Gorillaz's tunes just a little loony
Chicago Tribune, June 2001
In your video for "Clint Eastwood", there seems to be an homage to Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Who's the Michael Jackson fan in the band?
2D: Me, Russel, and Noodle think the whole family is fantastic. Russel likes Tito more than Michael, and Murdoc’s really into John Landis. He wanted to make the video more like a cross between Animal House and The Kentucky Fried Movie, but we reached a compromise with Thriller. He wanted loads of cop cars in our new video but we settled for a big moose instead, I think Mr Landis would be happy.
Noodles, your guitar player, is ten years old. Does that make playing clubs difficult?
2D: No, Noodles is the guitarist in Offspring and he must be about fifty. I bet he’s got knobbly old Keith Richards guitar carrot fingers by now, so that must make it pretty hard for him to play anywhere, I should imagine. He’s really into Stan Lee from the Dickies and Noodle is into Russel’s Stan Lee comic collection from the 70s, so I guess they have a lot in common.
There have been rumours that Damon Albarn, Del the Funky Homosapien, and others - not your band - are actually providing the music behind the band. How do you respond to these rumours?
2D: We make no secret that we’ve collaborated with a lot of people, but it’s the lure of what Russel calls “Our cartoon alter-world” that brings them in. You’re lucky Murdoc's not around for this interview, he hates it when anyone mentions Damon. He says that Damon's just clinging onto the coattails of our success and that now we’ve used him for publicity, the old fart can sod off.
What do you think of Damon Albarn of Blur, whose vocal stylings have been compared to your own?
2D: I don’t agree with Murdoc, in fact, Murdoc never seems to say any of this to Damon's face either. I don’t know why, Damon’s always really nice to me and gives me a lot of encouragement.
Have you heard anything from Clint Eastwood himself about the song that carries his name?
2D: We named the song after the legendary Jamaican producer, it was a toss-up between him and Dirty Harry.
As a two-dimensional cartoon character, what are the challenges of touring in a three-dimensional world?
2D: I was looking at this website the other day, and they were saying that “It would only be logical that the 4th dimension would be an extra axis; crossing the common point of the 1st 3, and forming right angles to all other 3 axes. Of course, this can not be comprehended with human, 3D minds, but it is with this theory that time-space warpage can be explained geometrically, instead of just theoretically.” But I don’t really know what they were on about, you sound like you might know though, that shit's deep.
We hear that you've been dating Sailor Moon, who just had a very public, very explosive breakup with Ben Affleck. How's it going?
2D: You’re getting me confused with Rivers from Weezer, he loves all of that Sailor Moon stuff. Probably something to do with that Hash Pipe they keep going on about.
Bands like *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys are constantly criticized for being cartoons of themselves. Is that offensive to you as a cartoon?
2D: I love the way they all dress up like Aerosmith to convince themselves that they have some legitimacy and to disguise the fact that music is so bland. AJ Backstreet is the best one, he looks like someone going to a Brian De Palma theme party. “Hey Carlito man, I’m AJ Backstreet from the Bronx.” I might be stupid, but AJ is stupider!
2D: Me, Russel, and Noodle think the whole family is fantastic. Russel likes Tito more than Michael, and Murdoc’s really into John Landis. He wanted to make the video more like a cross between Animal House and The Kentucky Fried Movie, but we reached a compromise with Thriller. He wanted loads of cop cars in our new video but we settled for a big moose instead, I think Mr Landis would be happy.
Noodles, your guitar player, is ten years old. Does that make playing clubs difficult?
2D: No, Noodles is the guitarist in Offspring and he must be about fifty. I bet he’s got knobbly old Keith Richards guitar carrot fingers by now, so that must make it pretty hard for him to play anywhere, I should imagine. He’s really into Stan Lee from the Dickies and Noodle is into Russel’s Stan Lee comic collection from the 70s, so I guess they have a lot in common.
There have been rumours that Damon Albarn, Del the Funky Homosapien, and others - not your band - are actually providing the music behind the band. How do you respond to these rumours?
2D: We make no secret that we’ve collaborated with a lot of people, but it’s the lure of what Russel calls “Our cartoon alter-world” that brings them in. You’re lucky Murdoc's not around for this interview, he hates it when anyone mentions Damon. He says that Damon's just clinging onto the coattails of our success and that now we’ve used him for publicity, the old fart can sod off.
What do you think of Damon Albarn of Blur, whose vocal stylings have been compared to your own?
2D: I don’t agree with Murdoc, in fact, Murdoc never seems to say any of this to Damon's face either. I don’t know why, Damon’s always really nice to me and gives me a lot of encouragement.
Have you heard anything from Clint Eastwood himself about the song that carries his name?
2D: We named the song after the legendary Jamaican producer, it was a toss-up between him and Dirty Harry.
As a two-dimensional cartoon character, what are the challenges of touring in a three-dimensional world?
2D: I was looking at this website the other day, and they were saying that “It would only be logical that the 4th dimension would be an extra axis; crossing the common point of the 1st 3, and forming right angles to all other 3 axes. Of course, this can not be comprehended with human, 3D minds, but it is with this theory that time-space warpage can be explained geometrically, instead of just theoretically.” But I don’t really know what they were on about, you sound like you might know though, that shit's deep.
We hear that you've been dating Sailor Moon, who just had a very public, very explosive breakup with Ben Affleck. How's it going?
2D: You’re getting me confused with Rivers from Weezer, he loves all of that Sailor Moon stuff. Probably something to do with that Hash Pipe they keep going on about.
Bands like *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys are constantly criticized for being cartoons of themselves. Is that offensive to you as a cartoon?
2D: I love the way they all dress up like Aerosmith to convince themselves that they have some legitimacy and to disguise the fact that music is so bland. AJ Backstreet is the best one, he looks like someone going to a Brian De Palma theme party. “Hey Carlito man, I’m AJ Backstreet from the Bronx.” I might be stupid, but AJ is stupider!