Blur will return to musical oasis, says drummer

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree is to publish a book of photos on the early days of the Britpop icons and after much-heralded comeback gigs two years ago has not ruled out another collaboration.

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"I think Blur will definitely do something else," he told AFP, as their great rivals Oasis prepare for the first of their own reunion gigs in Cardiff.

Rowntree, a founding member of Blur, has put together photos of the band at the start of their career in the 1980s around a decade before Britpop exploded. “No One You Know: Dave Rowntree’s Early Blur Photos” is due out in September.

But the book nearly did not see the light of day as he only found the negatives by chance, in an old cardboard box that had been earmarked for the dump.

“In my memory, the photos would just seem like holiday snaps,” Rowntree, now 61, said in an interview in Paris. “What the pictures show and capture really well, I think, is our excitement at doing all these things for the first time.”

- 'Unfashionable music' -

Rowntree’s candid, sometimes blurry, shots are of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon and bassist Alex James, with lighting director Dave Byars.

“We were playing tiny shows to very few people. We were playing very unfashionable music in those days,” he recalled.