Damon Albarn reveals conversation with Tony Blair left him ‘terrified’

Damon Albarn has spoken about how a conversation with Tony Blair put him off entering a career in politics.

The Blur and Gorillaz frontman gave an interview to the Metro’s Guilty Pleasures column, in which he recalled how he had once seriously considered abandoning his music career in favour of politics.

“Politics is such a murky business. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it when I was younger,” he said.

He revealed: “I even went and had a strategic meeting with Tony Blair before he became prime minister, but that terrified me so much.

“[I thought] ‘I don’t know if this is for me at all. I’m not a politician, I am a musician.’”

Albarn said he still has “strong views” but believes music is a place for escapism, rather than an outlet for his political opinions.

“It can catch people unaware emotionally in a way nothing else can,” he said.

Albarn, however, does touch on pressing issues in his new solo album, The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows.

His song “Polaris” takes its title from the name of the UK’s nuclear programme that ran from 1968 to 1996.

“A big anxiety of my adolescence was nuclear destruction,” he said. “It has now become third or fourth on the list of imminent doom and Armageddon.”

Read The Independent’s review of Albarn’s new album here.

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