Unblurred A rejuvenated Graham Coxon re-embraces his inner Brit BY MATT ASHARE

Graham Coxon doesn’t want to erase his past. But like someone who’s finally freed himself from a long relationship that just wasn’t working out, he’s not keen to dwell on it. He’d prefer to distance himself, look to the future, and revel in his new-found freedom as he does his best to acclimate himself to a role he’s shied away from for the past decade: solo artist. Here in the US, where Coxon will arrive next month to support his new Happiness in Magazines (Astralwerks) with a full backing band (the tour brings him to the Paradise on March 28), that’s likely to be much easier than it’s been in Europe, Japan, and especially his native England. Because until two years ago, Graham Coxon was the founding guitarist and right-hand man to Damon Albarn in Blur, who pretty much defined Britpop in the ’90s. Yet as huge as Blur were outside the US in the early ’90s, that yielded little in the way of notoriety here until Coxon turned up the distortion and allowed his affinity for Amerindie bands like Pavement to infiltrate 1997’s Blur (Virgin). After years of false starts and frustrations, the band finally broke through in the US with "Song 2," a noisy little anthem with a "woo-hoo!" chorus that to this day remains a football-stadium staple.

Still, if the mild-mannered Coxon, who began releasing lo-fi solo albums way back when "Song 2" was storming the US charts, is aiming to keep a low profile on this side of the Atlantic, he’s got little to fear from Blur. Millions may be familiar with what they probably think of as the "woo-hoo" song. But it’s doubtful that even a small fraction of those people know the name of that song or of the band, much less the guitarist responsible for its gritty sound. It’s no surprise that Coxon has already scored a hit with Happiness in Magazines overseas, where "Graham from Blur" means something. On American turf, however, it’s back to square one.

Yet if it was Coxon’s love of American indie rock that gave Blur their big break, it’s his new-found fondness for a sound that embraces, among other influences, the crisp Britpop æsthetic he rejected almost a decade ago that’s made Happiness in Magazines a success overseas. After four homemade albums, he’s taken a sharp turn toward the mainstream with an anything-but-lo-fi CD produced by the very same Stephen Street responsible for the slick Blur discs Parklife, Modern Life Is Rubbish, and The Great Escape. It’s a surprising development from Coxon, who seemed determined to be England’s answer to Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus when he first started releasing solo albums.

"I wish it was 10 years ago now," he says with a laugh when I reach him by phone at an English studio. "Because 10 years ago, British music was boring: you know, sort of plodding, anthemic, baroque, and really, really sort of exaggerated in its Englishness, which is pretty appalling . . . grotesque, really. But it’s a completely different situation now. We had to exaggerate the Englishness on records like Parklife to cope with the big powerful American sounds. And I think the production stands up today much better than Nevermind. But at the time, Jesus, I thought the sound was awful on that album."

Nirvana comparisons aside, Parklife is something of a ’90s classic in the sense that it established Blur as the rightful inheritors of a very British musical legacy that could be traced back through the Smiths, the Jam, the Kinks, and plenty of other lesser-knowns who distilled their experience into a pop paradigm of sharp hooks, wry social critique, and a distinctly English sense of humor. Unfortunately, that’s rarely if ever been a recipe for anything more than cult success among American Anglophiles. Which is why once Coxon’s predilection for Pavement was such a boon for Blur, even if he was seldom a very vocal member of the band.

"I don’t want to be known as Graham from Blur," he says today. "It’s embarrassing, really. So when people say ‘Graham from Blur,’ I’m like, ‘Urg, come on . . . ’ But I am still proud of Blur. And I like the album Blur. Because, really, it was ‘Song 2’ and a load of distortion that did it for us. And I guess I steered that song into a noisier area than the original demo. In the ’90s, though, there wasn’t much else to listen to but American stuff. And I suppose my guitars have been influenced by all kinds of American music and English music. So when the guitars became more of a force with the music, I guess it gave Americans more of a chance to appreciate it."

As is often the case, success didn’t bring happiness to Coxon. And as he tells it, the situation was one that deteriorated steadily over the years. "In Blur, I did as I was told, really, begrudgingly. And because of that and because of drinking, I became very resentful. There was never much camaraderie in Blur. Basically, we did what bloody Damon said. It got to a point where I wasn’t allowing myself to have a good life for a long, long time. Then I decided that I should start to look after myself and have a nice life. Part of that process was cleaning up on alcohol, getting some counseling, getting my priorities in order, putting my mental health first, getting more healthy and domesticated, spending more time with my daughter, and leaving the group."

