Blurred images
A Look Inside Dave Rowntree’s Rock ’n’ Roll Photo Album
By Fred Spanner
While the spotlight often shines on frontmen and guitar heroes, the heartbeat of any great band lies behind the drum kit. For Blur, one of the defining acts of the Britpop era, that pulse has always come from Dave Rowntree. And he certainly keeps himself busy. More than just the rhythmic backbone of the band, Rowntree is a multifaceted figure: a musician, animator, lawyer, and even a politician.
As Blur continues to captivate audiences, Dave has unearthed some hidden memories of the band’s early years. It’s a moody, beautifully weird photo album packed with strangers, motorways, and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments from years on the road. It’s not about the rock ’n’ roll circus, it’s the quiet bits in between: the service stations, the long stares out of windows, the nobody-in-particulars he snapped along the way.
The book has been edited by former Loaded columnist Miranda Sawyer.
How did you manage to uncover the images after all these years?
Graham and I were having a discussion about moving house, and how there are always boxes you don’t unpack. We were speculating that, as we hadn’t looked in these boxes for years, clearly, there was nothing in them of any value, so we should just throw them away. But I thought I’d just check…
It turned out, amongst other things, there was this metal box of photos I’d forgotten about.
How far back do the photos go?
I think the earliest photos were from before we were signed. We went under many names before Blur. The reason Seymour is the most famous is because it’s what we were called just before we changed it to Blur, but we had a number of name changes before that.
Did a few of the photos jog your memory a bit?
I think most of the memories would have been lost without the photos, because I took pictures of the little things. I didn’t take photos of the gigs or photo sessions, because I was working too. I couldn’t whip out a camera in the middle of a TV show. It was the smaller things I captured that show what being in a band was all about. And it hasn’t changed much.
Eating in restaurants, and lots of hanging around, really, but that was the stuff I wanted to remember. We were a tiny band back then, and it was far from certain that this wasn’t going to be ‘it’. Most bands had a single, maybe an album, and were never heard of again.
We were playing deeply unfashionable music in those days. American music was the mainstream, and very few people were interested in what we were doing outside of the UK music press.
We were on the front cover of Melody Maker. Now, in the UK, everyone knew what that meant, but outside of the UK, everyone assumed you were this huge band. So, we were actually bigger outside of the UK. No one could imagine that we could be on the front cover if we were playing the Camden Falcon.
Almost all of that stuff would have been lost in the midst of time if I hadn’t found those photos. Other people’s photos are out there already and part of pop music folklore. There’s no danger of losing that.
It’s like turning up to Antiques Roadshow with an item no one has ever seen before.
Haha, yes, I know what you mean. It’s not the manicured, behind-the-scenes images you get on Instagram that you know have been staged. The ones where everyone is lounging around in their good clothes, with their hair done. The Blur photos are the kind that you just don’t get to see anymore. Bands don’t let their guard down to this extent.
Let's test your memory, then. Do you remember what happened when you got to the entrance of the Blur, Parklife Launch Party?
Did they not let us in?
Correct! I know because I was standing right behind you.
Haha! Were we wearing the wrong footwear?
I think the bouncer said you didn’t have a ticket. Both you and Damon protested and said it was your party, so they should let you in, which they did eventually, of course.
Getting back to the book, it’s the smaller details that can make a bigger impact over time. Smoking on planes! What were we thinking?
Yes, but not so much from a safety point of view. If a plane’s going to crash, a lit cigarette is going to cause the least amount of damage. Polluting everyone else’s air, however, does seem an obnoxious thing to do now, doesn’t it?
They used to make the smokers sit at the back, as if the smoke would magically stay there. Back in the 70s, everyone seemed to smoke. As soon as you were old enough, you smoked. Japan Airlines, I think, was the last airline to allow you to smoke. I think it was because America decided that no airline that allowed its passengers to smoke was going to be allowed into the country. As Japan Airlines didn’t fly there, they didn’t care, so they continued to allow people to smoke.
That was another reason for us to love Japan, because you could smoke on the flights. It was kind of expected. And still, everyone seems to smoke in Japan; it’s crazy! It’s strange to go over there and see everyone doing what became unfashionable to do over here.
That was just one of the great things about Blur going to Japan. Let’s talk about the best thing: Dave Mania!
Haha. Well, it was a really charming group of young fans who started a fan club for me. I was the only member of Blur to have their own fan club at that time. They used to turn up to every gig. There were six or so of them on the committee. I don’t know how many others there were. They’d turn up wearing lanyards with official badges showing what their position was in the club. One was the chairperson, one was the treasurer, etc.
At every show, I’d go and greet the committee, and they’d interview me for the fanzine. It was lovely. Japan was one of the first countries to really take us to their heart. We used to play big gigs over there. The Japanese economy at that time was really strong. You could do a two-week tour of Japan and make enough money to bankroll the band for the rest of the year. We went there as often as we could.
Did you ever get invited to the Dave Mania AGM?
No, I never got invited. I missed out. I could have given the keynote speech. If anyone from Dave Mania is reading this, I’m still up for it. I doubt it’s still going. I suspect they have families to look out for now. No time for waifs and strays from English pop bands.
You should start a Dave Mainia Reunited website.
You’ll be the first to know if it happens.
Great! So, what was the rest of the band’s reaction to the book?
The message I got back was that they really enjoyed looking through the pictures. I was nervous that there might be a few photos that had old girlfriends in them, or that they might say, “Do you really want to put all of these in photos in the book?” I think there were only six or so pictures that didn’t make it. Everyone in the picture that I could trace, I sent the photos to, just to make sure they were okay with it.
No scandalous ones then?
