Bananaz (2008) Movie Script
Every dead body that is not exterminated
becomes one of them.
It gets up and kills!
The people it kills get up and kill!
Manhattan is built on a magnetic rock.
And whenever I come here,
I feel really weird and queasy...
and I have to lie down.
I'll be all right after I aclimatize
to the Manhattan magnet.
I'll be all right in about an hour.
For real.
What time did you get back?
About seven o'clock.
And then I spent about three hours
rearranging my hotel room,
because I didn't like the way it was laid out.
And then I had to come down...
and do this press.
Should have come home
when I told you to come home.
What do you mean?
You did your amazing disappearing act.
- You lying motherfucking shit.
- Oh, no, you didn't.
I came up to you and I said, "I'm going."
- I remember. Sorry.
- Yeah, thank you.
I said, "I'm going, 'cause
we've got to work in the morning,
"and I'm a really good boy,"
and you said, "No. I'm staying here."
We have the creators, the masterminds,
the brilliance behind the Gorillaz.
We have Jamie and Damon here today.
So you guys... What's going on?
You have a Gorillaz show, you're doing
a few shows here in the US, right?
Doing five nights at the Apollo in Harlem.
OK. So, how'd you guys...
This is one of the more, like, brilliant,
off-the-wall, amazing music concepts
- that's come up in a long time.
- Right.
What were you doing,
sitting around and all of a sudden,
"Cartoon band. We're gonna
make a cartoon band."
I'm the sort of person who watches TV
and just screams at it all night long.
And then I ended up watching TV
with him, and he's kind of the same,
so we were watching MTV and we were like,
"What's all this rubbish?"
And then... "What's all this rubbish,
manufactured crap?"
So we thought we could probably
do it a little bit better.
But slightly different.
People take themselves way too seriously
in the music business,
so I suppose Gorillaz,
for us, is just a sort of...
is an antidote to that.
Well, how do you guys feel
about stuff, like,
the extreme of what you're talking about,
like American Idol,
- the manufactured...
- All that is a sickness,
and should be...
You know, they need to find a cure for it.
They really do.
Sadly, I know the guy
who invented all of that.
He used to actually work for our manager.
He's got so much money,
and all it's actually given him
is a slight weight problem,
a very, very, very orange skin,
and really bad leather trousers.
It's really... Do you know what I mean?
Now that... that is carma manifest.
A bit of it comes from my nasty little brain
and a bit of it comes from
Damon's nasty little brain.
And it's our little brainchild.
I think the whole thing about Britpop
was that it taught me
that it's very difficult in this country
to be experimental.
People are just bored shitless of being into
Licky or Dicky or Shitty
from, fucking, this new boy band.
He does the backing bit,
she's the one with the tits,
and she goes out with
the other cunt from the other band.
It was the most exciting thing we could
do, and that's all it's ever been about,
is really enjoying and getting
genuinely excited about the possibilities,
not necessarily achieving
anything of our ambitions,
but just going into it with that sort
of sense of wonder again, you know?
About what could be if you got it right.
Success! This is loads and loads of shots,
press shots, really.
2-D. This is the... They've got a gorilla
in the band who plays the bongos.
That's Noodle.
All this stuff to be used for internet sites,
press photos, and, you know.
This is a scenario from one of the comics
for the TV series I'm thinking of doing,
where Murdoc tampers with black magic
and makes pacts with the devil,
and they're filming a video in this graveyard,
next to this vivisectionist's laboratory,
and he does a few little spells
in the back of the tour bus,
and all these zombie monkeys
come out of the ground and attack 'em.
Bit of fun. There's them playing.
I'm dying to get animating, really,
so I can make 'em move.
First ever picture I ever drew of Gorillaz.
The day after me and Damon
sat watching TV in the evening,
talking about it,
the next morning I drew that.
So, 2-D, Russel, Murdoc, Russel, Paula.
Speaking of...
Who the fuck is Paula?
We always wanted to pick up on
some sort of pop-star stereotypes,
and then maybe have them living
the lives of real pop stars.
But then it didn't end up
coming out quite like that,
because they just sort of
took on characters of their own.
I mean, people are always saying, you know,
think that I purposely invented,
like, a black character,
an Asian character
and an English character
so we could appeal to everyone.
But it just came out like that.
When I was inventing Noodle, I was
drawing 17-year-old girls with guitars.
Damon said, "You're always
drawing stuff like that.
"Why don't you do something different?"
And so I just drew a ten-year-old.
It seemed to work.
Murdoc's sort of the...
It's his band.
He sort of put Gorillaz together.
It was his idea.
But he's sort of an ugly,
sort of snaggle-toothed Satanist
who didn't actually get the job
of being the lead singer
'cause he isn't very handsome.
So 2-D got the job,
which is always going to piss him off.
But 2-D sort of looks at Murdoc
as if he's, you know, his savior,
his sort of big pal, his big brother.
And yet he's totally abused him,
he's an absolute cunt to him all the time.
And 2-D seems to be the only one
who doesn't realize this, for some reason.
Has no one told him?
He's just one of those people you tell things,
and it just doesn't seem to register.
In one ear, out the other.
- Don't be a twat.
- Trying to get one in, ain't I?
What are you doing?
Pack this up!
This is what I like to do at work.
Watch The Exorcist and zombies,
Dawn Of The Dead, all day.
I watched three zombie films
in a row the other day,
and made myself feel really depressed.
The animator will do the main body of work.
- I'm talking.
- The main movements and stuff.
Then there'll be a big team of people
who are all there to help
fill in, color, ink, pencil...
"Shit, shit, shit..."
It's not a very exciting process.
It's not sort of like sitting down
in Damon's studio, you know.
He comes up with a great little tune
and everyone goes, "Ooh!"
It's not like that, it's more sort of...
donkey work.
But the finished result will be wicked.
Are we ready? One, two, three!
It sounds great.
Don't it? It's fucking wicked.
What've you done to it?
It's normal.
I'll do another one to make sure, eh?
All right, guys, leave it as it is.
All right, let's just get a...
With an echo on it, yeah?
Come on, come on, Jason! Come on!
You know what I'm saying now.
I think we have to have a few
kind of songs like this, you know?
So we have all this nice dubby stuff,
and then occasionally
we just throw in with a nasty track.
OK, do it in one.
Clearer.
Even clearer.
So this bit in the middle, that's all we need.
It just needs some little thing
in the second verse, on the gaps.
I wonder what.
Fucking wicked.
Fucking great. Yeah.
So what we've got here
is a LA hip-hop producer,
a Jamaican old-school dub bass player,
and a... twat from Leytonstone.
One day a gentleman called
Junior Dan knocked on my door.
And he'd heard me playing the melodica,
and he came in and introduced himself,
and he's a sort of 60-year-old Rasta,
so I...
I was immediately very intrigued
about why he'd be interested
in playing on my record.
It transpired that he's one of
the original Studio One musicians,
and has worked with everyone
from Bob Marley to Augustus Pablo
to Lee Perry to King Tubby.
And from that point on,
this sort of heavy baseline
was sort of appearing on all my tracks,
and then I kind of got sort of 75
per cent of the way through the album,
and then found I couldn't really
go any further.
So I rang Dan up, and he brought some
amazing characters into the picture,
like Del Tha Funkee Homosapien,
and Miho from Cibo Matto.
And sprinkled a bit of
Dan Nakamura fairy dust over it.
And Gorillaz was created.
And your jacket, and your jacket.
And your bag.
And my bag. Can't get my bag in here.
Get your bag in here.
Typical. Two weeks to animate...
They've had eight weeks to choose a song.
Don't you think that's enough time?
What, two weeks to animate a video?
What do you think?
Do you know how long it takes to animate?
Peter can only animate 2-D's mouth
singing the lyric
and his eyes blinking a bit, that's it.
Can't have him moving his body,
can't have him nodding his head.
Can't do anything like that.
We're both in agreement
on what should be the second single.
Well, the first proper single,
'cause this is supposed to be
a low-budget video,
and kind of a small release.
So what's the first proper single, then?
Clint Eastwood.
Russel, he's not based on anyone,
but he's got a lot of the things
that we like about hip-hop
from being sort of outsiders,
and looking into that world, you know?
And we gave him this special power
where he could summon up the spirits
of musicians dead or living.
With Del, he's alive,
but he's got a fear of flying,
so it's necessary to have Russel
as a conduit for him.
But in the future... Sorry, I've got hiccups.
In the future, I think Russel could,
you know, work with anyone from 2Pac
to Vanilla Ice, you know?
I've been talking to Nick Gold
from World Circuit Records,
who handles Buena Vista Social Club,
and Ibrahim Ferrer is gonna come down
and sing on the Latin track,
which is good.
Once it's got the clear track without me,
just feel it, the way that he wants to do it.
It's not my... Once he sings it,
it's not my song, it's his song.
A new phrase.
But a bit more...
It's nice, you know, it's...
73 years old, for a 73-year-old
to try something different for him.
Tom, if he's gonna carry over
onto the second verse,
then whatever the second verse,
it's gonna have to be
on different tracks, OK?
- It worked!
- It's good, though.
This is extremely important, Jamie.
Says he who hasn't got
his fucking trousers on. Look at that!