Coxon’s exit from Blur came only about two years ago, but it was in the cards for quite some time. On the two occasions I spent time with the band — once prior to the release of Blur and once after — he stood mostly apart from the three other members. And as articulate as he is today, he had little to say back then. The way he describes his departure suggests just how awkward relations had become. "I was invited to leave in kind of a subtle way. I don’t think they thought I would. But I was at a stage in my life when I needed a change both personally and professionally. So I was given the opportunity to leave the group and I went. I had a little rest, and then suddenly I was writing songs again."

Coxon doesn’t just write songs. He sings them and he records them with little or no help. The second drum track in the background on "Song 2" — that’s Coxon. And when I catch up with him, he’s just finishing up the drum tracks for his next solo album. "Yeah, I still do everything on the records. And I have blisters all over my fingers right now from playing drums for the past three days. But I have my own band for gigs. I just got some mates together — I picked them because they were friends and they could play. I didn’t really care if they could play brilliantly or not. The main thing is that we are all on a similar wavelength. We’re all kind of old-fashioned in our approach to music and the English language — we’re old-modish types and indie kids and punks and people like that. And we can make each other laugh. That’s the most important thing. It’s kind of a Manfred Mann traditional set-up: me playing guitar, Owen playing guitar, Toby playing bass, Steve playing drums, Sean playing organ. And Sean wanders on and off as he’s needed. I don’t even feel like a leader among them because I don’t feel the need to be. I wouldn’t want to pack them around on tour and have them have a miserable time. So I leave all the angst in the records and the recording process."

As the title suggests, Happiness in Magazines has its bright moments. But it’s also full of cynical observations, with as many noisy guitar outbursts as tunefully reflective moments. Given Coxon’s artless vocal delivery, wry sense of humor, and penchant for letting songs breathe without overtightening the grooves or overpolishing the melodies, the Malkmus comparison still applies. But the new album broadens his sonic vistas to include something akin to a straight electric-guitar-picking blues ("Girl Done Gone") that stumbles along until the vocals finish and the guitar takes over; the dreamy orchestral pop of "All Over Me," replete with tasteful string arrangements and simple acoustic-guitar strumming; the noisy garage grunge of "Freakin’ Out," with lines like "What do you do when nothing’s wrong?/I ain’t got a clue, I ain’t got no song"; the reflective piano ballad "Ribbons and Leaves"; the Buzzcocking punk salvo "Right To Pop!"; and, with his heavy British accent distorted out of the mix, an angry yet amusing social critique full of guitar bashing titled "People of the Earth."

Yet the overall tone of the album is set by the very last thing you’d expect from a Coxon solo album — songs so loaded with echoes of Ray Davies and Lennon and McCartney that they wouldn’t be out of place in the Blur songbook. Sure, he takes more liberties with the guitar than he was often allowed to in Blur, and the results range from tastefully constructed solos that follow the vocal melody to stinging overbent string attacks. But it’s clear he’s made peace with his inner Brit. "I’m starting all over again as much as I can. I’m not disowning my past, I’m just getting on with the future and paying attention to what’s happening now. I’m just so much happier now that I’m not drinking. And I think I’m a lot nicer. I’ve said really that it’s something to do with reaffirming my roots and what I enjoy about music. Obviously, being in a group, I’ve had to compromise in the past on a lot of things. You know, having to bend my guitar to another person’s shapes. And I just thought that I really wanted to make music that is in line with my roots — the lineage that comes through from America to England back to America and back to England. . . . It goes back through the late-’70s and early-’70s English electric-folk revival and even back to the late-’60s English electric-blues and R&B influences. You know, the Who and the Kinks and the Yardbirds. That’s really where I think my roots are. I’m almost trying to collect all of those things together that gave me a thrill when I was first discovering what chart music was in the late ’70s — really, it’s about making music that I like the sound of, that excites me, that conveys some emotional message."

Coxon’s solo career is, even in his own assessment, a work in progress, and Happiness in Magazines is far from perfect. But the joy in making music he describes does come through. And even if he is Graham from Blur, he comes across as a very likable underdog. Better yet, when he nails it in "No Good Time," a hard-hitting guitar rocker full of cinematic snapshots of London’s party culture ("Wasted little DJ, filling up the floor/Your records are boring but you’re cool as hell/Everybody’s flying, everybody’s sliding, slowly suiciding in a tiled cell"), his years with Blur begin to blur and slip gracefully into a past that Graham Coxon is happy to have left behind.