In December 2022, the four members of Blur reconvened to discuss the possibility of a reunion. This surprised bassist Alex James, as he admits in his new memoir, because their last meeting, eight years previously, “was a car crash that had haunted me daily ever since”. While the reader is curious to know whether it was his driving that caused this metaphorical pile-up, James opts not to elucidate. Where band business is concerned, he is required always to tread carefully. Diplomacy is key.
Anyway. At this latest meeting, singer Damon Albarn – “the boss”, as James refers to him – asks what everybody has been up to. Albarn’s output was familiar to all, of course: Gorillaz, solo albums and a Chinese opera knocked out before lunchtime. Guitarist Graham Coxon was writing music for films, while drummer Dave Rowntree had retrained as a solicitor and Labour councillor.
And James? “I said I was trying to make a really big Frazzle, a sort of crispy, bacon-flavoured edible plate thing, but it was proving difficult,” he relayed, doubtless flashing the same gurning grin he’s had on his face since Blur went public back in 1988.
Over the Rainbow is very much not a typical music memoir, but then James has never been a typical band bore. He always was a Britpop Jeffrey Bernard, a flamboyant rake who could drink himself blind and then write about it amusingly, and so this book is a freewheeling – and very funny – account of a middle-aged man given a second chance to play pop star again. Since the band’s heyday, he’s become a married father of five, and has grown “enormously fat” (reason: cheese). He’s also the owner of a working farm in the Cotswolds, and runs an annual music festival to which his neighbours Jeremy Clarkson and David Cameron are routinely invited.
Despite this very full life, he is thrilled to be called up again, and Over the Rainbow charts the 12-month period that allows him to relive, however temporarily, his youth, alongside three people who do not call very much any more but whom he still considers his closest friends.
Though he clearly possesses the ego necessary for all celebrities, James never seems overly burdened by status. “I’m just the bassist,” he writes, deferring to the others to provide most of the musical impetus and creative energy. Together, the band embark upon a new album, The Ballad of Darren, which, upon release, is widely considered their best, and a world tour follows. Whether or not he loses the flab provides the book’s main narrative thrust – there is gym work, ice baths; much less cheese – and while James is the kind of memoirist who entertains without ever revealing anything too deep, there are nevertheless intriguing glimpses. Albarn emerges here as the most lugubrious presence, someone to forever tiptoe around. If he brings the heavy weather, then James is the garrulous labrador puppy wanting to play whenever the clouds part.
But this can jar. After post-show larks in Copenhagen, for example, James is required by management to write a note of apology to “the boss”, who is furious with him. (Again, the details remain deliberately sketchy.) Albarn receives it with an inscrutable “hmmm”. Later, when they tour Japan, James’s wife, Claire, sends one of their teenage sons with him “to keep an eye on me”. Sometimes, labrador puppies can be exhausting.
It is entirely possible that the 56-year-old James, just like any other sentient human, experiences his fair share of dark nights of the soul. But on the page, he does not. Instead, his life reads like a consequence-free adventure ride. When, pre-tour, the farm runs out of money, he has to ask his mother-in-law for a loan. But then some unexpected royalties come in from Vindaloo, the football terrace song he co-wrote with Keith Allen in 1998, and suddenly he’s flush again. Does he use that money wisely? No, he does not. He takes his family to the Groucho Club for caviar and champagne, then splurges the rest on a holiday in New York. Is this simply the bassist’s lucky lot in life? Does Nicky Wire live the same way? Did Bill Wyman?
At one point, he writes: “I felt, not for the first time, that good fortune was on my side.” He’s not wrong. As a manifesto for living, it might seem a somewhat frivolous one, but it’s rather enviable, too. Who doesn’t want to have fun?
Over the Rainbow: Tales from an Unexpected Year by Alex James is published by Particular Books (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
