I had a breakthrough, I think my life just became calmer, I gave up drinking. My priorities changed as I had a young daughter. The group didn't want me to record for the Think Tank album... so I took it as a sign to leave.
With my daughter, who at the time was one, my domestic life needed to take more precedent and really with my own self I needed to develop quite a bit more. So that put Blur down the list of priorities quite a lot by the time I came to thinking about it.
There were some extremely good teachers there that were great artists really in their own right. It was actually very hard to concentrate on getting down to going any work being an art student especially when it's a flighty thing at best.
It's mostly Mars Bars and peanuts and cheese and you go to the fridge and there's Red Bull and Beer. It's not like people are holding me down and pouring beer in my face.
I suppose my little Martin acoustic guitar is quickly becoming a prize possession. It's a lovely guitar. I bought it at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2001 before I had cleaned up.
It's a bit loose and the people in my group have got other groups. They don't have to have a total allegiance to me. I think that's really a bit weird and showing some weird insecurity.
Playing and singing at the same time is pretty cool, but sometimes it's difficult to know when you can just really let go a bit because you've got to get back to bloody microphone and sing some stuff.
I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.
You know Manchester is always a bit of a hard place for people coming from London, just with all the history. Manchester has this immensely huge and healthy history musically.
When Blur first started and we were playing Manchester the Hacienda was the place to go. That was where a lot of exciting stuff was happening and London was pretty dead.
Manchester has it's own pride and London has it's sort of pride and sometimes we can be a bit mean to each other, but I think if we dig the music we can get on really well.
It was quite nice meeting up because we went through a lot together and we haven't really seen each much other to communicate one to one for quite a long time.