Band On The Run
Mixmag, August 2005
A question posed in cyberspace for some cartoon characters: who or what are Gorillaz? A pop group?
"That's a dangerous way to open an interview," grumbles mouthy bass player Murdoc. "But I guess as our songs appear at the top of the charts that makes us 'pop' in some way. But it's not the first word that I would use. 'Devil-shagging' would be closer."
Are Gorillaz the first truly cross-cultural band, drawing musical influences from all over the world?
"Er... don't know what you mean," says awkward, too-cool-for-school frontman 2-D. "We all listen to loads of stuff and we all come from different parts of the world. So that probably comes out in what we do."
Why do children like them so much?
"I'd say there's a childlike creativity with Gorillaz that captures the imagination," offers guitarist Noodle. The Japanese guitarist should know: she's only ten.
Are Gorillaz fans of Oasis?
"I'm more of a 'Roots' man, myself," comes the cryptic answer from hip hop-loving drummer Russel.
This sun-bleached morning in Shepherd's Bush, west London, Gorillaz are something else again. Milling about in the bright - but rat-friendly - back-alley outside a bustling graphic design studio, the three-dimensional Gorillaz comprise a lanky twentysomething American with an afro and ginger facial growth. His real name is Brian, but can call him Dangermouse, the notorious bootlegger behind The Grey Album, that ear-shredding melding of Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. He's Gorillaz's producer.
Then there's Jamie, a tattooed, skinny, rolly-smoking, scaggy-round-the-edges artist in Pete Doherty-style trilby. He draws the band so you could dub him Gorillaz's 'stylist'. The studio location for our meeting today belongs to Jamie. It's called Zombie Flesheaters [sic] (Jamie has a thing for zombies.)
Finally there's Damon. He arrives on a bike, redfaced. "I usually run, but I thought it wouldn't be good if I arrived in my jogging pants, sweaty T-shirt and with a bright pink face." This morning he seems to have been dressed by his five-year-old daughter Missy. Pink-rimmed glasses (he bought them from the shopping centre across the road "a fiver, I always sit on them"), a pink Mini Mouse T-shirt, Snoopy watch. He is the voice of Gorillaz, and the musician who somes up with the tunes. His poky little studio, where he works with a couple of engineer mates, is around the corner. It's called 13. These are the living, breathing, smoking creatives behind this year's incarnation of Gorillaz, the cartoon group dreamt up by cartoonist Jamie Hewlett and Blur frontman Damon Albarn in 2000. 'Demon Days' - their kaleidoscopic second album full of naggingly infectious tunes, lazy beats, dirty funk, apocalyptic visions of "kids with guns", and guest vocals from Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder and actor Dennis Hopper - is entirely their fault. It's also one of 2005's most outstanding electronic long players.
On paper, Gorillaz wasn't that stonking an idea: stoner celeb mates dream up spoof, non-existent group. Partly Gorillaz was a response to an increasingly pop landscape. Partly it was the indulgence of bored, affluent glatmates who split their time between hosting wild parties and sitting on the sofa watching MTV. And partly it was the cheesily low-brow incarnation of high-brow, art-project clever-cleverness. A vanity project, it should have been a disaster. It wasn't. The multi-racial, pan-generational, perfectly conceptualised Gorillaz (no boring drummer in this group; Russel, Gorillaz beatsmith, has a ghost trapped inside him) sold six million copies of their debut album, loads of them in America. They might not be able to tour properly or appear 'live' on Top Of The Pops, but Gorillaz make adroit use of technology. Albarn and Hewlett let fans interact with 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel via cool websites, eye-popping animation and lovely stickers. Music better fun than stinky old guitar music.
Even better, from artistic and business perspectives, these cartoon heroes weren't going to develop crack habits, supermodel addiction, monstrous egos or mutual hatred. "I realised that sometimes I could be a guilty of being a bit too self-conscious in the past,' says Damon. This dawning realisation came after he and Hewlett, friends via former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and both newly single, started living together. "Jamie was really instrumental in weaning me off the whole idea of having to front things. That helped me enormously, losing all that...' As he does countless times during our meeting, Albarn lets the sentence evaporate, as if he's wary of saying something too conclusive. "The struggle [to maintain] a persona."
