Graham Coxon

Graham Coxon
Background information
Birth name	Graham Leslie Coxon
Born	(1969-03-12) 12 March 1969 Rinteln, West Germany
Origin	Spondon, Derby, Colchester, England
Genres	Alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, folk rock, indie folk, lo-fi
Occupation(s)	Musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, painter
Instrument(s)	Guitar, vocals, bass guitar, lap steel, drums, percussion, piano, saxophone,
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Transcopic, Parlophone
Website	GrahamCoxon.co.uk

Graham Leslie Coxon (born 12 March 1969) is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter. He came to prominence as the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and occasional lead vocalist of rock band Blur, and is also a critically acclaimed solo artist, having recorded eight solo albums. His artistic and musical contribution is featured on all seven of Blur's studio albums, from 1991's Leisure to 2003's Think Tank. Although credited as a songwriter on most Blur tracks, his most significant lyrical contributions appeared on the hit singles "Tender" and "Coffee & TV"; a number of tracks in the band's catalogue were also penned mainly by Coxon, including the cover of 1999's 13.

In 2002, he left Blur following a bitter dispute with the other members, notably Damon Albarn. As a result, he played guitar and was credited as a songwriter on only the final track for the following year's Think Tank. In late 2008, Blur reformed with Coxon in the fold.

Coxon also plays several other instruments, besides guitar, and is notable for recording his albums single-handedly, without much help from session musicians. An innovative lead guitarist, other notable British guitarists such as Jonny Greenwood and Noel Gallagher have lauded Coxon's musicality and talent, with the latter calling him "the most gifted guitarist of his generation." He was voted the 15th greatest guitarist of the last 30 years in a national 2010 BBC poll.

Early life

Coxon was born in Rinteln, West Germany. As a child, he moved first to Spondon, near Derby, 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. He appeared on the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter twice.

Music career

Blur (1989-2002; 2009–present)

Main articles: Blur (band) and Blur discography

Graham 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, who 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, Graham's lo-fi and alternative musical style and tastes highly influenced the band's less commercial music in the late 90's. He sings lead vocals on "Red Necks", "You're So Great", and "Coffee & TV", as well as a section of the chorus of "Tender".

During the 1995 period of the media-dubbed 'Battle of Britpop', Coxon became increasingly weary and suspicious of the music industry. Some of his behaviour would appear 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 he felt uncomfortable with.

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, Graham rejoined the band in the studio for the rest of the recording of Think Tank but after only 5 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 wasn't 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 Graham.

Damon Albarn frequently stated that the door was always open for Coxon to rejoin the band. In 2004 it was rumoured that he was rejoining Blur, but both sides denied this. Coxon stated that although a reunion meeting was a good one, he would not be rejoining Blur and remained firm on his decision. It seems they patched-up some differences and continued their friendship, despite the turmoil surrounding Coxon's departure. However, at the time Coxon seemed adamant and refused to rejoin the band.

After Damon Albarn's revealing that he and Coxon have 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. 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.

Solo work (1998–present)

Coxon had already released three solo albums while as a member of Blur before his 2002 departure. His first, released on his own Transcopic label was The Sky is Too High in 1998, a ramshackle mixture of English folk music and 1960s-style garage rock, influenced by Billy Childish. This was followed by the more extreme The Golden D in 2000 and the thoughtful Dylan-Drakesque Crow Sit on Blood Tree (2001). After going solo full-time, he released The Kiss of Morning in 2002. The album proved to be his most accessible to date and was promoted with the single "Escape Song" which proved to be an interesting hybrid of Syd Barrett's "Octopus" and progressive rock trail-blazers The Nice. In 2004, Coxon released his fifth solo album Happiness in Magazines, produced by ex-Blur and The Smiths producer Stephen Street. This proved to be his most successful album to date, and he received the NME Award for 'Best Solo Artist' in 2005.

In March 2006 he released his sixth solo album, called Love Travels at Illegal Speeds, again produced by Stephen Street. It marks Coxon's first album away from his now-defunct indie label 'Transcopic'. The LP was preceded by the singles "Standing On My Own Again" on 27 February and "You & I". Coxon embarked on a tour of the UK, starting at Newcastle University. He also got involved in a single supporting the England national football team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The song was a re-working of the Sham 69 hit "Hurry Up Harry", and was released as "Sham 69 and The Special Assembly" (as well as Coxon and Sham 69, Virgin Radio DJ Christian O'Connell, who had run a competition on his show to find a band to record a song in support of the team, was involved in the recording of the song). "Hurry Up England" entered the UK Singles Chart at #10.

In October 2006, Coxon released a double live album Burnt to Bitz: At the Astoria immediately after his sold-out London Astoria show. The album features 27 songs, with at least one song from each of his albums. In July 2007 Coxon released a single with Paul Weller, called "This Old Town". The single peaked at #39 in the UK Singles Chart.

