Gorillaz: An interview with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett

"He was a cartoonist and I was a musician, we put the two together."  Gorillaz was born. Brut met Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn.

Transcript

00:00He was a cartoonist and I was a musician so we put the two together.

00:18Images and music together, I've always thought that the two things were kind of meant to

00:23be together and when they're done properly, with good music and good images, then it's

00:29really powerful.

00:30We were watching MTV a lot and that was a time when there were a lot of manufactured

00:35bands and we felt that they were all shit and that surely if you manufacture something

00:41then you should be able to do it properly.

00:44So we decided we'd create a cartoon band because there were no cartoon bands.

00:49And it would allow us to do things which you could never do if you were a physical band.

00:59We could experiment.

01:01So we did the first album and a lot of people weren't really believing in it and we had

01:06a lot of negativity from the press and people in the music industry but then it was a huge

01:11success so we did another one which was an even bigger success and then everyone started

01:19working with collaborators and doing animated cartoon videos and then the internet happened

01:25and that's where we are now.

01:28We used to like Mad Magazine, I used to like Chuck Jones animation, Hanna-Barbera, Japanese,

01:35I mean I don't know, I grew up in the 70s so there was a lot of animation.

01:49It's about just indulging our wildest fantasies of which Robert Smith and Elton John definitely

02:09tick that box.

02:13Gorillaz and Elton John and Black together is an unusual mix but it worked.

02:19I mean every tune is a dream come true really.

02:25The point with Gorillaz is that anything is possible I think, I think that's the point.

02:29You don't know where it's going, that's the exciting thing about it.

02:33We first met when I used to work for a magazine called Deadline and we did an interview with

02:39Blur.

02:40I didn't know Damon and we were in a pub getting drunk and Damon showed up and instantly

02:46disliked me and wouldn't really talk to me.

02:48In fact we didn't get on for like 10 years, every time we saw each other we didn't like

02:53each other much and he wasn't, I don't know, we just didn't, we were like go.

02:58We were quite clashed quite a lot but then we suddenly found common interests and been

03:03great mates ever since.

03:05So we didn't talk for years and then we both separated from the women that we were with

03:12and found ourselves homeless and so we decided to move into an apartment together in West

03:18London.

03:19We had a lot of parties, we were like 30 years old, we had a lot of parties for a year, did

03:26some crazy stuff, you know, like you do when you're 30 and then we created Gorillaz while

03:33we were living in the apartment, we were very lucky and you know, hopefully it'll be

03:38an amazing 20 years to come.