I wouldn't worry about
putting on funny accents.
Doesn't matter. Not important. This guy...
We're supposed
to be the characters, aren't we?
- We'll just be...
- Be the character.
I mean, a little bit.
You've got to be 2-D,
so you've got to act like him, he's got to be...
They're not going to get it like that.
Trust me.
They don't get it in that way yet.
So it's important...
- in the picture...
- Yeah, of course, it's a serious interview.
And we will answer
all the questions seriously
and try to do a funny, cool interview.
But the characters have characters.
And you have to sort of
portray that character a bit.
- 2-D isn't that smart, so, you know...
- No, sure, sure, sure.
You've got to be a little bit, fucking,
"Duh, what?"
He knows what his character is like,
and I've got to be Murdoc, who's Murdoc.
So I've got to be a bit fucking...
You know. Like Murdoc.
I'm gonna talk like this. "Murdoc here!"
Is that all right? Or is that a bit too...
Hello, how you doing?
I'm very well.
Been waiting for your call.
We thought you'd forgotten about us.
I'm all right, yeah. A bit disorientated.
Hello?
Yeah, who the fuck is this?
What's funny?
Well, we don't fight crime, but, you know...
What? Who the fuck
is comparing us to boy bands?
Have you seen the... What are we? A1?
Hang on a bit.
Some dude,
Damon Albarn's coming in here.
Mark. Hello, it's Damon.
Tit!
"It's not working. I'll be me, I'll save it."
Cheers. Bye.
Just had to explain it to him. It's
all right... -You blew that, didn't you?
- What?
- You totally fucking blew that.
That was going fine, man.
Just 'cause you panicked,
'cause you couldn't think
of anything to say as 2-D,
you had to step in as yourself.
He was doing great, I was doing all right,
we were just easing into it
and you stepped in.
It was almost like you were saying,
"I'm sorry, OK? We're not really real.
"But I'll talk to you."
It was going absolutely fine, man.
- Fine.
- Oh, for God's sake.
He hadn't got it, all right?
This is the first piece.
He's gonna talk about this new band,
great music, great images,
with these characters and the whole thing.
Yeah, but I think we need to get this,
sort of...
- I totally agree with you! My God!
- ..interview over the phone down to a T,
because, you know, we're in...
Jamie, I've been talking about this!
I've spent all that...
- I've been, like, on, you know!
- Stop fucking nagging!
- I'm just saying what I think.
- Can you just understand this? Right.
I'll say this once. OK.
This is an organic thing.
Every week something comes up.
You know, Rolling Stone
might decide tomorrow
that they want to do
an interview the next day, you can't...
That's the level we're working at,
that's why I was saying to you,
how important it is that we get...
You get a group of people who are all
very confident about their characters.
Well, Remi's fine,
and I think we should get Nelson,
'cause he was really good as 2-D.
- Yeah, and I'm sure...
- You two have got a bit of repartee, so...
- Phil Cornwell will be excellent as well.
- Yeah.
But, you know, just to say that I fucking,
you know...
All right, I'm sorry I said you blew it.
You didn't blow it.
- It's fine. It's just, you know...
- Jamie.
I spent years not explaining myself
and just expecting Americans to get it.
They didn't. Americans like you to be nice.
They like you to explain things clearly,
they like to feel that they're...
You know, they don't wanna feel cond...
You know what I mean?
They have a real problem
with English people to start off with,
and the people that do well in America
are the ones that go
and fucking explain it all, you know,
and play the game that they, you know...
The guy got it,
the first thing he said to me,
he said, "I can see how difficult this is,
but I really am into this, you know?"
So I just said, "Yeah, well, you know,
what we're trying to do, you know?"
You know, what else do I do?
"No, fuck off!" You know?
In the time before dark pop, chaos reigned.
From the chaos came Gorillaz.
The nature of Gorillaz was irrepressible.
Their debut album,
featuring the massive hit
Clint Eastwood, is coming.
Judgment Day will be March 26th.
Be enlightened.
- Ready?
- You got it?
- Yeah, you ready?
- Yeah.
- Open your mouth.
- It's open.
It's not open enough.
- Well, if I just...
- You ready?
If I'd had a tracheotomy, you
would have been fucking right in there.
Just got to be cool about this, yeah?
Damon was saying,
"He needs to sound more American,
'cause he's from America,"
but the fact is, Russel's been living in
England for probably six or seven years.
- So he's probably lost a lot of his...
- Right.
And the four years before that, when
he was in America, he was in a coma.
Possessed. So there's a very good chance
that his American accent has slipped.
And it also has to be consistent.
'Cause it... I mean, obviously,
it's hard holding a voice.
It's gonna slip. I mean,
that fucking Nelson, I don't know.
One minute he's 2-D,
the next minute, I don't know!
He's John Inman!
I've got to go for a piss, really badly.
Keep going.
OK, there was a girl named Maria
Who succumbed to a lover's desire
She said, "It's a sin, but now that it's in
Could you shove it a few inches higher?"
How's that?
Back a bit. OK. How's that there?
Russ! Russ! Do it again!
But I just want to explain, you know,
what mood he's in in each one.
- Yeah, OK.
- Well, that one's rubbish.
He's got a steaming hangover
and he's very pissed off.
For the love of sweet Satan, my head!
What is that banging?
Stop that banging! -It's this eel.
Stop it banging! Stop it banging!
I can't catch it!
Look, it's all slippery!
- I can't kill it!
- What do you mean, can't kill it?
I'll show you how to kill an eel!
You grab the damn thing
and melt its face! There!
Melt its face! Melt its face!
Gorillaz have gone tin.
You know, I'd like to accept this
on behalf of no one but myself...
- Gone tin!
- 'Cause I've done remarkably well.
Thank you very much to everyone,
you know, for leaving me alone
and letting me get on with being beautiful.
This is what I got.
- Whenever you're ready.
- Yeah.
He'll let me know when he's ready.
I am the controller,
no, Tom's the controller,
I'm second in command.
Better get my hard hat on. OK!
That... I do that a lot, actually, that...
She's... That... You sound a bit...
Is it...
Imagine Murdoc dressed up
like a fucking Nazi.
- Yeah!
- Looking like a right idiot.
Oh, man, where'd you get that outfit?
You can't go dressing up
as a goddamn Nazi, you cracker-ass.
This thought has never actually occurred
to him. "What do you mean?"
Well, why didn't anyone
tell me it was crap?
OK.
Damon? It's the police. They want you
to stop playing the fucking flute.
It was the best video, so...
sort of me and Peter, really, isn't it?
We should really...
Well, yeah. You said you didn't want...
He's gonna go. No, I don't want to go.
He's gonna go with you,
but he doesn't wanna go up on stage.
Cool.
Yeah. You could just... say whatever.
- Why don't you want to go?
- Huh?
Why don't you want to go?
I don't like going out.
My team are the best.
Fucking great, my team.
Kate's great, Susan's great, Matt's great.
The Watkins brothers.
Everybody's getting it done.
300,000 people on our website,
being entertained,
and we have six people putting it together.
That's a 30-man job, that is.
We've got till maybe after Christmas.
Doing more and more stuff, another
video, another video and a half.
TV shows, live shows, internet site, press,
press shots, merchandise,
the list is just endless.
I've just completely lost my backbone.
My will to draw.
So I can only manage to squeeze out
one half-decent picture a day.
Do you think it's just overkill, then?
That's it, mate. It's finished for me.
Career over!
I can smell them!
How many fucking instruments
you brought with you?
I thought this was showing people
what Gorillaz is about.
It is, exactly. -Right, then,
so I'm gonna play my banjo.
- In the psychiatrist's... No.
- Yeah. Yes.
Damon. No. Damon...
- He's not going to play...
- I am! Fuck you! I wanna fucking...
- If you wanna do things...
- I wanna play my banjo!
You should have said two weeks ago.
Not on the day.
I told you on the day
I'd be having a few creative ideas. You...
You're playing the banjo
in the scene this afternoon. OK?
- That's my jacket.
- It's not a jacket, it's a shirt.
- You gave it to me ages ago.
- Did I?
- Yeah. When I lived with you.
- Keep thinking...
In those days of shared pants.
Shared? Sorry.
That's a bit one-sided, isn't it?
I didn't share any pants.
It got to the point where he was hiding them.
A different place every hour, they'd move.
Became like a strategic cat and mouse.
The thing I didn't understand
is that every pair he borrowed,
I never saw them again.
I said, "Fair enough, we'll wash 'em,
and you can wear 'em again," but no.
They disappeared.
And I'm, like, "Where are they?"
"I dunno." How can you not know
where your pants have gone?
At some point, I just sort of
got this massive urge to play live.
'Cause I just thought
this record would work live,
and I got a set of musicians together.
Some of them had played on the record
and some of them were totally new.
He came in and didn't know the stuff.
I thought we'd have to do it again.
I know, but actually, it's just because he...
Yeah, but fuck it, man,
that was even better.
...'cause he picked it up really fast.
And he's added his own bits,
which is even better.
I think we have a band!
Nice one. Nice band you've got.
- Just gotta get a keyboard player.
- Not half bad.
Gotta get a keyboard player
and then we have a band.
Right, we know when
we're coming in and everything.