Coxon's seventh 15-track studio album titled The Spinning Top, produced again by Stephen Street, was released on 11 May 2009. Coxon says the LP, which is primarily acoustic, follows a narrative - the story of a man from birth to death. "The album is mainly an acoustic journey although there is, of course, some explosive electric guitar action," he explained. "There are some guests too! Robyn Hitchcock supplies some counter-attack guitar, Jas Singh plays dilruba and jori with his friends Gurjit Sembhi on taus and Jaskase Singh on esraj. Danny Thompson plays the legendary Victoria, Graham Fox gives plenty of swing on the drums and sizzle cymbals and Louis Vause tinkles the ivories." Pre-release response has been very positive, with Monday Field of Frank Booth Review dubbing the album "a staggering artistic achievement, and Coxon’s best solo release to date."

His eighth solo album, A+E, was released in April 2012.

Transcopic and other contributions

Graham's independent label, Transcopic, was co-managed with his friend, and then business partner, Jamie Davis. Jamie now runs Independent label Ark Recordings. Graham's artistic influence was evident across all aspects of the record label. Graham 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'. Graham also continued painting a series of personal work, most of which remained unseen until 2004, when he exhibited at the ICA in London. [1]

Coxon has also been involved in remixing other peoples tracks, including Idlewild and Lowgold both of which were released as b-sides and the latter remix was later re-released on the bands anthology release Keep Music Miserable.

In September 2006 Coxon revealed a musical soundscape, "english shoes squeek", created especially for "Verheaven" an exhibition at London's Riflemaker Gallery of the work of artist Julie Verhoeven.

Coxon appears on John McCusker's Under One Sky, providing the song "All Has Gone".

In 2009, Coxon was heavily involved in the creation of the Pete Doherty solo album Grace/Wastelands. Doherty had entered a period of sobriety, during which he holed up with Coxon to work on his debut solo album, Grace/Wasteland, (released 24 March 2009) a diverse collection of 12 songs that bounce between reggae and Doherty's standard post-punk. Coxon played on all but one track on the album.

Coxon at the 2005 Leeds Festival

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

Instruments Played

In his solo albums Coxon plays nearly all of the instruments. Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood praised Coxon's musicality and talent: "Anything that has more of Graham's guitar playing, I'm bound to like." Noel Gallagher of Oasis has described Coxon as one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation.

During his days in Blur, Graham was mostly seen using a Fender Telecaster guitar. In earlier years (such as the Leisure era) he was better known for using a Gibson Les Paul Custom, which he would also use for later songs such as "Trimm Trabb" (although he used different guitars for songs such as "Sing" or "Oily Water" which he would originally have used a Les Paul for). He also made considerable use of effects pedals such as distortion (most notably "Song 2") and delay (a significant example being "Essex Dogs"). Graham himself has admitted that he got a bit greedy with Telecasters. These days, Graham often uses more than one guitar whilst performing his solo work, Gibson SGs being one of them, and a Burns London Sonic.

In 2011 Fender honoured Graham with a signature guitar. The Fender Graham Coxon Telecaster was made available from August 2011 and differs from standard telecasters with its neck humbucker (a Seymour Duncan SH-1), 375k pots and tortioseshell pickguard. The guitar is made in Mexico, with a rosewood fingerboard, blonde body and vintage bridge. The headstock features a 1970s Fender Telecaster decal on the front and a Graham Coxon signature decal on the reverse.

Guitar Rig & Signal Flow

A detailed gear diagram of Graham Coxon's 1993 Blur guitar rig is well-documented.

Graham Coxon uses a custom-made Mike Hill pedalboard, which contains: Boss TU-2 Tuner, ABY Box 1, ABY Box 2, Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor, Boss CS-3 Compressor/Sustainer, DOD Punkifier, Boss DD-3 Digital Delay, Boss VB-2 Vibrato, a Wah pedal, two ProCo RATs, Boss TR-2 Tremolo, Boss BF-2 Flanger and a Shin-Ei FY-2 Companion Fuzz. Alongside his custom pedalboard, Graham has been seen using: Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeller, Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeller, Akai Headrush E2, Boss DS-1 Distortion, Electro-Harmonix HOG, some sort of Boss DD-series pedal, Boss PN-2 Tremolo/Pan, Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail, Boss DM-2 Analogue Delay, Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb and a T-Rex Mudhoney Distortion.

Other artistic endeavours

Apart from being a musician, Coxon is also a visual artist, and he designs all of his album sleeves. He has also designed album sleeves for other artists. In July 2006, Graham Coxon wrote and had published a foreword for a new edition of Herman Hesse's novel, Narcissus and Goldmund. His work also featured on the cover of English folk singer Kate Rusby's album 'The Girl Who Couldn't Fly'.

Personal life

In 2000, his then girlfriend, Anna Norlander, gave birth to their daughter, Pepper Bäk Troy Coxon, whom they now share custody of. On 30 April 2012 he was staying at the Falmouth Beach Hotel in Falmouth, Cornwall when a major fire broke out.

Discography

Main articles: Graham Coxon discography and Blur discography

• The Sky Is Too High (1998)
• The Golden D (2000)
• Crow Sit on Blood Tree (2001)
• The Kiss of Morning (2002)
• Happiness in Magazines (2004)
• Love Travels at Illegal Speeds (2006)
• The Spinning Top (2009)
• A+E (2012)

External links

• Official website
• Template:Myspace
• Graham Coxon at IMDb
• Official Flickr Photo Stream
• Official Graham Twitter Stream
• Art Website