BLUR’S drummer says Colchester “is now massive compared to what it used to be”.
Renowned musician and drummer for Blur Dave Rowntree took part in a Q&A and meet and greet at Red Lion Books in High Street in December.
The event was to celebrate the release of his new photography book No One You Know, which features unseen photos of the band’s early years, all of which he photographed himself.
After the event, he spoke with the Gazette in an exclusive interview, stating the band almost played the JobServe Community Stadium during their 2023 comeback live shows.
In the second part of the interview, Dave revealed whether he thinks the city has changed much over the years, he said: “Yes and no, the city is now massive compared to what it used to be.
“You could walk from the centre to the fields surrounding in an afternoon, it was a nice stroll.
“I grew up in the riverside estate, you could see the fields out beyond the housing estates on the other side of the river, now it’s houses as far as the eye can see.
“Highwoods is close to the centre of the city now, that was the edge of civilisation when I was growing up.
“The High Street still feels like home, I walked down that road five days a week for years of my life, and it still feels quite nostalgic.”
During the event where 30 lucky fans enjoyed his Q&A with music stalwart Ben Howard, he revealed he was not confident on whether fans would want the book in the first place.
He discovered the box of photos after a 20-year period and wasn’t exactly confident and thought people would not want to see them.
Digging further into, the drummer isn’t exactly sure why he felt this way.
Dave added: “I don’t know, it’s crazy isn’t it.
“I guess it’s really hard from the inside to get much perspective on how people see us and what people are interested in.
“When the idea of doing Wembley Stadium came up, the first thing Damon said was: ‘what if we don’t sell any tickets’ [laughs].
“You never know, looking back it was crazy, of course we were going to sell some tickets, but nobody could have foreseen how well that was going to go, how many we were going to sell, and how quickly it was going to sell out.
“We’ve never really had a sense, it’s always been very hard to gauge from inside the four of us, this quite closed, walled-off, little community of us, how things look from the outside.
“So, we’ve all carried that on, and I wasn’t really sure if anyone was going to be interested in these pictures, I didn’t know.
“I wasn’t really sure what I had, what it all meant, what the pictures were about but it has gone down very well, people have been very happy.”
Edited by Miranda Sawyer, Dave’s photos capture many close-up and personal pictures of his bandmates, Colchester’s Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon, and bassist Alex James.
You can find photographs from Blur’s debut tours of America and Japan, being in the studio in the UK, tour bus moments, backstage, in hotel rooms, at video shoots, and with fans and friends.
There’s not a particular photo which means the most to him, but he does have some favourites, the drummer said: “I have several favourites but whether they mean the most, I don’t know.
“One of my favourites in the book is in the theme park, we were on tour in Philadelphia and had a day off at this amusement park.
“Damon and Graham on the rollercoaster car in front of me, I tapped them on the shoulder and said look round and took the picture of them.
“We’re just on the first climb before you go over the first hill of the rollercoaster, that was the most exciting bit of a rollercoaster isn’t it.
“But that’s kind of where we were in our career as well, we’d just been signed, let out loose in the world for the first time, and it was this sense of us being at the bottom of what was going to clearly be a very long climb.
“That look they’ve got, the thrill but slightly nervous, what’s going to happen next feeling, that is kind of what it felt like.
“I like the picture, and I like the way it kind of reflects where we were in our career at that point as well.”
To purchase a copy of the book, visit redlionbooks.co.uk/product/author-event-no-one-you-know-dave-rowntrees-early-blur-photos.
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