You all right? -It doesn't
matter if you get things wrong.
Just be competent about everything,
and we'll progress a lot quicker.
The technology does not exist to do
exactly what we want to do on stage.
So the live show was the one thing
that didn't come easy.
Everything else with Gorillaz, we had
it pretty figured out from the start,
but the live show,
we couldn't quite get our heads round.
So basically, what you have
is a giant cinema screen on stage,
and you have a live band standing
behind the screen, playing the music,
and onto the screen we project
animation and Flash animation,
and images and live action
and just all kinds of stuff, really.
So it's a real experiment,
the live show, it's different.
We're gonna get a little hat
made for Haruka.
She's gonna wear like a sort of a...
like a Chairman Mao sort of zip-up top.
If we can give her a Les Paul
that's not plugged in,
that she can just hold,
she looks like Noodle.
We did it! Yeah, fucking did it!
- We did it!
- Right. Done it.
- Mind the window!
- Knob!
Fuckface!
Ceri. Ceri, are you ready? Yeah?
You won't do it.
Fuck!
Take two.
Yeah, yeah, we're all here.
- OK, everybody.
- Take three!
He'll be doing this with arthritis at 98.
- Take four, is it?
- Four.
Take five is always a good one.
Got to do something, they're going mental.
- Come on, you toerag.
- As you are.
Let's go.
- Classic, man.
- Know what I mean?
Now what the fuck...
Can we go home now, please?
I've really had enough of Paris.
Please? I've had my sandwich.
I've spilt my Bollinger. I want to go home.
Hi. We have Damon from the Gorillaz,
and we're gonna be doing the interview,
we have ten minutes.
- OK.
- So I have him here, we're ready to go.
- Hello. How are you?
- I'm OK, thank you.
OK, you're calling from London?
No, actually, I'm calling from Miami.
Why?
Because EMI thought it would be cheaper.
What are you doing in Miami?
It's ridiculous, really.
All I'm doing is telephone calls.
I've got an idea, though, that maybe
it would be nice to record in Iraq.
- That's Iraq.
- That would be great for your reputation.
Hello? Hello?
Oh, God. I hate doing this so much.
It's just like...
So mind-numbing.
Boring.
Oh, God!
There's, like, 20 radio stations in a room,
and like a free-for-all.
- There'll be other bands there, so...
- Oh, no.
- We're not going to bump into young...
- ..socialize with other people?
- I'm tired of our nemesis young talent.
- What if we start a fight?
- Would that be good?
- Yeah.
- That'll get press.
- No such thing as bad publicity.
- Damon...
- We'll find the bands.
It's the VMA, so anybody
who's in town for this is gonna go.
I don't know if they're all gonna be there,
it's like everyone...
They'll do two-hour blocks.
There's not even much time.
Are we talking bands
we've never fucking heard of,
- or actual proper bands?
- Justin Timbaland's gonna be there.
You know, a mixture of both pop...
- What you gonna change your name to?
- P Diddy.
What you gonna change your name to?
- J Shitty. J Piddy.
- J Weasel.
It'll be great when he goes back
to his original name.
J Weasel. I like that.
J Weasel. Hello. How you doing?
My attitude to this shit is just fucking...
Just to give as little as possible.
You know what I mean?
- So are you gonna share?
- Hell. We're in hell.
We're live backstage at the VMA!
With the Gorillaz! Oh, yeah!
We're going to be interviewed
by the Road Warrior, look.
And now, going round the very sound,
he's forever, Trevor!
We might get fucking Justin Timberlake
suddenly stroll by,
and say, "You been talking about my pants?
I'm gonna kill you, motherfuckers!"
"You callin' me Timbaland?"
"My name's not Timbaland! Motherfucker!
"My name's Timberlake!
And my trousers fit me fine!"
- Where are we going now?
- Oi, you told us that was it?
Well, this is going to...
So, wait a second. Who are you guys?
I know we're really right in the
kind of epicenter of the cattle market.
It makes England look quite sort of mild
and sort of respectable and civilized.
- Plug?
- Plug.
What do you think?
It's good like this?
- The length?
- Let's have a look.
Easy! That's your head.
- It's Remi!
- What's the song, by the way,
that everybody calls in to request and
no one has any idea what it's called?
The title of the song is Clint Eastwood.
What kind of a band would
make it that difficult
for people to know what their song is called?
I wonder if Gorillaz are here.
- Hey, good morning, boys. What's up?
- Good morning.
So, we've got... Damon is here,
we've got Dan here, we've got J Weasel,
and I gotta tell you,
the guy from the company came in,
and said, "All right,
it's a parallel universe,"
and I thought, "All right,
right there, I'm confused."
These guys are not really the band,
but they know the animated
cartoon characters that are.
So if that's clear to you,
then jump on board!
Where is Murdoc and 2-D
and Russel and Noodle today?
Murdoc is lying on his side
having a vodka enema
- with his favorite female nurse now.
- Oh, my God. A vodka enema!
I guess, when you're animated,
you get all the chicks you want.
- You just get all the perks.
- Yeah, you just...
- Never have to pay the next day.
- Whatever you want.
He just gets down on his knees and
just begs Jamie to draw it, you know,
and it happens.
So, what are your hopes for tonight, then?
I hope that we don't win
the fucking best directors award,
'cause I don't want
to get up and pick it up.
I hope we get really drunk and end up
getting in a fight with NSYNC.
- What? Fuck off!
- Are you coming with us?
No, I don't want to speak to you,
you fucking ponce.
- Oi!
- Peace.
Fuck you!
So tell me, what did we do last night?
We won nothing. We were up
for three awards, and we won nothing.
Turning up for the MTV awards
in New York, I think,
- was pretty embarrassing, wasn't it?
- Yeah. Why?
When we walked down the red
carpet... -And nobody cheered?
..everyone went crazy,
and then we realized...
Who was behind us? Destiny's Child?
We kept asking to go in the back door,
and they said, "No, go up the carpet."
We said, "No one knows who we are."
They made us do it, and it just
went quiet when we walked out.
Yeah!
When you did a track with D-12,
Eminem wasn't present, right?
- No. 911.
- That was your...
Yeah. That was your post September 11th...
Day after. And we'd talked
about doing something together.
It just happened that we were actually
booked in the studio the day after.
I had this track which had a sort of...
a certain flavor to it.
And they were up for it.
And then Terry Hall came in
and sort of finished off the choruses,
and it's got a very strong
sort of Middle Eastern flavor to it.
So, hopefully, the whole thing
is quite a sort of...
a peaceful statement.
A balance of all things.
- Crazy.
- Yeah.
That's what I kind of did for you,
you know? The sort of form, you know?
Your style of rapping
will be really nice on that.
Right. What about something...
So that's what we've kind of
brought to the table.
I want to go through that.
You're not gonna be
talking about death every day.
Talking about people on the plane, they
know they're never going home again.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Sure.
The rhythm of it.
Seems like the snare is just like a little bit...
You know what I'm saying?
Kind of slightly earlier, I want to hit it
exact, you know what I'm saying?
- Tighter.
- Yeah, like the snare should be,
like, a little tighter, just the snare.
There's a sound, yeah, like a...
You know what I mean? When it come in.
You know what that is?
No, you don't. When the Fat Boys
was going into the place
before they did All You Can Eat
on Krush Groove,
that was the beat played.
Do you know who used that beat?
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, see?
Yeah! Hip-hop history trivia
with Olivia Newton-John!
..at 12 o'clock. What time is it?
Yeah, the whole point of rap, I presume,
is to express feelings that people are having
but not necessarily you're having, you know?
- You know what I mean?
- Yeah.
And they're all about that sort of thing,
they're pretty kind of
revolting on ocassions,
but they're just... they're
on the Eminem tip
about, I mean, the psyche of the country.
I never knew you could get
that kind of Arabic sort of...
I've never heard you
sing those... like that.
Can you show me something like that?
I've started working
with an Iranian sometimes.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- There you go.
- Perfect.
That's really interesting, you're doing that.
We should definitely... 'Cause I
wanna do a lot more stuff like that...
with future Gorillaz stuff,
because I think, you know,
it's just fucking essential that we start
introducing more of that into our culture,
'cause it's... it's gotta be done, innit?
Do you enjoy doing live stuff with
Gorillaz? Is it as exciting as doing...
It's very different, but I'll tell you what,
I'm looking forward to going to America
with at least some sort of...
sense of...
I don't know, of achievement,
'cause I've been going there
for many, many years,
and I've always felt like,
as soon as I got there,
they were really showing me the door.
Yeah, I got an alternative.
It's getting in the whirlybird there,
find us an island someplace,
get used up and spend what time
we've get left soaking up some sunshine.
So, you guys are finally
playing live in the States?
- Yeah.
- Cool.
Yeah, we lost our original bass player
on the first day.
- Something rather unexpected.
- Basically, we lost our man.
- Is that right?
- Yeah. That's as much as I wanna say.
- What the fuck are we gonna do?
- What the fuck are we even doing here?
- With this lovely stage...
- We don't have a fucking bass player.
We'll be all right, though,
because we have our...
it will sound really cool,
it might sound really cool.
- You never know, it might.
- You never know.
So let's just sort of keep
our sort of morale up.
Oi, there's one other thing,
because it might be...