Midway into Mixmag's shoot the inevitable happens. After our fag break and alleyway chat we've reconvened in the studio to nail today's cover. It's an awkward shoot for our cover stars - almost on a par with a Star Wars prequel as the guys pretend to interract with their imaginary 2D band members who will be illustrated into the photo by Jamie at a later stage. The famously irritable Famon has been on good form all afternoon (Damon is famous for being difficult with interviewers and photographers and one renowned music writer even turned down the chance to interview him because of the grief that it could potentially involve) but Snotty Damon eventually makes an appearance.
After returning from the changing room and taking his place in front of the camera, Mixmag's editor, Pauline Haldane intervenes to ask if Damon can take off his Berber manbag for the shot. "I'd like to leave it on thanks," he replies. Pauline, thinking he's joking, asks a second time, and Damon fixes her with a cold stare, before throwing the his bag churlishly to the floor. "If you're going to be like that you can keep it on," she retorts as a cloud descends on the studio.
Thankfully it's the only blip in the day's proceedings. The Damon Albarn of Britpop moodiness it seems is no longer in the frame. Employing a cartoon band to take the media flak obviously has its merits. "I find it hard posing in photo shoots," He confides. "I've done so many band shoots where people tell you to look moody, it's hard not to be a moody git." "Talk to 2-D he's just behind you," interrupts Jamie. For a second Damon is taken aback by the task, but then launches into a series of funny faces, before grabbing his man boobs and horsing around the set. Proudly non-musical Jamie is Damon's perfect partner. Tattooed, scruffily-dressed and renowned as the creator of take-no-shit cartoon heroine Tank Girl, the cartoonist is the epitome of the underground comic artist, happiest when drawing in the shadows.
Today the band are in stilted interview mode - Damon trails off mid sentence constantly trying to fix his mouth on the points his mind have [sic] already settled on. To some extent their wooliness ma ybe down to the fact that this is one of the rare times all three have sat down and discussed Gorillaz; previous Gorillaz 'interviews' have normally meant emailed answers dispatched from the band's Kong Studios. They could be forgiven for being a little rusty adnd for an increasingly fame-phobic Albarn, talking isn't something he seems all that comfortable with after 15 years in the art rock / Britpop trenches. Gorillaz has allowed him to regain a little freedom, to retreat from the spotlight...
"No, not really. I haven't retreated from anything," he interjects. Escaped then? The old "Escape's... I've just reassessed a few things." Did being in the public eye put pressure on you as a songwriter? "Not really, because I do it all the time. I work on it very much ten to six, give days a week. That's it." It should be pointed out that it doesn't feel like Damon Albarn - chuckling and smoking in the sunshine - is being arsey when he rebuts these suggestions. He just doesn't like being pinned down, or defined. That's why he does Gorillaz.
After the shoot Jamie shows us the new video for 'Dare', starring Happy Mondays legend Shaun Ryder, who sings on the track. In the vid, Shaun's sunglasses-clad head pushes sureally through a metal porthole. "It took 12 hours to shoot and we kept having to prod him to stay away," says Jamie. "He wasn't really there." It's clear both have immense wells of respect for Shaun despite the ravages of his legendary drug-taking catching up with him. 'We've been in the studio and he's done the video for us - that's a lot of hours of working together, but although he knows me he doesn't remember a thing about us working together," says Damon. "I have to remind him of everything, over and over again. It's sad because it still sounds like the old Shaun when he sings."
