Alex James never wished for rock career

Blur's Alex James has revealed that he much preferred football to music from a young age.

Speaking to The Sun, the bassist-come-farmer also admitted that he only enjoyed pop music in his childhood.

"No rock star has ever grown up in Bournemouth. My dad had shown me how to play blues on the piano but I just wanted to be a footballer like all the other boys," he explained. "I had no formal music training and wasn't involved in a music scene. I liked pop and that wasn't cool."

James added of his transformation from rock stardom to farming: "My wife Claire and I came to the Cotswolds when we were dating and I thought, 'Wow! This is what I want. Can we do it? Yes! But it was a huge leap of faith. We got married at exactly the same time as Blur disintegrated.

"It was like Rock Family Robinson. I had no job, a woman I didn't really know and here I was on a farm in the middle of nowhere."