The less Blur do, the more popular we get
As he releases his debut solo album, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree tells ALEX GREEN about Wembley concerts and taking in Ukrainian refugees
“I DIDN’T want to do the obvious thing,” says Dave Rowntree, the musician best known as the drummer in Blur. “It was less clear to me what the obvious thing was.”
We are discussing Radio Songs, his debut solo album released at the age of 58.
Dave has had a prolific career both inside Blur and outside as a film and TV composer, Labour councillor and light aircraft pilot, but is only now releasing a solo album under his own name.
“Obviously, having some kind of drum album would be the really tediously obvious thing,” he says with a sardonic chuckle.
“But other than that, what would be the obvious thing? People know I’m fairly contrary. Maybe the obvious thing would be to do a contrary album. Would it blindside people if I did some kind of Britpop album?”
He did neither of the above. The 10-track LP is an atmospheric, textural collection that brings together electronic and orchestral sounds, finished with an undercurrent of nostalgia and political anger.
Growing up in Colchester, Dave bonded with his father over their shared love of radios and was transported to foreign countries.
“Radio in the broadest possible sense has always been a constant for me. It was something that my dad and I had in common. He used to be a radio engineer in the
RAF and he discovered a love of electronics there that he carried with him for his entire And he passed that on to me.
“Some dads and sons would go fishing or go to football matches. My dad and I sat around the kitchen table with a soldering iron building radios, repairing radio sets and then switching them on, plugging them into an antenna and tuning into stations around the world.”
This fed an ongoing love of electronics and a number of his DIY sound modules are used on the new record. In fact, there are very few real drum sounds on Radio Songs. Dave currently does not even have a kit in his home studio.
“A lot of the most interesting sound on the radio happens in between the stations,” he explains.
“Some of it is of natural origin, some of it’s man-made, some of it’s machine-made. But some of it sounds extraordinary.”
Taking Radio Songs on tour also means stepping up as frontman.
You might imagine he looked to Blur bandmate Damon Albarn for guidance, but Dave found it elsewhere – in his former career at Colchester Borough Council and as a Labour councillor.
“I’m not fazed at the idea of speaking in front of crowds,” he offers. “That would be the thing that would probably have been the biggest issue for me if I was trying to do this in my 20s. But now I’m far more comfortable doing that kind of thing.”
His song Devil’s Island is an
ethereal reflection on the 1970s and draws striking comparisons to today.
He tells me the track is partly a warning to those who pine for the good old days while forgetting the reality of that period.
“My memory of growing up in the 70s was that the UK was a pretty bleak place in those days,” he says.
“Some great art was produced and some great music, but for most people’s experience, as I remember it, it was a pretty dire time. There was a lot of poverty, strikes, the right wing was in the ascendant and the economy was a basket case.”
He remembers the country feeling “very unsafe”.
“And when the Sex Pistols sang about having no future, that’s how people felt. A generation grew up thinking the future of the country held nothing for them.”
Last year Dave invited a Ukrainian mother and daughter fleeing the war to move into the suite that would usually house his home recording studio.
“It is a mother and daughter, both married, both their husbands are still in Ukraine, so very worrying for them. If they don’t have their own space, I think that can be quite difficult year-on-year.
“But we live out in the middle of nowhere in open countryside, so space is what we have here. They can have their own space, they can lock their front door, so I think that has worked pretty well.”
Dave says there has been a wellife. come return to a more DIY spirit in the last decade.
“It’s now fashionable to do that kind of thing, to be more hands-on, to spin your own wool and make stuff out of wood.
“I feel a kinship for all of that, because making music is less and less like that and more and more like working in an office these days.
“Music software is like a word processor for music. You cut and paste and all of that kind of stuff. It really is getting less and less rock and roll being in a band,” he jokes.
For Dave, the antidote to all this is touring.
“Touring is more exciting for a band like Blur now than it’s ever been,” he says. “We seem to be getting more and more popular. The less we do, the more popular we get. The idea of us playing Wembley Stadium 10 years ago would have been laughable.”
Dave says the group – him, Damon Albarn, bassist Alex James and guitarist Graham Coxon – met last year for an informal catch-up ahead of their two mammoth shows at the 90,000-capacity London venue in July.
“The actual rehearsals happen in the month or so before the start of the tour. We all got back together just as much to kind of have a cup of tea together and chew the fat about anything else, and got the old instruments out and had a play through. But the actual rehearsals haven’t started yet.”
A lot of the most interesting sound on the radio happens in between the stations Dave Rowntree