Oi! All right, listen.
How the fuck do I sing
and play at the same time?
I'm more worried
about you singing that,
playing bass and
holding your melodica up and singing...
Liquidators going on.
It's a bit random here.
Right, gentlemen...
Gentlemen... Ladies, gentlemen...
Drink?
Just get some music back on.
Yeah, just for a minute.
It's nerves. He's new.
He's new in the game!
Can I have something to suck?
Do you want some water?
"Can I have a cock to suck!"
Is that yours?
- And one...
- Fuck!
- Liquidator, yeah?
- Liquidator.
Yeah, Liquidator.
Right, fucking hell!
We've gotta weave this
into our cartoon plot line,
otherwise the real band members
of the Gorillaz are gonna become
so much more knackered
than the cartoon characters.
I'm more interested in the music
and the musicians
than the rest of the fucking bollocks
which I don't give a shit about.
As I told you, anyway, you know?
And you called me a cunt
for saying it. -What?
- "I don't fucking give a shit."
- About what?
- Promoting.
- About promotion? That's fine.
But it's not fair to make
Dan and Jamie do it all, is it?
It's good for them.
How much is the Gorillaz about Damon?
- It's got nothing to do with Damon.
- Nothing at all?
OK, 'cause I heard a lot of people
explaining the concept as,
"You know Damon from Blur?
It's his project.
"It's an animated group."
And his name's always thrown in there.
Yeah, well,
that's what happens when...
You're a megalomaniac
and you try to get in front of everything!
Yeah. Damon's very famous
so, you know,
we try to play him down
as much as possible
'cause at the end of the day
all he really does is play the triangle.
Obviously, you guys are all jokes,
having fun with the Gorillaz.
- No, we're deadly serious.
- You are deadly serious?
We're trying to knock
those NSYNC guys off the charts
'cause then once that happens,
I think Justin can join our band.
Yeah, we wanna destroy NSYNC
so Justin has no choice
but to come and join Gorillaz.
OK, tonight's show,
what will each of you be doing?
Can I just ask, could you recommend
any good lingerie shops in Toronto?
- Laundry?
- Not laundry, lingerie.
- Lingerie, oh!
- Where do you shop for lingerie?
I don't like lingerie.
I don't get the point.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- But it feels so nice on your skin.
- I don't know! I've never worn it!
I'll ask you about it.
How does it feel on your skin?
- Silky.
- Is it silky? Yeah? OK!
OK, but back to tonight's show.
What are you each gonna be doing?
I'm gonna be walking around
in my lingerie!
- Fuck off, you fucking...
- Don't leave the door open, then!
Don't fucking come
and have a look at me, then!
- Just talking...
- Yeah.
I'm just having a chat
with my fucking pal!
- What?
- Oi, pervy!
- Who's "Me"?
- Roberto.
I can't let you in, Roberto.
It's embarrassing.
Did your mother ever tell you
not to turn your back
on someone while he's taking a shit?
- What do you wanna do?
- Let's do the whole set.
- Do the whole set?
- The whole set.
- Yeah, we'll do the whole set.
- No, bullshit!
Do the whole set
and see where the holes are.
We're back, we're back.
- We're back.
- We are officially back!
In the middle of the show,
somebody actually said to me,
"This is kinda like Pink Floyd
for the next generation."
Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett
or Pink Floyd without Syd Barrett?
I don't know. The big pig with those
wires and you know what I mean?
The assault on the senses that,
you know...
Well, no disrespect to Pink Floyd
but, you know, we've got tunes.
Look at the tache!
- It's good. You've gotta leave it.
- Yeah, man.
Fuck off!
You've got to keep it like that
for one gig.
There were some really big screamers
out there, weren't there?
They were going mental
from your silhouette.
My silhouette...
- It's the shave.
- It's the shave!
So what other ideas
have you had for Gorillaz?
Is it a continuing project
or is this the conclusion?
- Another album?
- Yeah.
- Really?
- Mm-hm.
Damon, how are you gonna fit this in?
I'm going to Africa and then Mongolia,
then coming back,
finishing the Blur album...
It's like you were rocking then
when you started to say all that...
He's the Indiana Jones
of pop, isn't he?
And then we start
working on this again.
The day I woke up
and realized that being a musician
was about music and nothing else,
my whole life got a lot simpler...
I recommend it to anybody
who's involved in music.
Just concentrate on the music
and everything will sort itself out.
Damon had the idea
that the next album
should be presented differently.
- What, the soundtrack?
- Yeah, the score.
But not like any normal soundtrack.
That would really be fucked up!
It could be a soundtrack
with pop songs.
The next stage of this,
really for us,
is right back to the attitude
we had with this one,
which was like...
We're gonna have
to convince everyone again.
That's what we thrive on.
That's why we make really good stuff.
You have to go into the wilderness,
so to speak, really,
to come up with really good ideas
and then you come back.
If I'm like that... got it like that...
I reckon that'll be all right.
Listen, you've gotta try these things.
It won't be too loud in my ear,
though, will it?
Yes, mate. It'll definitely...
ear off your head, yes.
- Do you think it'll feed back as well?
- Obviously.
OK.
Fucking hell!
You know when they come out
with a new eyeliner,
they don't necessarily test it
on rabbits, do they?
'Cause it's already been tested.
You know what I'm saying, dude?
- Yeah, yeah.
- You know what I'm saying?
Well, do you?
- Are you wearing lipstick?
- Fuck off!
Cunt!
Look, if you're gonna try
and do something, right,
that is a bit of cartoon magic,
you've got to be somewhere,
you know.
- You can't...
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Can you cope with that, Tim?
- That one? Yeah.
Well, he's already on the net.
It's so nervy using producers.
You get it right, it's a breeze.
You get it wrong, it's hell on earth.
Yeah, but last time
we didn't know that with Dan either.
- I know.
- And it just happened to work.
You've got to make
some sort of calculated risk.
But I always like the idea of
just adding something to what we do
and then adding a bit to it
so it's a joint...
It has to be a co-production,
whoever it is.
Yeah. I know, of course, yeah.
Exactly.
I think you've pretty much taken...
A lot of the songs
are pretty much there, anyway.
It was almost quite loose
on the last record as well, I think.
Yeah, but I think I've got some...
- That's what I'm saying...
- If I don't mind saying so myself!
No, but it feels much tighter.
There's fantastic stuff in there
and I haven't really started on it.
That's what I mean. It feels much
harder, much tighter on this already,
from what I'm hearing.
That's just the musicianship's
improved a bit, you know?
- A bit?
- Yeah.
Not enough to put on...
you know, on your passport,
"Occupation: Musician" but...
We're getting there.
I was born in Whitechapel Hospital.
OK. Fair enough.
I was born in fucking... hell!
Could you hold that
while I light my cigarette, please?
- Could you roll me one as well?
- Yes, of course.
If you hold that for me
because I'm not an octopus!
- Don't be daft!
- Let me just have a sip.
Don't be spilling coffee all over my
fucking nuts before we get to the shoot!
Just relax. Learn how to relax.
I am relaxed,
except for when I'm with you.
When I'm not with you, people
think I'm on Valium, I'm so relaxed.
I'm like all the bones have been
removed from my body. I'm like...
As soon as I get near you...
See! Look, this...
I'm not happy about this!
You've just got to believe
it's gonna be all right.
That's that laugh.
Yeah, something like that.
Do you know where
that laugh came from?
You just laughing at the music
that was happening that day.
You were just laughing at it.
'Cause it was making you feel like that.
You, too, though.
You were making me laugh, too, though.
Your mannerisms. You're funny, man!
You really make me laugh!
You, too, though.
No, you, in the day...
You're different in the day
than you are at night.
That's 'cause I'm sober in the day.
Are you really?
They had recorded
a bunch of stuff already.
All played like he did first time.
And when I sat and listened to it,
a lot of it was great.
Then the first single we worked on
was Dirty Harry.
We got along and it worked out OK.
He's our greatest rapper.
Even though it's...
You know, people like
The Streets and thing...
would never ever have happened
if he hadn't...
He did those...
It starts with Ian Dury
and then it's Shaun Ryder,
and then everything after that
is a composite of those two things.
If you can pull this off, then you've
really earned your producer stripes.
You really have.
- I don't know.
- No, you really have.
If you can do this,
then you really have.
You can work with anyone.
I don't really remember doing this,
you know.
Am I...? Am I doing this all in one take
or am I doing my vocals again?
No, we're doing one take live.
'Cause I don't know what the lyrics are.
Just make 'em up!
- Get an album copy.
- I have no lyrics! It's all made up!
No, we're not gonna
do the vocals again.
I know!
- You don't know what the lyrics are?
- No!
That's a problem, really.
- Sorry about this.
- He's not done his homework!
- What are we doing?
- We're doing a take.
We're actually now ready
for doing takes, so...
Well, shouldn't there be
someone singing?
- Yeah, there should but...
- He doesn't know the lyrics.
We were saying that "castrophony"
could actually be
a whole new word that you've created
and maybe we should leave it in.
That's what's...
Of course it's staying in there.
Don't pull that face!
We're just saying you created that word!
I deliberately created
a new word called "castrophony".
- Castrophony.
- Castrophony.
