When Blur went into graphic detail about the implications of kissing each other
Watching Damon Albarn approach 60 doesn’t feel all that strange since it happened right in front of us.
By virtue of being in the spotlight for so long, he has aged gradually and gracefully in the public eye, which helps those watching not feel old all of a sudden. Yet, it’s strange to remember that he and his bandmates from Blur (at least some of them) were the default heartthrobs of Britain’s music circuit not that long ago.
The four-piece from London were in the thick of their pretty boy phase during Britpop’s heyday, and thus, their sexuality became the subject of widespread media speculation as the hype surrounding their brand continued to proliferate.
In conjunction with the release of their fourth studio album in 1995, the group was featured on the cover of The Face. Of course, the Q&As published in the magazine weren’t restricted to The Great Escape, although the conversation did end up digressing quite far from the core subject at one point.
When the interviewer asked each of them if they had ever kissed a man, all four went off on a tangent that made it rather difficult to tell if they were oversharing or just taking the piss. Either way, their answers were absolutely riotous and presumably far more specific than what anyone at the publication must’ve been expecting.
Albarn started by confirming that he had indeed kissed tons of men, although mostly as a joke, admitting that while he didn’t mind doing so at all, he still preferred women. He also revealed that guitarist Graham Coxon actually liked kissing him, adding, “I’m more likely to do it when I’m sober; he’s more likely to do it when he’s drunk”. He concluded with an analysis of the deed and the subsequent steps that may follow, noting that men who masturbate while thinking about other men are clearly gay. About himself, though, Albarn eloquently clarified that he most likely couldn’t “sustain an erection long enough to give someone it up the arse”.
Bassist Alex James also chimed in and that he only kissed men under the influence of alcohol, recalling a boozy night that led to him coming to on the roadside, Coxon waking up in bed with an unknown woman and Albarn in prison. Without sharing any further details about the one-thing-led-to-another situation, he said that the three of them ended up snogging each other at the singer’s behest. Referring to the incident as “male bonding”, he quietly commented that he might be scared of exploring his sexuality past the certainty of his attraction to women.
On a moving note, he reflected, “I would have thought I would have shagged Graham by now, or at least got a hand job off him or something, but there always seems to be something better to do”.
Coxon joined the chaos and noted that he would trade hickeys with Albarn, referring to it as a “cruel trick”, and in an attempt to illustrate the size of his peer’s “very large tongue”, he even compared the experience of them kissing each other to farmers forcing sheep into sheep dips. Alluding to a comment by Elastica’s Justine Frischman, who was also Albarn’s girlfriend at the time, the guitarist added, “he’s a washing machine mouth”.
Drummer Dave Rowntree finally wrapped up the evocative panel by saying that he had kissed men “hundreds of times”, insisting that it’s a mere byproduct of drinking a lot. Positive that he must have made out with the entire band, he couldn’t specifically remember using his tongue on Alex, but was still convinced that it happened. Painting a picture of a nationalistic ceremony surrounding the act of two men kissing each other, he noted, “I think when men kiss in a laddish kind of way it’s supposed to stir pathos, isn’t it?”