Although the days of Damon and Noel Gallagher swapping blows in the tabloids are long gone it hasn't exactly been all quiet on the Albarn media front. His many side projects have included an album inspired by the music of Mali, an African country he initially visited as an Oxfam ambassador. He is currently working on a top-secret new solo album - that features a host of unnamed collaborators, some of whom he met during the Mali project. All of which have developed some deep rooted feelings about Africa which unfurled in a tabloid outburst against Bob Geldoff days before Live 8. Does he stand by his comments? "Yes. Only because I know from my own experience how amazing [African] music can be. [Live 8] was an opportunity to educate and we choose to entertain. But that's out culture in a nutshell." If invited, would you have performed? "Well, for the record, I was aksed. But Geldof twisted it 'cause he was caught in a corner and you know, he's a lairy individual like we all are when we're in a corner."
Murdoc, meanwhile, says Gorillaz would have played if they'd been invited. "And I'll tell you, if we had played we would have rocked that place apart. I would have got my mouth a little closer to the mic than Mr.Doherty. weedy. He looked like something from On The Buses." Damon's old foe Noel Gallagher also chipped in to the Live 8 debate. "I don't believe that guys with guitars change a thing. It's all bollocks" he told Q magazine, but does that mean that the pair might actually agree on something? "Well, Noel always says things like that. I think... Oasis..." Damon chooses his words carefully. " I saw them on TV playing Manchester recently. It's become a sort of out-of-season football match hasn't it? The sound of the crowd sounded like football - which I love! But I think they've had to play to that constantly to maintain that level of visibility. And people love them, so that's fine." "But they need to be careful. Everything at the moment is on edge. The [London] suicide bombers came out of Yorkshire. It doesn't take a genius to see the potential for racist bullshit happening up there as a result of that. And football, although it fights endlessly to eradicate those influences, breeds that kind of mentality as well." Jamie, Damon and Brian are done for the day and head to Pizza Express for food. The 3D Gorillaz have done their bit so there's just time for one catch-up with their two-dimensional band members.
What are the benefits of being liberated from the pressures of being 'real'?
"I think bands should follow the path that they feel works best for them," says Noodle. "I think that when people attempt to be "real" you may... run into difficulties."
What does life after Gorillaz hold?
"Never thought about it," replies 2-D."But I doubt I'll end up on Celebrity Love Island. I might put a different band together."
Finally we ask Murdoc what he thinks of Blur.
"Never heard of them."
"That's a dangerous way to open an interview," grumbles mouthy bass player Murdoc. "But I guess as our songs appear at the top of the charts that makes us 'pop' in some way. But it's not the first word that I would use. 'Devil-shagging' would be closer."
Are Gorillaz the first truly cross-cultural band, drawing musical influences from all over the world?
"Er... don't know what you mean," says awkward, too-cool-for-school frontman 2-D. "We all listen to loads of stuff and we all come from different parts of the world. So that probably comes out in what we do."
Why do children like them so much?
"I'd say there's a childlike creativity with Gorillaz that captures the imagination," offers guitarist Noodle. The Japanese guitarist should know: she's only ten.
Are Gorillaz fans of Oasis?
"I'm more of a 'Roots' man, myself," comes the cryptic answer from hip hop-loving drummer Russel.
This sun-bleached morning in Shepherd's Bush, west London, Gorillaz are something else again. Milling about in the bright - but rat-friendly - back-alley outside a bustling graphic design studio, the three-dimensional Gorillaz comprise a lanky twentysomething American with an afro and ginger facial growth. His real name is Brian, but can call him Dangermouse, the notorious bootlegger behind The Grey Album, that ear-shredding melding of Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. He's Gorillaz's producer.
Then there's Jamie, a tattooed, skinny, rolly-smoking, scaggy-round-the-edges artist in Pete Doherty-style trilby. He draws the band so you could dub him Gorillaz's 'stylist'. The studio location for our meeting today belongs to Jamie. It's called Zombie Flesheaters [sic] (Jamie has a thing for zombies.)
