Alex James gifts Blur bandmates with cheese for Christmas

26 December 2023, 09:00

The Blur bassist told Radio X's Johnny Vaughan why Christmas is his favourite time of the year.

Alex James gifts his Blur bandmates with cheese for Christmas.

The Blur bassist famously swapped the rock 'n' roll lifestyle for cheese farming in the Cotswolds and he admitted his second vocation comes in handy during the festive period.

Asked by Johnny Vaughan last Christmas if he gets presents for the Britpop band - completed by frontman Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon and drummer Dave Rowntree - he revealed: "I normally send them some cheese. Yes, I do. It’s kind.”

"It’s absolutely my favourite time of year," he said when speaking about Christmas on the whole. "When the cheese comes out at lunch time, that’s my favourite moment of the whole year."

When it came to his expert opinion on what to have on your festive cheese platter, he said: “My advice. Just get one big one of cheese. Get a proper wheel of it. A big wheel of blue...”

Alex James on trying to keep the Blur reunion a secret!

2023 was a banner year for Blur - the band reunited for a series of sold-out shows across Europe, which included dates at Wembley Stadium, and released their first album in eight years, The Ballad Of Darren.

Alex told Johnny that the whole reunion could have been ruined before it had even started.

"Keeping it in the bag has been tricky because one of the kids found out and started telling all the others," he told Radio X. "Then they started telling their friends... I was like, No no! You could totally ruin it!

"But they're really excited! I was taking one of them to see one of his friend's bands play the other week, and he was saying, 'Dad, dad, they do two Blur songs! And only one Oasis song!"

He added: "It's eight years since the last time we got back together, so my eldest, who's now smoking my fags, he was in short trousers then."

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