Blur’s Dave Rowntree: ‘People think music was better in the old days, to which I say: bollocks!’

Blur drummer Dave Rowntree: ‘I don’t have controversial political opinions. You don’t get to run for office if you have those in the Labour party!’ Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

You’ve just put out a coffee table book of photographs of your early years with Blur. I imagine you didn’t have too many expectations at the time. Why had you stopped taking photos by the time the band blew up?

I told myself that I was not experiencing life, that I was looking at it through the lens of the camera. But what really happened was, after a few years, things stopped being bright and shiny and new and exciting. It was pretty clear that we were going to have a career, that this wasn’t just a 15-minute Warholian burst of fame. I just moved on to other things.