In 2005, former British Army captain James Blunt scored a number one single in both the UK and US with You're Beautiful, the third single taken from his 2004 debut album Back To Bedlam. The success of the single helped Back To Bedlam sell over 14 million copies worldwide, and seemingly put a few noses out of joint among his peers. For example, when Blunt received nominations in five BRIT Awards categories in 2006, Paul Weller issued a statement saying that he would rather eat his own shit than work with Blunt.
"This caught me by surprise," Blunt wrote in his highly entertaining 'non-memoir' Loosely Based On A Made-Up Story. "I'd never asked to work with him - so it seemed more an excuse for him to eat his own shit rather than anything to do with me."
Two other stars who expressed their disdain for Blunt around the same time were Oasis bandleader Noel Gallagher, and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, who both receive short shrift from Blunt in his book.
The musician also spoke about the two Britpop superstars during an interview with the High Performance podcast last year.
During the podcast, Blunt referenced a 2008 newspaper story, reported by former UK tabloid journalist Gordon Smart in The Sun, that Noel Gallagher had decided to sell his villa in Ibiza because Blunt had a villa on the same island, and Gallagher was worried "about bumping into the annoying-voiced toff". A 'pal' of Gallagher apparently told Smart, "He can't stand the thought of Blunt writing crap tunes up the road."
"What a sad human being," Blunt told the podcast hosts. "It's a big enough island, I'm not asking him to come and see me.
"And weirdly," he says with a smile, "house prices went through the roof the moment he left."
Blunt followed up with a story about Albarn that he still finds "bizarre".
In 2007, the two artists performed on the same episode of the popular long-running BBC TV music show Later... with Jools Holland, with Albarn appearing as a featured artist on the song Feel Free with rapper/actor Kano. Blunt says that, at the end of each show, there is a tradition whereby all the guests on the show are photographed with his Jools Holland, "and Damon Albarn refused to be in that photo because I was on the episode with him."
"His management went and spoke to the producers of the show," Blunt revealed, "and he's a big deal, so they went along with that - which is bizarre too, because they should have just told him not to be such a prick - and so then I was held back in my dressing room... while all the musicians were lined up around Jools Holland for the photo with Damon, and then he was led out to his car, and off he went home, and then I was brought out for the second photo. It's very petty stuff... all of this seemed so childish."
In his 'non-memoir', Blunt writes about how he got a measure of revenge on Blur's frontman at the Q magazine awards later that year, when he was seated at the same table as Albarn, and the pair were both nominated in one category.
"As he sat down, he turned his chair away, and refused to speak to me for the entire three-hour ceremony," Blunt wrote. "When the awards ended, I tapped him on the shoulder, and told him that I thought he was a genius, that I loved his [Gorillaz] album Demon Days, and that I was sorry that he didn't feel confident enough to talk to me. And with that, carrying the award, I left."
Watch Blunt talk about Gallagher, Albarn, and a surprisingly pleasant encounter with the late Keith Flint from The Prodigy below, starting around the three minute thirty seconds mark.
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