Finally there's Damon. He arrives on a bike, redfaced. "I usually run, but I thought it wouldn't be good if I arrived in my jogging pants, sweaty T-shirt and with a bright pink face." This morning he seems to have been dressed by his five-year-old daughter Missy. Pink-rimmed glasses (he bought them from the shopping centre across the road "a fiver, I always sit on them"), a pink Mini Mouse T-shirt, Snoopy watch. He is the voice of Gorillaz, and the musician who somes up with the tunes. His poky little studio, where he works with a couple of engineer mates, is around the corner. It's called 13. These are the living, breathing, smoking creatives behind this year's incarnation of Gorillaz, the cartoon group dreamt up by cartoonist Jamie Hewlett and Blur frontman Damon Albarn in 2000. 'Demon Days' - their kaleidoscopic second album full of naggingly infectious tunes, lazy beats, dirty funk, apocalyptic visions of "kids with guns", and guest vocals from Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder and actor Dennis Hopper - is entirely their fault. It's also one of 2005's most outstanding electronic long players.
On paper, Gorillaz wasn't that stonking an idea: stoner celeb mates dream up spoof, non-existent group. Partly Gorillaz was a response to an increasingly pop landscape. Partly it was the indulgence of bored, affluent glatmates who split their time between hosting wild parties and sitting on the sofa watching MTV. And partly it was the cheesily low-brow incarnation of high-brow, art-project clever-cleverness. A vanity project, it should have been a disaster. It wasn't. The multi-racial, pan-generational, perfectly conceptualised Gorillaz (no boring drummer in this group; Russel, Gorillaz beatsmith, has a ghost trapped inside him) sold six million copies of their debut album, loads of them in America. They might not be able to tour properly or appear 'live' on Top Of The Pops, but Gorillaz make adroit use of technology. Albarn and Hewlett let fans interact with 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel via cool websites, eye-popping animation and lovely stickers. Music better fun than stinky old guitar music.
Even better, from artistic and business perspectives, these cartoon heroes weren't going to develop crack habits, supermodel addiction, monstrous egos or mutual hatred. "I realised that sometimes I could be a guilty of being a bit too self-conscious in the past,' says Damon. This dawning realisation came after he and Hewlett, friends via former Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and both newly single, started living together. "Jamie was really instrumental in weaning me off the whole idea of having to front things. That helped me enormously, losing all that...' As he does countless times during our meeting, Albarn lets the sentence evaporate, as if he's wary of saying something too conclusive. "The struggle [to maintain] a persona."
Midway into Mixmag's shoot the inevitable happens. After our fag break and alleyway chat we've reconvened in the studio to nail today's cover. It's an awkward shoot for our cover stars - almost on a par with a Star Wars prequel as the guys pretend to interract with their imaginary 2D band members who will be illustrated into the photo by Jamie at a later stage. The famously irritable Famon has been on good form all afternoon (Damon is famous for being difficult with interviewers and photographers and one renowned music writer even turned down the chance to interview him because of the grief that it could potentially involve) but Snotty Damon eventually makes an appearance.
After returning from the changing room and taking his place in front of the camera, Mixmag's editor, Pauline Haldane intervenes to ask if Damon can take off his Berber manbag for the shot. "I'd like to leave it on thanks," he replies. Pauline, thinking he's joking, asks a second time, and Damon fixes her with a cold stare, before throwing the his bag churlishly to the floor. "If you're going to be like that you can keep it on," she retorts as a cloud descends on the studio.
Thankfully it's the only blip in the day's proceedings. The Damon Albarn of Britpop moodiness it seems is no longer in the frame. Employing a cartoon band to take the media flak obviously has its merits. "I find it hard posing in photo shoots," He confides. "I've done so many band shoots where people tell you to look moody, it's hard not to be a moody git." "Talk to 2-D he's just behind you," interrupts Jamie. For a second Damon is taken aback by the task, but then launches into a series of funny faces, before grabbing his man boobs and horsing around the set. Proudly non-musical Jamie is Damon's perfect partner. Tattooed, scruffily-dressed and renowned as the creator of take-no-shit cartoon heroine Tank Girl, the cartoonist is the epitome of the underground comic artist, happiest when drawing in the shadows.
