is an English musician, best known as the bassist of the rock band Blur. He has also played with the bands Fat Les, Me Me Me, WigWam and Bad Lieutenant.
James was born in Boscombe, Bournemouth, and attended the state grammar school Bournemouth School, where he started playing in bands. He credits the Beatles with inspiring him to pursue music: "I was off school with chickenpox when John Lennon was shot in 1980. I spent the week watching a VHS recording of the Beatles film Help!, which was broadcast on TV the day he died. I still watch it once a year. Then I bought a Beatles songbook and a guitar, figured out the chord shapes and started strumming and singing along. I never looked back."
In 1988, James met future bandmate Graham Coxon at Goldsmiths College, where James studied French. Introductions with Coxon's old school friend Damon Albarn and Dave Rowntree soon took place; at the time Albarn and Rowntree were part of a band called Circus.
In 1989, James joined Coxon, Albarn and Rowntree's new band, Seymour, which would later be renamed Blur. He has been in the band ever since, although in 2008 he described the days of being a constant band member as "a past-life".
Almost immediately after this, Blur got together with returning bandmate Graham Coxon to perform at Glastonbury Festival, Hyde Park, Oxegen and T in the Park during the summer of 2009. They also played shows at Goldsmiths College, Essex Museum and other venues around the UK and mainland Europe. Blur headlined a show at Hyde Park for the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. In 2013, the band performed at the Rock Werchter in Belgium, the Spanish and Portuguese dates of the Primavera Sound festival, and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the United States.
