It was the summer of 1995 and the Blur/Oasis feud had reached its tipping point: The two Brit rock bands were competing for number one on the UK singles charts after Blur’s “Country House” and Oasis’ “Roll With It” were released on the very same day and the media ate it up. When all was said and done, Blur was declared the victor after taking the top spot, slightly outselling the Gallagher brothers. Blur’s Graham Coxon wasn’t very pleased, however:
“It felt like a hollow, pointless victory to me,” he told Mail Online’s Jon Wilde in a revealing interview about the Blur’s reunion. “Our record company threw a big champagne party at Soho House in London. I felt I was being forced into enjoying the moment and I just wanted to be alone really. I couldn’t handle being part of that crowd so I tried to jump out of a sixth-storey window. It was Damon (Albarn) who talked me out of it. Looking back, I should have enjoyed myself a lot more than I did during the Blur days (emphasis mine).”
It’s striking how many musicians become suicidal after their career reaches its greatest heights. Drugs and alcohol likely paid a big role in Coxon’s self-destructive behaviour, but Coxon did start to address his addictions later that year after getting run over by a car and drunkenly asking a cop, “Am I dead or alive?”