DAMON Albarn has revealed that he once got beaten up for wearing a Scotland football top.
In an interview to be published in The Herald Magazine tomorrow, the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz explains that he’d grown up in a family with a very internationalist outlook.
“I didn’t feel any sort of nationalism. I didn’t really understand what it was. I remember when I first went to comprehensive school, Scotland had been in the World Cup in ’78. I bought a Scotland top and went into school, and I got the s*** kicked out of me. I soon learnt about nationalism after that one.”
Albarn now fears that nationalism is on the rise. “Brexit opened Pandora’s box and a lot of things our generation thought we were growing out of …That ignorant racism and bigotry … We thought we were progressing from that. But now it’s been given the platform to continue its dull, ignorant belligerence.”
In a wide-ranging interview the singer also talks about his upcoming new solo album The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, partly inspired by the 19th-century poet John Clare, his upcoming Edinburgh International Festival show and why he keeps turning down TV celebrity talent shows.
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