Then there came a sound,
distant at first,
that grew into a castrophony.
So immense,
it could be heard far into space.
OK, now... now...
But we just want you to say it how
you'd say it. Do you know what I mean?
Once upon a time,
at the foot of a great mountain,
there was a town where the people
known as Happy Folk live.
Their very existence,
a mystery to the rest of the world,
obscured as it was by great clouds.
Here they played out
their peaceful lives...
I'm so nervous
I can't smoke my fucking joint!
Can I have a light off someone?
Fucking come on! Fucking...
- Calm down, mate.
- I can't.
You've gotta ask, ain't you?
"Spirit of the mountain called Monkey,
was enough."
You know when it moves to a...
That sort of spooky,
Morricone kind of thing...
That's when the camouflage,
that's when the strangers...
Yeah, I think that's...
"Then one day, strange folk..."
If we could get to that and then
when that starts, then this bit starts, so...
For the first time,
the Happy Folk felt fearful
for they knew that soon the monkey
would stir from its deep, deep sleep.
Then there came a sound,
distant at first,
that grew into a castrophony.
So immense
it could be heard far away in space.
There were no screams.
There was no time.
The mountain
called Monkey had spoken.
There was only fire.
And then... nothing.
That's it. That's your lot.
End of album, boys.
OK, gentlemen, thank you very much.
- It's been lovely knowing you and...
- Bloody hell!
It'll have to be sung a cappella.
What?
Jolly good!
Yes.
Well, anyway, the best of luck
to you all and bye-bye.
Demon Days,
the new album from Gorillaz,
featuring the single Feel Good Inc.
Out now.
I bet Keith Richards
doesn't have to do things like this.
Fucking...
The NME are just...
Just absolute...
The NME are...
And the editor of the NME is a...
And all the journalists
who write on the NME are...
It's like fucking, you know,
either get behind us
or don't bother, you know?
So what have they done?
Just rewritten Cas's interviews,
edited out...
Asked him loads of venomous questions
and he's written loads
of very funny answers as Noodle.
Then they've edited them
and rewritten them
to make themselves look
like a bunch of smart-arses,
which they're not,
'cause they're a bunch of...
who change their opinion
every week.
We're supposed
to be doing a cover with them.
They wanna do a Dirty...
When Dirty Harry comes out as a single,
they wanna do it as a cover.
I don't know if I really wanna
even have my artwork
on the front of the NME.
It can't really help you sell
that many singles any more, can it?
Being on the cover of the NME
must mean absolutely fuck all,
especially when you're in the top five
in America with your album.
What's the NME gonna do for you?
Sell you an extra five copies
to a couple of Razorlight fans?
Maybe we should just not bother
'cause they're...essentially, aren't they?
Did I say that, Glyn? Did I tell you
I thought they were all...?
Yeah!
You're preaching to the converted.
Anyway, I need to get on now.
I can feel his beady eyes
on the back of my neck
while I'm trying to draw!
Here, look, Ceri, look.
This is what the editor
of the...is.
Oh, yeah. You get me?
Sorry, I thought Dirty Harry
was the first single
'cause it got out
onto the internet very quickly.
That started off on an album I made
on the last Blur tour
called Democrazy,
which was just all on four-track.
It was a whole record,
totally unfinished.
Just the first sort of scratchings
that you make in hotel rooms
when you're on tour.
I left it like that.
I never developed it.
That's how Dirty Harry started.
So you get that sort of Arabic music
and then you hear that...
And that sort of scream sound
as you're raising up.
Then... you throw it off
and, bang, you start.
OK, no problem.
As the rap goes on, you probably
start to calm down a bit more
because in the end of it,
all I wanna do is dance.
- And you're sort of like that.
- OK.
Would it be nicer if he, like,
comes out of the hole and does that?
And then he's here
and then he's on top of the truck
and then by the side of it
like he's a phantom that
keeps appearing in different places.
If we're gonna get the truck in it,
we might as well...
He could be on top of the truck
and we could be looking up,
then he could be
down with the camera...
- OK, are you ready?
- Let's go.
Walk this way.
This is the point of the day
where we bury
our featured artist in the desert.
Are you all right under there, Bootie?
- Can you hear us?
- Yes.
A tiny little voice under the sand.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Cut it.
'Cause I was like this,
it was kinda hard for me to...
- Yeah.
- I can't use my legs to...
If I can... If I can sit like this...
- In the bag!
- In the bag!
In the bag!
- Well done, mate.
- Thank you, thank you!
We're trying to create something
that has no references to,
kind of, rock music whatsoever.
It's more like a sort of...
a film score revisited...
..you know, with some reference points
of the film around it.
But it's, kind of, very much
a program of music.
This gives you an idea
of the stage set.
A normal theatre stage, huh?
No, no, but for some reason I just...
envisaged a slightly bigger...
width to it,
not necessarily depth.
Look at it.
You can see the depth
from round this side.
I don't think it's big enough.
Do you want to come
and look round the side here, Damon?
Damon, come and have a look
round this side.
You can look all down that side you
like. This is... This is it, innit?
It's there to there.
There's your stage. Curtains. Pit.
Screen hanging... Well, forget the screen.
That's up in the sky.
But here's some colored panels
at the back.
Band in front of them.
And then you've just got the whole
thing here for a choir, strings.
With its glossy floor
so you get the colored reflections.
My initial thoughts were let's try
and make an interesting-looking stage
but fuck it, let's just have everybody
on the same level.
- You right at the back.
- Yes.
We have some panels
that flash on and off at the back
but you'll be
a smaller silhouette at the back.
You'll be less...
And then you've got your choir here.
You can have
all of the strings on stage.
- All the choir's on stage.
- I'm happy with that now.
- Good.
- That's really easy.
I'm ready. All right.
That's the sequence.
I said good luck!
- Oh, right. Are you off, then?
- I'm going down the pub!
It's you who's been sick, is it?
No, it's not me!
It's just the smell, innit?
We need to get
that smell out of the fucking...
Someone's been
puking up in there, man!
What the fuck? Come on!
I'm gonna be sick, man!
I can't deal with that!
Yes, ginger bollocks, out!
- It's the best show in town, mate.
- Yeah.
- Saw a few reviews, it's great.
- It's brilliant! Brilliant!
Two nights down... Sorry,
my head's a bit all over the place.
What was it like just being on stage
for three and a half minutes
and you've done your set?
It's beautiful,
like, for us to walk off
and then someone try to hand us a towel.
It's, like, funny!
You know, we do two hours, like,
and you're handing me a towel
after being on stage for three minutes?
Keep your towel, man!
What a day, hey? What a day!
You know, you set the agenda there,
which was fantastic.
It's another "wow", really,
in a series of "wows"!
I wanna get out of here
before Sean Paul's posse come out
and start giving me this.
What does that mean?
It means they're gonna stick
three fingers up your arsehole.
Hey, you!
I'm gonna go like this.
Yeah? Fucking come on!
Congratulations.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Let's do the Shopping Channel!
One more! Yay!
He killed 'em! He killed 'em!
We got the world in our hands,
we got the world in our hands!
On the phone with us right now,
it's Damon from Gorillaz.
- Hey, Damon, good morning.
- Good morning.
I heard you guys had a long night
getting into the States.
- Pardon?
- Oh, no, nothing.
What are you trying to say about me?
Yeah, you just flew in.
Is that right?
- Yeah, I flew in last night, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
All right, Damon,
so I guess my first question is...
But how on earth am I gonna get here
unless I have a long flight?
You've had a long flight...
Unless you've invented
a new form of travel.
You've had a long flight.
I just wanted to see
you got through this. Whatever!
Well, I... you know...
- I'm Dr Lundy.
- Right.
I have four children who have come
from my congregation in New Jersey.
And we were invited.
I was just told
to show up at three o'clock
with some kids that could sing.
And I did. When I heard the words,
which was my first time,
I was shocked.
I was like, "Wait. Am I hearing this?"
So I asked if I could see the words
and I was about to bring them out
and I was told, "Let me explain."
So could you help me understand why
does it have African-American males
in the context of New York,
at the Apollo, no doubt,
singing, "I need a gun
to keep me from harm"?
No, it's "to keep myself among."
"To keep myself among
the poor people
who are burning in the sun."
- That says harm.
- No, that's not the lyric.
See, then, that's something different.
That's not the lyric at all.
It's says, "I need a gun to keep myself
among the poor people
who are burning in the sun."
- Say the last word again. "The mong"?
- It's among.
Among!
- A-M-O-N-G.
- Among.
That one word
makes a major difference.
Well, it's not harm.
That's bureaucracy going...
- That's what the kids are singing.
- They're singing the wrong...
And I don't know why...
Wayne, he's done it in England
with kids of similar ethnic backgrounds
and it was recorded in Atlanta
with purely...
- African-Americans.
- Exactly.
So its origins are already amongst...
But when you say that word...
Just for you to change
this word from harm to among...
- Why have you got "harm" on there?
- He didn't write these lyrics!
I know, but...
That's never... That's not.
It's "I need a gun
to keep myself among."
It's a kind of rhetorical thing.
It's an anti-war song.
If you look at Bootie Brown's,
the lyrics...
It's utterly and totally anti that. It's pacifist.