Today the band are in stilted interview mode - Damon trails off mid sentence constantly trying to fix his mouth on the points his mind have [sic] already settled on. To some extent their wooliness ma ybe down to the fact that this is one of the rare times all three have sat down and discussed Gorillaz; previous Gorillaz 'interviews' have normally meant emailed answers dispatched from the band's Kong Studios. They could be forgiven for being a little rusty adnd for an increasingly fame-phobic Albarn, talking isn't something he seems all that comfortable with after 15 years in the art rock / Britpop trenches. Gorillaz has allowed him to regain a little freedom, to retreat from the spotlight...
"No, not really. I haven't retreated from anything," he interjects. Escaped then? The old "Escape's... I've just reassessed a few things." Did being in the public eye put pressure on you as a songwriter? "Not really, because I do it all the time. I work on it very much ten to six, give days a week. That's it." It should be pointed out that it doesn't feel like Damon Albarn - chuckling and smoking in the sunshine - is being arsey when he rebuts these suggestions. He just doesn't like being pinned down, or defined. That's why he does Gorillaz.
After the shoot Jamie shows us the new video for 'Dare', starring Happy Mondays legend Shaun Ryder, who sings on the track. In the vid, Shaun's sunglasses-clad head pushes sureally through a metal porthole. "It took 12 hours to shoot and we kept having to prod him to stay away," says Jamie. "He wasn't really there." It's clear both have immense wells of respect for Shaun despite the ravages of his legendary drug-taking catching up with him. 'We've been in the studio and he's done the video for us - that's a lot of hours of working together, but although he knows me he doesn't remember a thing about us working together," says Damon. "I have to remind him of everything, over and over again. It's sad because it still sounds like the old Shaun when he sings."
Although the days of Damon and Noel Gallagher swapping blows in the tabloids are long gone it hasn't exactly been all quiet on the Albarn media front. His many side projects have included an album inspired by the music of Mali, an African country he initially visited as an Oxfam ambassador. He is currently working on a top-secret new solo album - that features a host of unnamed collaborators, some of whom he met during the Mali project. All of which have developed some deep rooted feelings about Africa which unfurled in a tabloid outburst against Bob Geldoff days before Live 8. Does he stand by his comments? "Yes. Only because I know from my own experience how amazing [African] music can be. [Live 8] was an opportunity to educate and we choose to entertain. But that's out culture in a nutshell." If invited, would you have performed? "Well, for the record, I was aksed. But Geldof twisted it 'cause he was caught in a corner and you know, he's a lairy individual like we all are when we're in a corner."
Murdoc, meanwhile, says Gorillaz would have played if they'd been invited. "And I'll tell you, if we had played we would have rocked that place apart. I would have got my mouth a little closer to the mic than Mr.Doherty. weedy. He looked like something from On The Buses." Damon's old foe Noel Gallagher also chipped in to the Live 8 debate. "I don't believe that guys with guitars change a thing. It's all bollocks" he told Q magazine, but does that mean that the pair might actually agree on something? "Well, Noel always says things like that. I think... Oasis..." Damon chooses his words carefully. " I saw them on TV playing Manchester recently. It's become a sort of out-of-season football match hasn't it? The sound of the crowd sounded like football - which I love! But I think they've had to play to that constantly to maintain that level of visibility. And people love them, so that's fine." "But they need to be careful. Everything at the moment is on edge. The [London] suicide bombers came out of Yorkshire. It doesn't take a genius to see the potential for racist bullshit happening up there as a result of that. And football, although it fights endlessly to eradicate those influences, breeds that kind of mentality as well." Jamie, Damon and Brian are done for the day and head to Pizza Express for food. The 3D Gorillaz have done their bit so there's just time for one catch-up with their two-dimensional band members.
What are the benefits of being liberated from the pressures of being 'real'?
"I think bands should follow the path that they feel works best for them," says Noodle. "I think that when people attempt to be "real" you may... run into difficulties."
What does life after Gorillaz hold?
"Never thought about it," replies 2-D."But I doubt I'll end up on Celebrity Love Island. I might put a different band together."
Finally we ask Murdoc what he thinks of Blur.
"Never heard of them."