Alex James was born in Bournemouth in November 1968. He has a completely unmusical background - his father was a forklift truck salesman. Young Alex didn't even attend mussic lessons at school. He now says: "My old music teacher has now been sent to jail for being a buttock fondler, which may explain why I never turned up..." He did learn to play the keyboards, but couldn't afford any. For his sixteenth birthday, he bought himself a bass guitar as a fashion accessory. He actually dared to tape a bass intro of his own onto a four-track demo of badly recorded Fleetwood Mac songs and tried to pass them off as his own band. It worked with most of his gulliable mates until somebody recognised one of the tracks. Alex was highly academic and achieved 13 O Levels, earning him a place at London University's Goldsmith's College. This was where he sparked up a friendship with Graham Coxon, who was also attending the college and lived below him in the student digs.
