Graham Coxon

The singer-songwriter diffidently discusses his new album, his artwork, and his passions in life

By Cat Morley
Published: November 1st, 2006 | 1:30pm

It's mid-afternoon in late October, and a sleepy Graham Coxon sits tapping out beats onto a glass-top table. Wearing his signature thick rimmed glasses and a pair of hot pink Converse, the man, who is best known from his days as a guitarist in the Brit-pop band Blur, diffidently discusses his new album, his artwork and his passions in life.

The romantic Love Travels At Illegal Speeds is Coxon's sixth solo album and is quite a contrast to his previous offerings. The first two singles from the album, “Standing On My Own Again” and “You & I,” have done well in the U.K. singles charts and the album looks hopeful to have the same impact in the U.S. He mentions the pressure of living up to the success of his previous album, Happiness In Magazines. "I made a better album but it hasn't done as well,” says Coxon. “You never know what's going to happen. I don't really feel that kind of pressure because I don't care what people think. I do care if people get the wrong end of the stick and say stupid things about me. I've spent long enough worrying what people think about me and, sort of, chasing ahead of success. I know what it's like to chase success in the mainstream and it seems all pretty pointless to me actually when comparing my work."

In addition to being a talented musician (he plays almost all of the instruments on his albums), Coxon also has a passion for painting and produces his own album artwork. "I just want things to look nice,” he says. “I couldn't use my usual packaging now and I had to use jewel cases, which was a pain, because now my albums have a lack of consistency. I wanted to make more of an effort with visuals to make up for it. "

As Coxon flips through the pages of his latest record sleeve, he points out how deceptively simple the design appears. "I wanted to make a bit more of an effort so I did these borders inside, which took bloody ages — never looked like they did, but they did," says Coxon. When asked if he worried that downloadable music would be the death for album sleeves, he replied "not really, because you can always make a 12-inch painting or whatever you like.”

“I'll always make LPs, but people think that it's just pandering to the mainstream in hopes to sell more records, but it isn't at all, it's just redheads at record labels don't want to spend money on anything special, they want everything to be rubbish,” says Coxon. “It's all the same, whatever efforts I did put into the records, halfway through were chopped away because of how it was going to be packaged."

Love Travels At Illegal Speeds was released in the U.K. in March but will be released in the U.S. on Halloween 2006. Coxon says that he looks forward to its release and when asked what was next for him, he replied “nothing, I don't really want to do anything.”

“This isn't my last tour but I just want a break, just write,” says Coxon. “Touring so much means that you can't do things that normal people do because you have to go away. I wanted to learn Swedish properly, so I joined a course and did Swedish lessons every week but then I had to go on tour. But, you know, I want to be able to make shoes and suits, do life drawing again and do some other weekly things that you do. Tidy my house up, because it's a mess. There's a lot of things that touring takes you away from like writing, it takes me weeks to get back where I was after I've been away. I started writing the next album, but it's been weeks and weeks now so I want to get back to that. Mostly, I like doing not very much.”

After the interview, Coxon played a two-hour set at a Dundee, U.K. nightclub. Much more energetic than earlier, Coxon burst onto stage with guitar in hand and rattled off 20 or more songs, a number of which he played on his back, with his pink Converse flailing around in the air. Keep an eye out for Love Travels At Illegal Speeds which will be released in America on October 31, 2006.