The whole record is a pacifist record.
What's the gun here?
The gun... The gun is...
I suppose I see the gun
and I use it throughout the record
as a strong kind of...
It's such a...
It is such a negative image
that it has to be
somehow sort of destroyed
and turned into something else.
Do you know what I mean?
And that's all
I'm trying to do in the record.
That's why I'm being
very, very upfront
and, yes, using a kids' choir
on the record, it is...
But, you know, to be honest with you,
you're the first people
who have actually,
who have even
really thought about it...
- I find that very shocking.
- But, well...
My mother finds it shocking
that I make these records
and no one seems to kind of
understand that there's this.
And I'm...
I'm sure if I lived in the UK,
I could get more
of an understanding of it.
But I wrote this song...
The situations that happen here
and the way that the kids
use weapons here...
Yeah, but we have it in Britain.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't watch the BBC News too much.
We have it in Britain.
We have kids in schools with guns.
It's exactly the same. Really.
You know, there's no difference.
Yeah, I think what I hear you saying
is that it's almost the dichotomy
between dark and light.
Exactly.
The album is called Demon Days.
These words! OK, I get you.
I know but you've got to understand I...
- I'm not...
- I do.
I want a hug! Thank you.
Thank you for your work.
Where's Damon?
I've been stressed out, man!
I mean, really, seriously.
I mean, I've never gone on... I'm never...
I love music but, man, I've never...
Except for this one thing
when I played Sinatra,
have I ever even thought
about performing a song.
Much less, you know,
I can't sing a note.
But this is like,
you know, it's just a, yeah...
- Do you want to work out that tune?
- Sure. Let's try it one more.
Look at that hawk.
Just look, just look, just look.
Just look at it.
Oh, great!
- Looking for a meal, are you?
- Yeah!
So that should do it, man.
I don't think you need to devote
any more of your stress to this, OK?
Really, it's gonna be great.
It is, it is.
And I hope you have a fantastic
night tonight and really enjoy it.
Hopefully, you'll be itching
to get on that stage and do it.
Damn right!
I'm in the Apollo Theater, man!
It's like every-fucking-body
who was ever anybody!
And they've got this lucky tree stump
which they kind of carry around.
It's wonderful. You just touch...
You can stick your head in it
and it's just...
There's a sound in there
that's a very unique sound.
It's a beautiful place. I love Harlem.
I love the feel of Harlem.
I lived there for...
I lived there for almost a year.
A dancer
that I knew in the early '50s...
A very quiet reflection!
A very good stay!
- Oh, no!
- Yes!
Oi, there's fucking kids in the car!
I was wrong about that.
That's actually a brilliant T-shirt.
It says everything
you need to know instantly.
You've won it!
- Stop.
- Fuck that off, Chris.
Ceri, you really
should wear some clothes.
I keep telling you this
when we're filming.
Yeah, we've put up with it
for a long time.
You fucking stinky cunt!
Why did you do that in our one?
Where shall I do it? The girls'?
We've got to go on stage!
Fucking two pounds of ginger turd!
Ginger turd!
No, 'cause I'm gonna be sick
and if I'm sick,
then it ruins my vocal cords!
In Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em...
It's show time!
It's fucking...
That's not me, that's him there!
Oh, fuck off! You just
literally crapped your pants
in front of everyone
and go "That's not me!"
I can't take it, so it's not my smell!
It's natural!
I can't take it!
Great singing.
We'll come down
to where she was standing, OK.
- Thank you.
- OK.
- Thank you, Ceri.
- Thank you.
- What's up?
- What?
Something I've been working on
for the last six years.
What, smoking?
Subtitle ripped and processed by
Contaminator
Originally published 18/03/2014
becomes one of them.
It gets up and kills!
The people it kills get up and kill!
Manhattan is built on a magnetic rock.
And whenever I come here,
I feel really weird and queasy...
and I have to lie down.
I'll be all right after I aclimatize
to the Manhattan magnet.
I'll be all right in about an hour.
For real.
What time did you get back?
About seven o'clock.
And then I spent about three hours
rearranging my hotel room,
because I didn't like the way it was laid out.
And then I had to come down...
and do this press.
Should have come home
when I told you to come home.
What do you mean?
You did your amazing disappearing act.
- You lying motherfucking shit.
- Oh, no, you didn't.
I came up to you and I said, "I'm going."
- I remember. Sorry.
- Yeah, thank you.
I said, "I'm going, 'cause
we've got to work in the morning,
"and I'm a really good boy,"
and you said, "No. I'm staying here."
We have the creators, the masterminds,
the brilliance behind the Gorillaz.
We have Jamie and Damon here today.
So you guys... What's going on?
You have a Gorillaz show, you're doing
a few shows here in the US, right?
Doing five nights at the Apollo in Harlem.
OK. So, how'd you guys...
This is one of the more, like, brilliant,
off-the-wall, amazing music concepts
- that's come up in a long time.
- Right.
What were you doing,
sitting around and all of a sudden,
"Cartoon band. We're gonna
make a cartoon band."
I'm the sort of person who watches TV
and just screams at it all night long.
And then I ended up watching TV
with him, and he's kind of the same,
so we were watching MTV and we were like,
"What's all this rubbish?"
And then... "What's all this rubbish,
manufactured crap?"
So we thought we could probably
do it a little bit better.
But slightly different.
People take themselves way too seriously
in the music business,
so I suppose Gorillaz,
for us, is just a sort of...
is an antidote to that.
Well, how do you guys feel
about stuff, like,
the extreme of what you're talking about,
like American Idol,
- the manufactured...
- All that is a sickness,
and should be...
You know, they need to find a cure for it.
They really do.
Sadly, I know the guy
who invented all of that.
He used to actually work for our manager.
He's got so much money,
and all it's actually given him
is a slight weight problem,
a very, very, very orange skin,
and really bad leather trousers.
It's really... Do you know what I mean?
Now that... that is carma manifest.
A bit of it comes from my nasty little brain
and a bit of it comes from
Damon's nasty little brain.
And it's our little brainchild.
I think the whole thing about Britpop
was that it taught me
that it's very difficult in this country
to be experimental.
People are just bored shitless of being into
Licky or Dicky or Shitty
from, fucking, this new boy band.
He does the backing bit,
she's the one with the tits,
and she goes out with
the other cunt from the other band.
It was the most exciting thing we could
do, and that's all it's ever been about,
is really enjoying and getting
genuinely excited about the possibilities,
not necessarily achieving
anything of our ambitions,
but just going into it with that sort
of sense of wonder again, you know?
About what could be if you got it right.
Success! This is loads and loads of shots,
press shots, really.
2-D. This is the... They've got a gorilla
in the band who plays the bongos.
That's Noodle.
All this stuff to be used for internet sites,
press photos, and, you know.
This is a scenario from one of the comics
for the TV series I'm thinking of doing,
where Murdoc tampers with black magic
and makes pacts with the devil,
and they're filming a video in this graveyard,
next to this vivisectionist's laboratory,
and he does a few little spells
in the back of the tour bus,
and all these zombie monkeys
come out of the ground and attack 'em.
Bit of fun. There's them playing.
I'm dying to get animating, really,
so I can make 'em move.
First ever picture I ever drew of Gorillaz.
The day after me and Damon
sat watching TV in the evening,
talking about it,
the next morning I drew that.
So, 2-D, Russel, Murdoc, Russel, Paula.
Speaking of...
Who the fuck is Paula?
We always wanted to pick up on
some sort of pop-star stereotypes,
and then maybe have them living
the lives of real pop stars.
But then it didn't end up
coming out quite like that,
because they just sort of
took on characters of their own.
I mean, people are always saying, you know,
think that I purposely invented,
like, a black character,
an Asian character
and an English character
so we could appeal to everyone.
But it just came out like that.
When I was inventing Noodle, I was
drawing 17-year-old girls with guitars.
Damon said, "You're always
drawing stuff like that.
"Why don't you do something different?"
And so I just drew a ten-year-old.
It seemed to work.
Murdoc's sort of the...
It's his band.
He sort of put Gorillaz together.
It was his idea.
But he's sort of an ugly,
sort of snaggle-toothed Satanist
who didn't actually get the job
of being the lead singer
'cause he isn't very handsome.
So 2-D got the job,
which is always going to piss him off.
But 2-D sort of looks at Murdoc
as if he's, you know, his savior,
his sort of big pal, his big brother.
And yet he's totally abused him,
he's an absolute cunt to him all the time.
And 2-D seems to be the only one
who doesn't realize this, for some reason.
Has no one told him?
He's just one of those people you tell things,
and it just doesn't seem to register.
In one ear, out the other.
- Don't be a twat.
- Trying to get one in, ain't I?
What are you doing?
Pack this up!
This is what I like to do at work.
Watch The Exorcist and zombies,
Dawn Of The Dead, all day.
I watched three zombie films
in a row the other day,
and made myself feel really depressed.
The animator will do the main body of work.
- I'm talking.
- The main movements and stuff.
Then there'll be a big team of people
who are all there to help
fill in, color, ink, pencil...
"Shit, shit, shit..."
It's not a very exciting process.
It's not sort of like sitting down
in Damon's studio, you know.
He comes up with a great little tune
and everyone goes, "Ooh!"
