Blur: 'We used to take it in turns to punch each other'

Back in Hong Kong, the place they recorded their album The Magic Whip, Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave speak about falling out and making up, the state of British pop music and why 90s Britpop was a wasted opportunity

Hong Kong in July is usually a disorientating place for outsiders: the suffocating humidity, the density of human our bodies, the mind-jarring collision of east and west. Perhaps the last thing you need once you’ve arrived there, mind fuddled with jetlag, is a conversation with Damon Albarn in full manic movement. One minute he’s speaking about refusing to leave the stage after a five-hour gig with Africa Categorical (“Am I hooked on work? Clearly”), the subsequent he’s revealing his passion for selecting wild flowers. Then he begins talking about fairies ...

“I’ve a home that’s constructed on a bit of land which was a recognised fairy group,” he says, with a straight face, once we meet backstage at the Hong Kong Conference and Exhibition Centre, the place Blur are as a result of play that night time. “We needed to get a fairy lawyer in. When individuals come and keep at my home, they go and provides them an offering simply to maintain them completely happy because we’ve constructed on their land.”