Alex James
From louche bassist of Britpop band Blur to Classic FM, Alex James presents The A-Z of Classic FM Music every Sunday from 11am.
Biography
Alex rose to fame as the louche bass player with rock band Blur, but in recent years he has embraced broadcasting, writing, investigative reporting and farming. Well, as any farmer knows, diversification is the key these days.
Bournemouth-born Alex teamed up with the rest of Blur while he was studying French at Goldsmiths College and together they formed the band Seymour, later changing the name to Blur and releasing their debut single She’s So High in 1990. They scored their first hit with There’s No Other Way shortly afterwards.
The band’s profile increased hugely with the release of their album Parklife in 1994 which made them stars around the world and by the following summer they were vying with Oasis to be the biggest band in the UK. Alex developed a reputation as a Champagne-quaffing bon viveur, hanging out with mates such as the artist Damien Hirst and actor Keith Allen, with whom he had a 1998 chart hit, the unofficial World Cup anthem Vindaloo. That was one of a number of musical side-projects outside Blur, which also included the band Me Me Me, Wig Wam and writing credits for Marianne Faithfull and Sophie Ellis Bextor.
In the past few years Alex has tamed his once fearsome partying reputation considerably and since the band’s most recent album in 2003, their seventh studio release Think Tank, Alex has broadened his career greatly. With three small children with his wife Claire, he now lives on a 200-acre farm in Oxfordshire, producing cheese and rearing livestock.
Alex has also broadened his work on radio and TV. He cut his teeth as a broadcaster by fronting a TV series about his old stomping ground of Soho and then furthered his on-air experience as a presenter on BBC 6 Music and as a regular correspondent on Radio 4’s On Your Farm. He has also appeared on University Challenge, representing the team from The Idler magazine, and as a reporter for the BBC’s Panorama. He first teamed up with Classic FM by hosting the short series When Classic Meets Pop in 2007.
Last year he published his autobiography Bit Of A Blur and is a regular writer for the Independent and Observer. Alongside his loves of music and the country life, Alex has long been fascinated by heavenly bodies (of the astral variety) and was involved with the team behind the Beagle 2 Mars probe.