It's not like that, it's more sort of...
donkey work.
But the finished result will be wicked.
Are we ready? One, two, three!
It sounds great.
Don't it? It's fucking wicked.
What've you done to it?
It's normal.
I'll do another one to make sure, eh?
All right, guys, leave it as it is.
All right, let's just get a...
With an echo on it, yeah?
Come on, come on, Jason! Come on!
You know what I'm saying now.
I think we have to have a few
kind of songs like this, you know?
So we have all this nice dubby stuff,
and then occasionally
we just throw in with a nasty track.
OK, do it in one.
Clearer.
Even clearer.
So this bit in the middle, that's all we need.
It just needs some little thing
in the second verse, on the gaps.
I wonder what.
Fucking wicked.
Fucking great. Yeah.
So what we've got here
is a LA hip-hop producer,
a Jamaican old-school dub bass player,
and a... twat from Leytonstone.
One day a gentleman called
Junior Dan knocked on my door.
And he'd heard me playing the melodica,
and he came in and introduced himself,
and he's a sort of 60-year-old Rasta,
so I...
I was immediately very intrigued
about why he'd be interested
in playing on my record.
It transpired that he's one of
the original Studio One musicians,
and has worked with everyone
from Bob Marley to Augustus Pablo
to Lee Perry to King Tubby.
And from that point on,
this sort of heavy baseline
was sort of appearing on all my tracks,
and then I kind of got sort of 75
per cent of the way through the album,
and then found I couldn't really
go any further.
So I rang Dan up, and he brought some
amazing characters into the picture,
like Del Tha Funkee Homosapien,
and Miho from Cibo Matto.
And sprinkled a bit of
Dan Nakamura fairy dust over it.
And Gorillaz was created.
And your jacket, and your jacket.
And your bag.
And my bag. Can't get my bag in here.
Get your bag in here.
Typical. Two weeks to animate...
They've had eight weeks to choose a song.
Don't you think that's enough time?
What, two weeks to animate a video?
What do you think?
Do you know how long it takes to animate?
Peter can only animate 2-D's mouth
singing the lyric
and his eyes blinking a bit, that's it.
Can't have him moving his body,
can't have him nodding his head.
Can't do anything like that.
We're both in agreement
on what should be the second single.
Well, the first proper single,
'cause this is supposed to be
a low-budget video,
and kind of a small release.
So what's the first proper single, then?
Clint Eastwood.
Russel, he's not based on anyone,
but he's got a lot of the things
that we like about hip-hop
from being sort of outsiders,
and looking into that world, you know?
And we gave him this special power
where he could summon up the spirits
of musicians dead or living.
With Del, he's alive,
but he's got a fear of flying,
so it's necessary to have Russel
as a conduit for him.
But in the future... Sorry, I've got hiccups.
In the future, I think Russel could,
you know, work with anyone from 2Pac
to Vanilla Ice, you know?
I've been talking to Nick Gold
from World Circuit Records,
who handles Buena Vista Social Club,
and Ibrahim Ferrer is gonna come down
and sing on the Latin track,
which is good.
Once it's got the clear track without me,
just feel it, the way that he wants to do it.
It's not my... Once he sings it,
it's not my song, it's his song.
A new phrase.
But a bit more...
It's nice, you know, it's...
73 years old, for a 73-year-old
to try something different for him.
Tom, if he's gonna carry over
onto the second verse,
then whatever the second verse,
it's gonna have to be
on different tracks, OK?
- It worked!
- It's good, though.
This is extremely important, Jamie.
Says he who hasn't got
his fucking trousers on. Look at that!
I wouldn't worry about
putting on funny accents.
Doesn't matter. Not important. This guy...
We're supposed
to be the characters, aren't we?
- We'll just be...
- Be the character.
I mean, a little bit.
You've got to be 2-D,
so you've got to act like him, he's got to be...
They're not going to get it like that.
Trust me.
They don't get it in that way yet.
So it's important...
- in the picture...
- Yeah, of course, it's a serious interview.
And we will answer
all the questions seriously
and try to do a funny, cool interview.
But the characters have characters.
And you have to sort of
portray that character a bit.
- 2-D isn't that smart, so, you know...
- No, sure, sure, sure.
You've got to be a little bit, fucking,
"Duh, what?"
He knows what his character is like,
and I've got to be Murdoc, who's Murdoc.
So I've got to be a bit fucking...
You know. Like Murdoc.
I'm gonna talk like this. "Murdoc here!"
Is that all right? Or is that a bit too...
Hello, how you doing?
I'm very well.
Been waiting for your call.
We thought you'd forgotten about us.
I'm all right, yeah. A bit disorientated.
Hello?
Yeah, who the fuck is this?
What's funny?
Well, we don't fight crime, but, you know...
What? Who the fuck
is comparing us to boy bands?
Have you seen the... What are we? A1?
Hang on a bit.
Some dude,
Damon Albarn's coming in here.
Mark. Hello, it's Damon.
Tit!
"It's not working. I'll be me, I'll save it."
Cheers. Bye.
Just had to explain it to him. It's
all right... -You blew that, didn't you?
- What?
- You totally fucking blew that.
That was going fine, man.
Just 'cause you panicked,
'cause you couldn't think
of anything to say as 2-D,
you had to step in as yourself.
He was doing great, I was doing all right,
we were just easing into it
and you stepped in.
It was almost like you were saying,
"I'm sorry, OK? We're not really real.
"But I'll talk to you."
It was going absolutely fine, man.
- Fine.
- Oh, for God's sake.
He hadn't got it, all right?
This is the first piece.
He's gonna talk about this new band,
great music, great images,
with these characters and the whole thing.
Yeah, but I think we need to get this,
sort of...
- I totally agree with you! My God!
- ..interview over the phone down to a T,
because, you know, we're in...
Jamie, I've been talking about this!
I've spent all that...
- I've been, like, on, you know!
- Stop fucking nagging!
- I'm just saying what I think.
- Can you just understand this? Right.
I'll say this once. OK.
This is an organic thing.
Every week something comes up.
You know, Rolling Stone
might decide tomorrow
that they want to do
an interview the next day, you can't...
That's the level we're working at,
that's why I was saying to you,
how important it is that we get...
You get a group of people who are all
very confident about their characters.
Well, Remi's fine,
and I think we should get Nelson,
'cause he was really good as 2-D.
- Yeah, and I'm sure...
- You two have got a bit of repartee, so...
- Phil Cornwell will be excellent as well.
- Yeah.
But, you know, just to say that I fucking,
you know...
All right, I'm sorry I said you blew it.
You didn't blow it.
- It's fine. It's just, you know...
- Jamie.
I spent years not explaining myself
and just expecting Americans to get it.
They didn't. Americans like you to be nice.
They like you to explain things clearly,
they like to feel that they're...
You know, they don't wanna feel cond...
You know what I mean?
They have a real problem
with English people to start off with,
and the people that do well in America
are the ones that go
and fucking explain it all, you know,
and play the game that they, you know...
The guy got it,
the first thing he said to me,
he said, "I can see how difficult this is,
but I really am into this, you know?"
So I just said, "Yeah, well, you know,
what we're trying to do, you know?"
You know, what else do I do?
"No, fuck off!" You know?
In the time before dark pop, chaos reigned.
From the chaos came Gorillaz.
The nature of Gorillaz was irrepressible.
Their debut album,
featuring the massive hit
Clint Eastwood, is coming.
Judgment Day will be March 26th.
Be enlightened.
- Ready?
- You got it?
- Yeah, you ready?
- Yeah.
- Open your mouth.
- It's open.
It's not open enough.
- Well, if I just...
- You ready?
If I'd had a tracheotomy, you
would have been fucking right in there.
Just got to be cool about this, yeah?
Damon was saying,
"He needs to sound more American,
'cause he's from America,"
but the fact is, Russel's been living in
England for probably six or seven years.
- So he's probably lost a lot of his...
- Right.
And the four years before that, when
he was in America, he was in a coma.
Possessed. So there's a very good chance
that his American accent has slipped.
And it also has to be consistent.
'Cause it... I mean, obviously,
it's hard holding a voice.
It's gonna slip. I mean,
that fucking Nelson, I don't know.
One minute he's 2-D,
the next minute, I don't know!
He's John Inman!
I've got to go for a piss, really badly.
Keep going.
OK, there was a girl named Maria
Who succumbed to a lover's desire
She said, "It's a sin, but now that it's in
Could you shove it a few inches higher?"
How's that?
Back a bit. OK. How's that there?
Russ! Russ! Do it again!
But I just want to explain, you know,
what mood he's in in each one.
- Yeah, OK.
- Well, that one's rubbish.
He's got a steaming hangover
and he's very pissed off.
For the love of sweet Satan, my head!
What is that banging?
Stop that banging! -It's this eel.
Stop it banging! Stop it banging!
I can't catch it!
Look, it's all slippery!
- I can't kill it!
- What do you mean, can't kill it?
I'll show you how to kill an eel!
You grab the damn thing
and melt its face! There!
Melt its face! Melt its face!
Gorillaz have gone tin.
You know, I'd like to accept this
on behalf of no one but myself...
- Gone tin!
- 'Cause I've done remarkably well.
