“They all started running towards me. Couple of dozen. I ran for my life.” How a world-famous Britpop superstar narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd of young raging bulls

(Image credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The music industry can be a dangerous place, and rock 'n' roll history is littered with countless tragedies of gifted artists lost too soon. As far as we're aware, however, only one superstar musician has faced the prospect of being trampled to death on his own farm.

This was the fate that Blur bassist Alex James once faced on his Cotswold farm, according to a story the 56-year-old musician has shared in a new interview with The Times.

Though he doesn't specify exactly when this near death experience occurred, James has a vivid memory of the incident, which occurred when he and his partner started cattle farming on their 200 acres property.

“I was going to Chelsea Flower Show,” he recalls to writer Polly Vernon. “I put on my Versace suit. Walking down to the station - it’s a nice, breezy walk - and the steers [young, neutered bulls] had been moved. I saw them in the corner of the field. Thought, Fuck, the steers are in there. They’re the only things you meet in the countryside that really aren’t scared of you. They just stare straight back at you.

“So they were right in the other corner. I thought, Well, there’s a pond in the middle, barbed wire fence round it. If it does all go to shit, I should be able to make it there before I get trampled to death. And I was exactly halfway and they all started running towards me. Couple of dozen. Weigh more than a tonne, these things. Fucking huge.”

The normally unflappable bassist admits that he “ran for my life”, and details how he ultimately escaped the hooves of doom.

“Put my hand on the fence post, vaulted the barbed wire fence. Up to my knees in the pond in my Versace suit. Completely exhilarated, completely out of breath.”

Asked whether it is more dangerous to be a rock star or a farmer, James is unequivocal.

“Oh my God, farmer,” he says. “Farmer.”

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.