum and other venues around the UK and Europe.

Musical collaborations

Alex James in 2009

Unlike his band mates Albarn and Coxon, James has not released any solo material, although he has been involved in other collaborative side projects. In 1998 James formed Fat Les with actor Keith Allen and artist Damien Hirst, releasing (excluding three others) the unofficial theme song "Vindaloo" for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, which reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart. He also worked on side project Me Me Me with Stephen Duffy, co-wrote songs for Marianne Faithfull (appearing in drag playing a double bass in the music video for her single "Sex With Strangers") and Sophie Ellis Bextor, and worked with Florence and The Machine and KT Tunstall. James worked with Bextor on her solo debut Read My Lips, co-writing and co-producing "Move This Mountain", and co-producing "I Believe" alongside Bextor and producer Ben Hillier. He also played bass on both tracks. Ellis Bextor's 2003 album, Shoot from the Hip also featured James as co-writer and bass player on track "Love Is It Love". He also joined his friend and singer-songwriter Betty Boo in a band called WigWam in 2005. In 2009 Alex James appeared as bass player on debut Bad Lieutenant record Never Cry Another Tear.The band consists of former New Order lead singer Bernard Sumner and guitarist Phil Cunningham, along with Jake Evans of Rambo And Leroy.

Writing

James writes a weekly food column for The Sun and also contributes to a number of other British newspapers including The Independent, The Observer, The Times, and The Sunday Times, as well as Q magazine, The Spectator and The Idler. An autobiography of James's experience with Blur, Bit of a Blur, was released in June 2007 by Little, Brown & Company. It has since been described as “the definitive guide to Britpop”. James is set to publish a follow up entitled All Cheeses Great and Small: A not so everyday story of country folk in September, 2011, charting his transformation from rock star to cheesemaker as he moves to a farm in Oxfordshire.

Television appearances

James represented The Idler on BBC Two's University Challenge: the Professionals in 2005, alongside John Moore of Black Box Recorder. They secured a heavy win over the Financial Times in their heat, but did not score highly enough to return for the tournament's later stages. In 2007 James was a judge on the Channel 4 show Mobile Acts Unsigned, and in November 2007 appeared as a panellist on the BBC One satirical news quiz, Have I Got News for You. In August 2008, James appeared in reality TV series, Maestro on BBC Two. He was voted out in the fourth episode of the series. In September 2008, a documentary television series called Cocaine Diaries: Alex James in Colombia premiered on BBC America, in conjunction with the BBC America Reveals program. As the documentary progresses, James - who admits to having used cocaine extensively during Blur’s Britpop heyday - learns about Colombia's violent drug export trade. In October 2009 he presented an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and, in January 2010, James participated in the ITV1 reality television programme Popstar to Operastar.

Radio

In 2007, Alex was featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme On Your Farm, and became a regular presenter alongside Elinor Goodman and Adam Henson. James currently presents The A-Z of Classic FM Music on Classic FM every Sunday at 3pm. The show was named Commercial Radio Programme of the Year at the Arqiva Commercial Radio Awards on 5 June 2009. He has also contributed to the show’s accompanying memorabilia, writing the foreword to both the book and CD box set, published by Reader’s Digest in 2010.

Cheesemaking

James has recently become notable for his production of cheese. After his runaway success with Blur, he moved to the Cotswolds, purchasing a farmhouse and renovating it into a burgeoning cheese farm. The 200-acre cheese farm in Kingham, Oxfordshire, now produces award-winning cheeses. Alex James has, to date, produced three cheeses: Blue Monday, Farleigh Wallop and Little Wallop. All three are distinct in their flavour: "Blue Monday" (named after his favourite New Order song) is a creamy Shropshire blue, sharp with a very faint sourness; "Little Wallop" is a soft goats’ milk cheese, washed in Somerset cider brandy and wrapped in vine leaves; and "Farleigh Wallop" is a goats cheese made in complete 115g rounds with sprigs of thyme. The latter was voted Best Goats Cheese at the 2008 British Cheese Awards, where James himself was a judge in 2010. James is now focused on developing an entire cheese range entitled ‘Alex James Presents’ that has hit shelves in 2011. The range will aim to promote technologically advanced cheeses, re-packaging cheese for the modern world.

Harvest Festival

James announced he would open up his Oxfordshire farm to host a new food and music festival. The event, entitled ‘Alex James presents Harvest’, took place from 9–12 September 2011, in conjunction with organisers Big Wheel Promotions. Combining the best of the British food scene alongside a live music soundtrack, the first collaborators to confirm included KT Tunstall, The Feeling, Richard Corrigan, Mark Hix, Rachel Allen, Yotam Ottolenghi, Jay Rayner, Monty Don and Sarah Don and Stevie Earle.

Space interest

James has confessed he has “always loved looking up at the stars.” His subsequent space fascination led him to involve Blur in the ill-fated Beagle 2 project. In addition to the band producing the Mars probe's call-sign, James was also personally part of the campaign to get the project funded. His interest with space is further bookmarked by the track "Far Out" on the Blur album Parklife, on which James sings a list of moons and stars. On 25 January 2007 James became "Artist in Residence" in the Astrophysics department at the University of Oxford. He also joined the British Astronomical Association while Blur were still touring. Alex James has recently urged the general public to stop light pollution in a bid to make it easier to see the stars at night, urging “there is nothing like staring at a star-lit sky to remind you what an amazing miracle the universe really is.”

Style accolades

James was recently voted eighth in GQ Magazine’s 'Annual Best Dressed List 2011'. He continues to work with Aubin & Wills as both a designer and model designing selected limited edition pieces. His first collaboration – the Galileo jacket, sold out and Aubin & Wills will unveil his next design collaboration in Autumn 2011.

Honorary doctorate

Bournemouth University presented James with an Honorary Doctorate in November 2010.

Personal life

Hedonistic lifestyle

In his book he describes a long period of decadent lifestyle.

• To celebrate his birthday in São Paulo, he got the tour manager to find him a balthazar of champagne which he shared with the five prettiest groupies who were at the hotel door.
• He estimates that he spent about a million pounds on champagne and cocaine.
• He mentions a long list of favourite bars including the Groucho Club and The Colony Room.

Family

His father, Jason James, was sales director of a company selling waste compactors and baling machines. Alex James married Claire Neate, a music video producer, in April 2003 in Cheltenham. They have five children: three boys Geronimo and twins Artemis and Galileo and daughters Sable and Beatrix. The family live in Kingham in Oxfordshire on a 200-acre (0.81 km2) organic cheese farm.

Equipment

• Fender Precision Bass (Used for all albums until The Great Escape and for all live performances)
• Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay (Used for albums Blur and 13 and live for the period 1997 - 2000)
• Gibson Les Paul Studio (Used for Think Tank and live performances in 2003)
• Epiphone El Capitan Semi-Acoustic Bass (Used for some live performances in 2003, notable "Out of Time")
• Gibson Thunderbird bass (Used during live performances during the Leisure era)

External links

• Alex James regularly contributes to The Spectator magazine
• Alex James is one of the regular presenters of BBC Radio 4's On Your Farm
• Evenlode Partnership - Alex James and Julie Harbutt's cheese company
• Alex James: the cheese diaries, episode 2
• Alex James: the cheese diaries, episode 1
• Alex James gives up vegetarianism after 17 years
• Article on Alex James and cheese manufacture
• Alex James presents Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Youtube)
• Alex James's top 10 reads, The Guardian, December 10, 1999
• Alex James presents on ClassicFM
• Second-hand heaven The Spectator 308/9397 (4 October 2008) : 60
• Alex James at the Internet Movie Database