Blur's Alex James: 'Playing together, that's effortless, it's the getting together that's impossible'

Blur’s Alex James spoke to Johnny Vaughan on Radio X this afternoon about the Blur reunion.

Alex James told Radio X’s Johnny Vaughan: “Keeping it in the bag has been tricky because one of the kids found out and told all the others, then they started telling their… I was like, ‘No, no! You could totally ruin it!’ But they're really excited!

It's eight years since the last time we got back together, so my eldest, who's now smoking my fags, he was in short trousers then. Even when we split up, it didn't take this long to get it together.

Two weeks ago, I really didn't think it would happen… and the drummer was like, 'I don't think it's gonna happen'... but we announced Wembley on Monday and I can't believe it, it's gone crazy. You never quite know whether people have forgotten you or not. But we did get back in a room together a couple of weeks ago and just bashed through it all.

It's a lovely thing to dip back into, but it does take me two years to recover.

The very first time the four of us got in a room together, the four of us wrote a song that I'm sure we'll be playing at Wembley, which ended up being our first single ‘She's So High’. It was boom, instant, straight away. Completely effortless. The playing together, that's effortless, it's the getting together that's impossible. I'm always the last to know. It's like, come on, get your bass!”