( feature )
in the festival was a no brainer. After all, as he says, “the Cotswolds is a great bastion of artisan food production, chefs and restaurants.” For the rest of the year Alex rents
out many of his barns and outbuildings to local start-ups, such as artisan flour producer Flour Bin. And, indeed, Alex himself is now almost better known for his own cheesemaking business than he is his music. The Blur bassist famously said that he spent his 20s wanting booze, his 30s wanting drugs, and now, in his 40s, it’s all about food. He’ll be unveiling his new-recipe gorgonzola in his Cheese Hub tent. “Blue Monday was the only one
of my cheeses that hadn’t won an award,” he says, “so I went back to the drawing board with it and completely reinvented the recipe and we are launching that at Feastival. We’ll also be doing a blue cheese Martini and I’d quite like to do a spit roast of beef, too, with a Blue Monday sauce. Mmm.”
O
ne of the key strands to the festival is family fun, and for the first time this year Alex and Jamie will be
welcoming the Cotswolds’ own celebrity farmer, Adam Henson, with his Cotswold Farm Park to the Little Dudes Den. There will also be art and craft workshops, kids’ kitchen masterclasses, country fayre games, welly wanging (yep, you read it right the first time), bubble shows, a vintage funfair and haystack mountain. And, of course, Mr Tumble. Children under 12 also get in free. “I think out and out music festivals are really tricky,” Alex says. “There are
There will be demos, tastings and tutorials galore
so many of them, and none of them really seem to mean anything. But I think the idea of offering brilliant food and wonderful music and stuff to keep the kids happy is very exciting. Jamie’s got four kids and I’ve got five, so we’re just trying to create our perfect weekend. Jamie and I end up running round like maniacs high-fiving everyone. We don’t get much sleep. It’s Claire’s birthday that weekend, too, and it’s never rained on her birthday since I’ve known her.”
Blurred lines One thing to expect at the festival, however, is the unexpected. Last year Alex and Jamie (who plays drums – you remember those dodgy Naked Chef closing scenes, don’t you?) joined The Producers on stage. “There will definitely be things that
aren’t on the posters. The great thing is that with Jamie’s gang and my gang good things start happening. There will surely be a bunch of unique stuff going on.” Does that involve Blur, we wonder… “Ha ha! The backing singers are
all coming, but this is separate to Blur. We’re in middle of a tour at the moment” – Alex was en route to Russia when we spoke – “and it’s been really good to go to a few festivals abroad and then, anything that they’re doing that I’m not, just grabbing it. It’s a lot of work, putting on a festival: it’s quite a sophisticated beast with lots of
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Well, that’s just showing off...
moving parts. Really good fun, though. I think doing anything well takes all day, really.” And hasn’t Alex, who produced
seven studio albums with the Britpop pioneers, done rather a lot rather well? He’s the songwriter behind Fat Les and ‘Vindaloo’ (who knew?). His truckles are the choice of many a top restaurant across the Cotswolds and the country, and have also won numerous gongs at the British Cheese Awards. Even his flavoured cheeses for ASDA were popular – you could never accuse Alex of being a food snob. He writes (his regular column in
The Sun is a big hit), presents (most recently What a Load of Buzzcocks here in the UK, and a funky food series called Recipes that Rock, which is currently being aired in Australia) and he recently made his directorial debut with short film called A Slice of Life. “We’ve been living here for 10 years,
and I’ve been getting up earlier than I ever had,” he says. “I’ve become quite puritanical really, taking pleasure out of working hard.” And there’s Daltrey just settling for a trout farm…
For your diary The Big Feastival takes place 31 August – 1 September at Alex James’ Farm in Kingham. Tickets are on sale now via
www.thebigfeastival.com or by calling 0844 995 9673. Day tickets start at £50 for adults. Camping, VIP and weekend tickets cost more.
crumbsmag.com
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