About Alex

I was born in Bournemouth in 1968 and picked up the bass in 1984, largely because I didn’t have anything better to do at the time. Things got interesting after I met Graham Coxon at Goldsmiths College, and before long I found myself in Blur with Damon Albarn and Dave Rowntree. A decision I’ve been very happy with ever since.

Blur went on to become one of Britain’s most successful and, I think it’s fair to say, most entertaining bands. All eight of our studio albums went to No.1 in the UK, with songs like Parklife, Song 2, Beetlebum and Country House somehow becoming part of the national furniture. Our return in 2015 with The Magic Whip took us around the world again, finishing with a rather special night at Hyde Park where 100,000 people did most of the singing for us.

Outside Blur, I’ve been lucky enough to work with a wonderfully eclectic mix of people including Marianne Faithfull, Florence & The Machine, Joe Strummer, KT Tunstall, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Bernard Sumner and Kevin Rowland. I’ve also enjoyed a few side quests along the way—Me Me Me with Stephen Duffy, and Fat Les, whose Vindaloo continues to resurface at alarming volume whenever England are involved in anything.

I’ve written a couple of books, A Bit of a Blur, All Cheeses Great and Small, and Over The Rainbow, which all in their own way try to make sense of a fairly unusual life. I’ve also written for various papers and magazines over the years, including The Spectator, The Observer, The Independent, Q Magazine and The Sun’s Fabulous, and spent eight years on Mucking In for the Sunday Telegraph, mostly trying to sound like I knew what I was doing on a farm.

Broadcasting has taken me from BBC Radio 4’s On Your Farm to over a decade on Classic FM, plus TV projects including Recipes That Rock and the documentary Slowing Down Fast Fashion.

In recent years, life has rather happily expanded into a mix of music, food, drink and general countryside chaos. The Big Feastival is my annual gathering on the farm where music, food and families all collide in one field, usually with great success and the occasional lost welly.

We’ve also developed a curated drinks range with brilliant partners including award-winning wine merchant Henry Laithwaite and Burrow Hill Somerset Cider, bringing together wines, ciders and proper drinks that belong in a field full of music and good food.

On the cheese front, I’ve been working with fantastic the producers Shepherds Purse, helping bring to life cheeses like Blue Monday, alongside other creations such as Bleu, Concorde, The Universal, Wowda and Planet Claire. It’s all part of the ongoing effort to take cheese slightly more seriously than is probably necessary.

The Cheese Hub, meanwhile, isn’t a shop at all—it’s my stage at The Big Feastival. It’s where DJs, live sets and guest performers take over and things tend to get louder as the sun goes down. It’s very much the musical heart of the festival’s more late-night energy.

Britpop Classical is another recent joy—taking the great Britpop anthems and reworking them with a full orchestra, a live band and special guests. Bigger, bolder and occasionally more dramatic than anyone strictly asked for.

Family life is at the centre of everything. My wife Claire has done an incredible job turning our place in Oxfordshire into something close to paradise, designing and tending a beautiful garden and somehow managing to bring bees into our lives in a way that now feels entirely normal. We’ve got talented children, a growing collection of cats and dogs, and a general level of organised chaos that feels about right for a farm.

These days I’m still making music, still making cheese, still hosting festivals, and still generally saying yes to slightly improbable ideas under the Britpop banner.

Life is busy, noisy, slightly chaotic—and exactly how I like it.