In The Works - Graham Coxon

It’s a dark wet pavement, black and white, loud Saturday night,” says Graham Coxon of his latest solo outing - spoken quietly in a light, dry studio, on a quiet Wednesday afternoon. “With ups and downs, fights, taxi queues. There’s a lot of tunes about violence, I suppose.”

It’s a dramatic departure from his 2009 acoustic wonderland ‘The Spinning Top’, but then again, this self-confessed stripy teed, pied piper of geek has never been one to play it safe. “I can’t stand safe music,” he professes.

So, just what inspired him this time round? “The narrative put me in mind of an evening I had out in Leeds. I’d never seen so many amazing looking kids all dancing in a really groovy way.”

True to form, Graham’s eighth solo venture is a darkly humorous affair: “I wanted it to be fun, sad, scary, and also that you can sort of dance to it.” So, just how does Graham imagine the indie masses dancing? “I suppose the kids up in Leeds at this point were looking like a cross between mods and electro. They were almost dancing like mods. It’s either that or pogoing. A cross between 1964 and 1978.”

And as for those stripy t-shirts? “I suppose me and my music, they have this identity and it’s about glasses and stripy tops. It wasn’t always like that. I thought about burning all my stripy tops or having a jumble sale.”

We’ll be first in line, Graham. Right after we nab that new record of yours...

Words by Kat Lister
Photo by Marc Sethi

You can see Graham Coxon live at Truck Festival in July, go to http://www.thisistruck.com/ for more details.