\n The musician is currently touring his No One You Know photobook and his heading to west Dorset where he will discuss the new release with fans.\n<\/p>\n
\n Speaking to The News ahead of his show at Lyme Regis’ Marine Theatre on Friday, he explained what people can expect – and revealed his love of the Dorset coast.\n<\/p>\n
\n The cover of Dave Rowntree’s photobook No One You Know (Image: Dave Rowntree)\n<\/p>\n
\n “I’m going to be talking about the early days of the band, my early days, how I came to become a drummer, how the band met, all the crazy stories around all of that,” he explained.\n<\/p>\n
\n The photobook is a snapshot of the band – which is also made up of Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and Alex James – as they signed their first record deal and headed out around the world on their first world tour.\n<\/p>\n
\n He added: “I’m going to be slightly indiscreet and hopefully people will have a lot of fun.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Blur shot to fame in the 1990s and became massive – as one the major bands of the Britpop era – with songs such as Parklife and Girls and Boys when their third album Parklife hit record stores in 1994.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Rowntree’s photobook looks back at the band before that era and their rise to stardom, which eventually saw them sell out venues such as Wembley Stadium and headline Glastonbury.\n<\/p>\n
\n A young Dave Rowntree during Blur’s early days (Image: Dave Rowntree)\n<\/p>\n
\n “Well, it was some years before the band became successful, ” said the drummer. “The period of the photographs in the book was really from about 1988 to maybe four or five years after that. So the first few years of the band’s career.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Rowntree described Blur in those formative years as ‘a tiny little struggling band playing very unfashionable music’ and remembers feeling frustrated why they had yet to get success.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Nobody was very interested,” he recalled. “It was a time when we were paying our dues, and it was kind of very frustrating because we thought we were the greatest band in the world and we couldn’t understand why anybody else didn’t see that.\n<\/p>\n
\n “But it was also incredibly exciting. We were doing a whole bunch of things for the first time – the first time in the studio with Stephen Street, who turned out to be a producer that was very important to us.”\n<\/p>\n
\n It was an era when the band rode on their first tour bus and experienced their first tour of the United States and Japan.\n<\/p>\n
\n Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Blur\u2019s lighting director Dave Byars, Alex James (Image: Dave Rowntree)\n<\/p>\n
\n “All of these things just never even seemed like the kind of things we might be able to do,” Rowntree added. “So it seemed extraordinarily exciting and thrilling and a little bit nerve-wracking to be heading out on the road and doing all this kind of stuff.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Rowntree, now 61, is no stranger to Dorset either. The drummer turned published photographer recalls spending many summers along the Jurassic Coast as a child.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I’m looking forward to coming to Lyme Regis,” he revealed. “Most definitely a part of the world I know very well. I used to spend my summer holidays there. My grandmother used to live in Dorset.\n<\/p>\n
\n “She lived near Abbotsbury, it’s a lovely part of the world. We used to spend our long summer afternoons on the beaches up and down the Dorset coast. Those stony beaches I remember very well.”\n<\/p>\n
\n Back to his new book, Rowntree explained why he decided to capture the band on photograph during those early years on his Olympus OM-10 camera.\n<\/p>\n
\n “I basically thought if this is going to be my 15 minutes of fame,” Rowntree said. “I wanted to remember it. So that’s why I took pictures and that’s why I took the pictures I took.\n<\/p>\n
\n Blur lead singer Damon Albarn on tour in Japan (Image: Dave Rowntree)\n<\/p>\n
\n “I took pictures of all the minutiae of being on tour. Other people were taking pictures of us on stage, so I didn’t try and get any of that – something I regret a little bit now. But I took pictures of all the other stuff – the travelling, the waiting around, the backstage, the hotels, the after shows. All of that kind of stuff I took pictures of because I just wanted to remember it all.”\n<\/p>\n
\n The book has also been welcomed by his bandmates but Rowntree admitted it was “slightly nerve-wracking” because he didn’t know what people would say but revealed that band gave ‘very nice comments back’ and appreciated the opportunity to look through it all.\n<\/p>\n
\n One picture that stands out for the drummer is a moment when all four members where on a rollercoaster. He tapped Damon and Graham on the shoulder during the slow climb up the ramp and captured their faces showing a mix of joy and terror. He sees it as a metaphor for where the band were in their career at the time.\n<\/p>\n
\n “They’ve got this look on their faces of a mix of joy and terror – credit to the roller coaster designer,” he recalls.\n<\/p>\n
\n Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and singer Damon Albarn (Image: Dave Rowntree)\n<\/p>\n
\n “We’d just signed a record deal, just released an album, heading off around the world and we were at the bottom of what turned out to be a very, very long rise up. It felt brilliant and joyful, but equally it’s kind of ‘what the hell’s going to happen next’ – kind of unnerving.”\n<\/p>\n
\n For any Blur fans out there, new material could be on the cards in the future.\n<\/p>\n
\n Rowntree admitted it was probably a case of ‘when not if’ but joked that other band members might not agree.\n<\/p>\n
\n “It would very much surprise me if we didn’t do something else,” he said when asked about future projects.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Another album maybe or a tour or both. The last one was a lot of fun. We all came away thinking, that was all right, that was good, I’ll do that again.”\n<\/p>\n
\n “For me, I think it’s probably when rather than if, but ask the other members of the band, you may get a different answer.”\n<\/p>\n
\n \u2018No One You Know\u2019 Book Tour: An Evening with Dave Rowntree from Blur starts at 8pm on Friday, March 13 at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis.\n<\/p>\n