Steven Alexander James, FRSA (born 21 November 1968) is an English musician, best known as the bassist of the rock band Blur, he has also played with temporary bands Fat Les, Me Me Me, WigWam and Bad Lieutenant. Music career 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. While he has been in the band ever since, he now describes the experience as "a past-life". Despite 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. Collaborations Unlike Albarn, Coxon and Rowntree, James has not released any solo material, although he has been involved in other collaborative side projects. In 1998, James formed Fat Les with actor Keith Allen and artist Damien Hirst, releasing the unofficial theme song (excluding three others) "Vindaloo" for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, which reached number 2 in the UK Singles Chart. He also worked on side project Me Me Me with Stephen Duffy, co-wrote songs for Marianne Faithfull (appearing in drag playing a double bass in the music video for her single "Sex With Strangers")