35 Facts About Graham Coxon

1.

Graham Leslie Coxon was born on 12 March 1969 and is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur.

2.

Graham Coxon has led a solo career since 1998, producing and playing all instrumentation on his solo albums.

3.

Graham Coxon plays several instruments and records his albums with little assistance from session musicians.

4.

Graham Coxon was born in Rinteln, West Germany, where his father, Bob Graham Coxon, was stationed as a clarinet player and band leader in the British Army.

5.

Graham Coxon then moved to Colchester, Essex, in South East England, where he grew up and met fellow Blur member Damon Albarn at The Stanway School, then known as Stanway Comprehensive, at the age of 11.

6.

Graham Coxon appeared on the popular BBC children's show Blue Peter twice.

7.

Graham Coxon studied Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London, for two years, where early on he met bassist Alex James.

8.

Graham Coxon quit college due to the increasing success of his band at the time, Seymour, which later changed its name to Blur because the recording company, Food Records, thought Seymour was too 'student-ish'.

9.

Graham Coxon's behaviour was occasionally awkward, such as refusing to appear in the video for Blur song "Country House" unless he could dress as a milkman and take no part in any action with which he felt uncomfortable.

10.

In November 2001 Graham Coxon was admitted to the Priory Hospital for 28 days to be treated for alcoholism.

11.

In February 2002, Graham Coxon rejoined the band in the studio for the rest of the recording of Think Tank but after five days was asked by then manager Chris Morrison not to go back into the studio as the other members of the band had reported that the session was not going too well with him present.

12.

Graham Coxon's last contribution to Blur was a song called "Battery in Your Leg", the closing song on Blur's 2003 album Think Tank, before leaving the line-up.

13.

Graham Coxon had already released three solo albums while a member of Blur before his 2002 departure.

14.

In 2004, Graham Coxon released his fifth solo album Happiness in Magazines, produced by ex-Blur and The Smiths producer Stephen Street.

15.

Graham Coxon embarked on a tour of the UK, starting at Newcastle University.

16.

Graham Coxon was involved in a single supporting the England national football team at the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

17.

In October 2006, Graham Coxon released a double live album Burnt to Bitz: At the Astoria immediately after his sold-out London Astoria show.

18.

In July 2007 Graham Coxon released a single with Paul Weller, called "This Old Town".

19.

Danny Thompson plays the legendary Victoria, Graham Coxon Fox gives plenty of swing on the drums and sizzle cymbals and Louis Vause tinkles the ivories.

20.

In February 2020, Graham Coxon released an album for the fictional band Bloodwitch, to be a part of the soundtrack of the Netflix series I Am Not Okay with This, featuring singer Tatyana Richaud.

21.

Graham Coxon illustrated and designed all of his own album art, and collaborated with his friend Nick Craske creating abstract digital work for the release of The Spinning Top; they filmed two music videos, "Sorrow's Army" and "'In The Morning".

22.

Graham Coxon continued painting a series of personal work, most of which remained unseen until 2004, when he exhibited at the ICA in London.

23.

Graham Coxon has been involved in remixing other peoples tracks, including Idlewild and Lowgold both of which were released as b-sides and the latter remix was later re-released on the bands anthology release Keep Music Miserable.

24.

In September 2006, Graham Coxon revealed a musical soundscape, "english shoes squeek", created especially for "Verheaven" an exhibition at London's Riflemaker Gallery of the work of artist Julie Verhoeven.

25.

Graham Coxon appeared on John McCusker's Under One Sky, providing the song "All Has Gone".

26.

Graham Coxon has produced albums by Mower and Assembly Line People Programme from his Transcopic label.

27.

In 2013, Graham Coxon was involved in a musical project where artists re-recorded the classic Beatles album Please Please Me.

28.

Graham Coxon recorded the song "Baby It's You" live as part of a 10-hour recording session hosted by BBC Radio 2 to mark the 50th anniversary of a challenge set by recording company EMI to The Beatles to record a whole studio album in one session.

29.

In February 2019, Graham Coxon became involved with the writing process of the Duran Duran album Future Past, which reached No 3 on the UK Album Charts and No 1 on the UK Independent charts.

30.

Graham Coxon plays all the instruments featured in his solo work, and has used a variety of guitars, notably Gibson SGs, and a Burns London Sonic.

31.

Graham Coxon has been recently seen playing a Telecaster Custom.

32.

Graham Coxon recently received a custom-made guitar from Gray Guitars; it is a Telecaster-type instrument and features a semi-acoustic body and P90 style pickups.

33.

Graham Coxon's playing makes significant use of effects pedals such as distortion, delay and flange.

34.

Graham Coxon is a visual artist and designs all his album sleeves.

35.

Graham Coxon's work featured on the cover of English folk singer Kate Rusby's album The Girl Who Couldn't Fly.