No, I didn’t take any of those. Not that anyone in the band ever did anything scandalous, of course. If I did, it would be the last time anyone allowed me to operate a camera.
Ah, the good old days of operating a camera that allowed a limited number of shots, and then waiting for it to get developed at Boots.
There was something about taking pictures in the old days that made it a bit special. Every time you pressed the shutter, it cost you money. You approached photography in a very different way. It made you look through the viewfinder and think, “Do I really want to take this picture?”
Digital photography is more about the equipment and less about the picture. It’s about how realistic and true to life you can make it. The picture is an interpretation of what you’re seeing. You can take 100 pictures, and there’s probably a good one in there. Taking your time with one shot is a proper art.
You managed to get in a few of the pictures.
Yes, some were taken by me and some by other people. Sometimes I’d try to take an old-style selfie, but otherwise I’d just give the camera to whoever was nearby. Sometimes, you can see in the photo itself who was taking it.
What were the high points of those early years?
Japan, definitely. Also, the first tour of North America, because none of us had ever been to the States before. It was a place we’d only ever seen on TV. All of the differences between America and the UK seemed magnified because we’d seen those differences on television.
So to land there and be confronted with all of this stuff that we’d just taken for granted was incredible. The scale of the place and the size of the trucks on the road, for instance. The fans over there were so excited to see us because they never expected us to show up.
There were so many back then, because they were all ‘firsts’. We got to do all these things that we’d only read about other bands doing. I still get blown away by what music has done for my life. Had we not been successful, my backup career was a computer programmer. There’s no way a computer programmer gets to walk on stage at Wembley in front of 90,000 people for two nights. It’s unfair, and I accept that.
Quite a few folk I interview say the most exciting times have been before they were famous. The build-up to becoming well-known is sometimes the best part of the story.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. That was what came across to me in the photos when I found them again, which wasn’t till the first lockdown. Tim Burgess was kind enough to let me do a few albums on his Listening Party. He was desperate for pictures to tweet, so I dug through all of my old boxes of Blur junk.
What leapt off the page was the energy and excitement, and the fun of it all. It’s not obvious that the bit before you were famous would be the most fun. It’s not obvious that when you start doing it for a job, it changes the nature of the thing. You still enjoy it, but it’s not quite the same.
The picture that encapsulates that best is the one of Damon and Graham on the roller coaster. I’m in the car behind, taking the picture. We’re just on the ‘up’ part of it, just before it teeters over the edge and plunges over the other side. That’s the exciting bit of the roller coaster, isn’t it? Once it all gets going, you get thrown around a bit and don’t know which way is up. That’s why it goes up so slowly, it’s stringing out the tension, drama and excitement. That was the feeling I had being in Blur in those early days.
When I saw that image, my immediate thought was that Damon must have lost his hat on the ‘down’ bit.
Haha, I’m sure you’re right.
What was the most nervous you’ve ever felt in your entire musical career? Maybe Mile End?
Yeah. Walking out onto the stage at Mile End was nerve-wracking. We headlined to 20,000 people, and it was the biggest gig we’d done by far. We weren’t used to walking out and being confronted by this sea of people. We played much bigger gigs later, but there was a jump at that point. From playing the small clubs and theatres, to suddenly being on the top rung of the ladder.
I was very apprehensive. I thought, “What if I make an appalling mistake and all these people laugh at me?” All of that melts away as soon as you start playing the first few notes of the first song. It’s always been the same for all of us. No matter how tired you are, how ill you feel, or how nervous you get, you just get stuck into it and you’re, “Ah, right! Finally, the bit of life I can do.” All of that nervousness just vanishes, and you feel the joy that music brings you.
I remember you played Country House for the first time, and Damon made us pretend to be a wheat field by getting us to wave our arms in the air. Great times.
You had an injury to your foot just before you were due to play at Wembley. How touch-and-go was that?
I was confident I could make it through because I’d played a few gigs in between after pranging myself. Luckily, it was my left leg. Had it been my right leg, things might have been different. I wanted to be okay enough that I wasn’t hobbling to the front at the end to take a bow on crutches. Especially as it was likely to be an iconic image for generations. Standing there with crutches wasn’t the look I wanted.
Shortly after that, we did the Radio Two theatre show where we played the album from end to end. Afterwards, I was whisked straight off stage and into hospital, had the operation at seven the next morning, then walked out. It was miraculous, really. There was only one cancelled gig as a result of it, so I definitely got away with it lightly. I’m sure the people whose gig was cancelled don’t see it that way, but it could have been far worse.
I’ve been watching a lot of real-life police dramas recently. Feel free to answer, “No comment,” to the next question if you wish.
Any chance of a few more Blur gigs?
I think there’s every chance that Blur will get back together. We didn’t make the mistake last time that we did previously by going on too long. There’s always one more gig you could do, but after a couple of years, people start tapping their fingers on the table and wanting their life back. That didn't happen this time. We were quite ruthless and said we wouldn’t extend it.
As a result, we all came away saying how great it was. When that might happen and what form it will take, I don’t know. There are no plans to do anything at the moment, but that’s the way Blur has always worked. We’ve never had a single planning meeting in our entire career.
The trouble is, you have to cancel a couple of years of your life. Damon has other high-profile music projects on the go, and people rely on these to feed their families, so there’s a lot to consider.
When we got back together, we decided we wouldn’t go back to full-time write/record/tour. We just did interesting projects that came along if we all had the time to do them. It’s worked out quite well for us. So I guess what we’re waiting for is someone to come along with an interesting idea.
Please send your interesting ideas right away, folks!
Dave’s book No One You Know is out on 9th September.
