STILL MONKEYING AROUND
After years of fronting a cartoon band, singer is happy living in the now
At 50, Britpop icon Damon Albarn has lived through almost every musical fad.
But the one thing he hasn’t been able to see come to fruition is a full-blown hologram tour featuring the cartoon members of the Gorillaz — the animated/ virtual band the Blur musician launched in 1998 with illustrator Jamie Hewlett — playing onstage in all their glory.
“That’s something we’ve been trying to do since Day 1,” Albarn says. “But we still haven’t found a system that doesn’t compromise the music. That’s the dream — to be able to play onstage with holograms. I just hope I’m a functioning organism when it happens.”
The cartoon quartet — 2D (lead vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, keyboards) and Russel Hobbs (drums and percussion) — averages an album every five years.
But while touring behind last year’s eclectic hip-hop-tinged Humanz — the band’s fifth disc with on stage musicians and a guest list that included Carly Simon, Mavis Staples, Pusha T, Vince Staples, Grace Jones and De La Soul — Albarn found himself immediately sketching out ideas for the next Gorillaz release.
Gorillaz, on tour through the summer in Europe, play two Canadian dates — Toronto on Oct. 8 and Montreal on Oct. 9 — that launch a string of arena dates ahead of their first Demon Dayz Festival outside Los Angeles later this month.
“Coming back to America and Canada is important because it’s such an integral part of the energy of the band,” he says. “It’s nice to see family again and it’s also to say, ‘Thank you very much,’ before we go off to do other things.”
Q When Humanz came out, I remember reading about how you called the album a dark fantasy. What themes were you hoping to explore on The Now Now? A It’s a different level of the same fantasy. It’s within the dark world, but The Now Now finds itself firmly placed in those pockets of light.
Q Are you surprised to come back so soon?
A We always had the thought of doing a festival in the U.S. and then this amazing venue became available outside L.A. and it just sort of seemed to be a nice kind of The Now Now place to play.
Q With song titles like Hollywood, Kansas and Idaho, you recorded a lot of The Now Now in hotels. Why was that?
A That’s something I’ve kind of got adept at doing. I’ve always found with touring that I have an inordinate amount of free time and I always like to keep working. I’ve also developed this sort of tradition where we stay at the tops of hotels and it’s kind of an economic way to keep recording all the time, in a weird way.
Q In addition to the Gorillaz, you have your own solo work, then there’s Blur, who came back in 2015 and the new Good, the Bad & the Queen. How do you decide who gets what?
A If I was going to come and do something again in North America and play festivals in Europe, I knew I wanted to have another instalment of the Gorillaz, so that it’s a new experience. The world you create when you release a new record that’s a really great thing and that’s what’s great about the Gorillaz. There’s always a sense that the band is changing. It isn’t always something dramatic, but the story being told inevitably changes because of the imagery. The two videos that we’ve made for The Now Now are very different and give a fresh take on the ideas of animation and reality. But we’ve come, in a sense, to the end of another chapter.
Q The Gorillaz have been around for 20 years, but when you were starting it with Jamie how big did you think it could be?
A I never really pursued it as a career it just sort of kept going. It’s something that’s really reliant on the dynamic between Jamie and myself. It’s not like any other band. He has his own life and I have my own life and essentially those two currents don’t meet unless we want them to and that’s how the Gorillaz gets created and recreated.
Q Talk about the live show this time. Every time the Gorillaz tour, it’s a really unique experience in terms of the guests you have with you onstage.
A I think you’re seeing a band that has been together now for nearly two years and we’re doing it really solidly. It has funk and it has people onstage who really know how to play well with each other. There are more moments where I’m singing completely without anyone else, but that’s because of the nature of the songs on this record
Q The Gorillaz has had its fair share of guest stars. Do you have a favourite?
A There’s one that I want to pin down to come do a live show with us and that’s Grace Jones. We’ve got close on a couple of occasions, but still to this day we’ve been unsuccessful.
Q I know at one point there was talk of making a movie. Is that ever going to happen?
A There’s always talk about it. When I switch on my Netflix and it’s on, I’ll believe it.
GORILLAZ.COM