Still monkeying around

After 20 years fronting rock’s most famous cartoon quartet, Albarn happily living in the now

MARK DANIELL

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 fullblown hologram tour featuring the cartoon members of the Gorillaz — the animated/virtual band the Blur musician launched in 1998 with the 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 last year, 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

Did it surprise you that the

Gorillaz came 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 Los Angeles 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.