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LOOKS like Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz nearly suffered the same fate as Blur.
The animated band came close to splitting up for good after Damon fell out with chief illustrator Jamie Hewlett. A similar thing happened when Blur parted ways with Graham Coxon in 2002. But now they’re back with an album about the world going “f ***** g nuts”. On the fall-out with Hewlett, Albarn said: “He basically left and I felt upset by that. There was a fallow period in our relationship. I’ve had the same experience with Graham (Coxon) over the years.
“I get the sense that sometimes people like doing their own thing for a while and then joining me further down the road.”
Hewlett, who designs all the band’s visuals, said: “I needed to change my life. I was going a little bit insane at that point. And, yeah we had a bit of a disagreement.”
It was while drunk after a Blur reunion gig that Albarn asked if Hewlett wanted to revive Gorillaz and they’re back this month with new album Humanz.
Damon said: “I told everyone to imagine you’re in America after the inauguration and it’s the worst case scenario: how would you feel that night? Let’s make a party record about the world going f ***** g nuts.”
Being a virtual band means Gorillaz can carry on forever, potentially. “It’s amazing what you can do when your band members aren’t real people,” said Hewlett.
“These characters are a conduit for everything we want to say. Humanz is not a political statement about Trump – it’s a world in which he could get elected. Putting a ‘z’ on the end is not a statement, it’s more like an android Z. Are we human beings or just humanz?”
The full interview appears in this month’s Q magazine, on sale tomorrow. And the new Gorillaz album, Humanz, is out on April 28 on Parlophone Records.