Damon Albarn was born in Whitechapel Hospital, East London, on 23 March 1968. His family are his mum Hazel, his dad Keith and his younger sister Jessica. “Blur have all got one sister and no brothers. Funny that, eh? My sister, Jessica, is younger than me. She’s about to do an MA in art. She’s my sister, so any things I specifically admire about her are just dwarfed by the unconditional love I feel as her brother. The relationship between older brother and sister is a weird one. I was like a cross between dad, mate, bastard and total bastard.”
After a few years Damon’s dad was offered a job running an art school, so the family moved to Colchester. Up until then he had been interested in ‘football and girls and fossils’, but he started to turn towards music and drama.
He went to Stanway Comprehensive School in 1979 where he met Graham. They met when they were around 14. They both had an interest in music. “When I was at school, I never had any interest in pop music. Graham was the one who always knew about all the bands.” But they both did enjoy listenig to The Jam, XTC and Madness. Damon spent a lot of his time birdwatching, and instead of playing football like all the other lads, he and Graham would go to the music block and talk about bands. Even then Damon had started to write some pieces.
Even though he was a natural at music, he failed his ‘A’ level music exam, and headed instead to an acting school called East 15. This was a very strict, method acting school and he had to act out the roles of Ayatollah Khomeini, a tramp and a female secretary. Not surprisingly he wasn’t too happy with this and left. He moved on to London and Art school. He moved to London in 1987 and in 1988 Damon started a course at Goldsmiths College in South London. Here he renewed his friendship with Graham. Graham introduced Alex to him.
During this time he played in a couple of bands, including a very embarrassing soul pop duo called ‘Two’s a Crowd’ and he also performed as a mime artist in full make up. His grandad lent him £3000 to make a demo of his songs. By this time he already had worked as a studio teaboy at the Beat Factory Studios in Euston. At night times he was allowed to go into the studios and use it to make demo tracks.
Damon had also been part of a band called Circus with Graham and new friend Dave. When two of the other members left, they invited Alex to join them because he had a bass guitar. They band played around nd eventually got signed to Food records. They called themselves ‘Seymour’ after the book that Damon was reading. And so ‘Seymour’ became Blur.
Damon is a devoted fan of Chelsea F.C. and has had a long-term relationship with Justine Frischmann the lead singer from Elastica. Rumour is that they've split up and that now Damon is seeing Shazney from All Saints. I don't know if this is true