Thank you very much to everyone,
you know, for leaving me alone
and letting me get on with being beautiful.
This is what I got.
- Whenever you're ready.
- Yeah.
He'll let me know when he's ready.
I am the controller,
no, Tom's the controller,
I'm second in command.
Better get my hard hat on. OK!
That... I do that a lot, actually, that...
She's... That... You sound a bit...
Is it...
Imagine Murdoc dressed up
like a fucking Nazi.
- Yeah!
- Looking like a right idiot.
Oh, man, where'd you get that outfit?
You can't go dressing up
as a goddamn Nazi, you cracker-ass.
This thought has never actually occurred
to him. "What do you mean?"
Well, why didn't anyone
tell me it was crap?
OK.
Damon? It's the police. They want you
to stop playing the fucking flute.
It was the best video, so...
sort of me and Peter, really, isn't it?
We should really...
Well, yeah. You said you didn't want...
He's gonna go. No, I don't want to go.
He's gonna go with you,
but he doesn't wanna go up on stage.
Cool.
Yeah. You could just... say whatever.
- Why don't you want to go?
- Huh?
Why don't you want to go?
I don't like going out.
My team are the best.
Fucking great, my team.
Kate's great, Susan's great, Matt's great.
The Watkins brothers.
Everybody's getting it done.
300,000 people on our website,
being entertained,
and we have six people putting it together.
That's a 30-man job, that is.
We've got till maybe after Christmas.
Doing more and more stuff, another
video, another video and a half.
TV shows, live shows, internet site, press,
press shots, merchandise,
the list is just endless.
I've just completely lost my backbone.
My will to draw.
So I can only manage to squeeze out
one half-decent picture a day.
Do you think it's just overkill, then?
That's it, mate. It's finished for me.
Career over!
I can smell them!
How many fucking instruments
you brought with you?
I thought this was showing people
what Gorillaz is about.
It is, exactly. -Right, then,
so I'm gonna play my banjo.
- In the psychiatrist's... No.
- Yeah. Yes.
Damon. No. Damon...
- He's not going to play...
- I am! Fuck you! I wanna fucking...
- If you wanna do things...
- I wanna play my banjo!
You should have said two weeks ago.
Not on the day.
I told you on the day
I'd be having a few creative ideas. You...
You're playing the banjo
in the scene this afternoon. OK?
- That's my jacket.
- It's not a jacket, it's a shirt.
- You gave it to me ages ago.
- Did I?
- Yeah. When I lived with you.
- Keep thinking...
In those days of shared pants.
Shared? Sorry.
That's a bit one-sided, isn't it?
I didn't share any pants.
It got to the point where he was hiding them.
A different place every hour, they'd move.
Became like a strategic cat and mouse.
The thing I didn't understand
is that every pair he borrowed,
I never saw them again.
I said, "Fair enough, we'll wash 'em,
and you can wear 'em again," but no.
They disappeared.
And I'm, like, "Where are they?"
"I dunno." How can you not know
where your pants have gone?
At some point, I just sort of
got this massive urge to play live.
'Cause I just thought
this record would work live,
and I got a set of musicians together.
Some of them had played on the record
and some of them were totally new.
He came in and didn't know the stuff.
I thought we'd have to do it again.
I know, but actually, it's just because he...
Yeah, but fuck it, man,
that was even better.
...'cause he picked it up really fast.
And he's added his own bits,
which is even better.
I think we have a band!
Nice one. Nice band you've got.
- Just gotta get a keyboard player.
- Not half bad.
Gotta get a keyboard player
and then we have a band.
Right, we know when
we're coming in and everything.
You all right? -It doesn't
matter if you get things wrong.
Just be competent about everything,
and we'll progress a lot quicker.
The technology does not exist to do
exactly what we want to do on stage.
So the live show was the one thing
that didn't come easy.
Everything else with Gorillaz, we had
it pretty figured out from the start,
but the live show,
we couldn't quite get our heads round.
So basically, what you have
is a giant cinema screen on stage,
and you have a live band standing
behind the screen, playing the music,
and onto the screen we project
animation and Flash animation,
and images and live action
and just all kinds of stuff, really.
So it's a real experiment,
the live show, it's different.
We're gonna get a little hat
made for Haruka.
She's gonna wear like a sort of a...
like a Chairman Mao sort of zip-up top.
If we can give her a Les Paul
that's not plugged in,
that she can just hold,
she looks like Noodle.
We did it! Yeah, fucking did it!
- We did it!
- Right. Done it.
- Mind the window!
- Knob!
Fuckface!
Ceri. Ceri, are you ready? Yeah?
You won't do it.
Fuck!
Take two.
Yeah, yeah, we're all here.
- OK, everybody.
- Take three!
He'll be doing this with arthritis at 98.
- Take four, is it?
- Four.
Take five is always a good one.
Got to do something, they're going mental.
- Come on, you toerag.
- As you are.
Let's go.
- Classic, man.
- Know what I mean?
Now what the fuck...
Can we go home now, please?
I've really had enough of Paris.
Please? I've had my sandwich.
I've spilt my Bollinger. I want to go home.
Hi. We have Damon from the Gorillaz,
and we're gonna be doing the interview,
we have ten minutes.
- OK.
- So I have him here, we're ready to go.
- Hello. How are you?
- I'm OK, thank you.
OK, you're calling from London?
No, actually, I'm calling from Miami.
Why?
Because EMI thought it would be cheaper.
What are you doing in Miami?
It's ridiculous, really.
All I'm doing is telephone calls.
I've got an idea, though, that maybe
it would be nice to record in Iraq.
- That's Iraq.
- That would be great for your reputation.
Hello? Hello?
Oh, God. I hate doing this so much.
It's just like...
So mind-numbing.
Boring.
Oh, God!
There's, like, 20 radio stations in a room,
and like a free-for-all.
- There'll be other bands there, so...
- Oh, no.
- We're not going to bump into young...
- ..socialize with other people?
- I'm tired of our nemesis young talent.
- What if we start a fight?
- Would that be good?
- Yeah.
- That'll get press.
- No such thing as bad publicity.
- Damon...
- We'll find the bands.
It's the VMA, so anybody
who's in town for this is gonna go.
I don't know if they're all gonna be there,
it's like everyone...
They'll do two-hour blocks.
There's not even much time.
Are we talking bands
we've never fucking heard of,
- or actual proper bands?
- Justin Timbaland's gonna be there.
You know, a mixture of both pop...
- What you gonna change your name to?
- P Diddy.
What you gonna change your name to?
- J Shitty. J Piddy.
- J Weasel.
It'll be great when he goes back
to his original name.
J Weasel. I like that.
J Weasel. Hello. How you doing?
My attitude to this shit is just fucking...
Just to give as little as possible.
You know what I mean?
- So are you gonna share?
- Hell. We're in hell.
We're live backstage at the VMA!
With the Gorillaz! Oh, yeah!
We're going to be interviewed
by the Road Warrior, look.
And now, going round the very sound,
he's forever, Trevor!
We might get fucking Justin Timberlake
suddenly stroll by,
and say, "You been talking about my pants?
I'm gonna kill you, motherfuckers!"
"You callin' me Timbaland?"
"My name's not Timbaland! Motherfucker!
"My name's Timberlake!
And my trousers fit me fine!"
- Where are we going now?
- Oi, you told us that was it?
Well, this is going to...
So, wait a second. Who are you guys?
I know we're really right in the
kind of epicenter of the cattle market.
It makes England look quite sort of mild
and sort of respectable and civilized.
- Plug?
- Plug.
What do you think?
It's good like this?
- The length?
- Let's have a look.
Easy! That's your head.
- It's Remi!
- What's the song, by the way,
that everybody calls in to request and
no one has any idea what it's called?
The title of the song is Clint Eastwood.
What kind of a band would
make it that difficult
for people to know what their song is called?
I wonder if Gorillaz are here.
- Hey, good morning, boys. What's up?
- Good morning.
So, we've got... Damon is here,
we've got Dan here, we've got J Weasel,
and I gotta tell you,
the guy from the company came in,
and said, "All right,
it's a parallel universe,"
and I thought, "All right,
right there, I'm confused."
These guys are not really the band,
but they know the animated
cartoon characters that are.
So if that's clear to you,
then jump on board!
Where is Murdoc and 2-D
and Russel and Noodle today?
Murdoc is lying on his side
having a vodka enema
- with his favorite female nurse now.
- Oh, my God. A vodka enema!
I guess, when you're animated,
you get all the chicks you want.
- You just get all the perks.
- Yeah, you just...
- Never have to pay the next day.
- Whatever you want.
He just gets down on his knees and
just begs Jamie to draw it, you know,
and it happens.
So, what are your hopes for tonight, then?
I hope that we don't win
the fucking best directors award,
'cause I don't want
to get up and pick it up.
I hope we get really drunk and end up
getting in a fight with NSYNC.
- What? Fuck off!
- Are you coming with us?
No, I don't want to speak to you,
you fucking ponce.
- Oi!
- Peace.
Fuck you!
So tell me, what did we do last night?
We won nothing. We were up
for three awards, and we won nothing.
Turning up for the MTV awards
in New York, I think,
- was pretty embarrassing, wasn't it?
- Yeah. Why?
When we walked down the red
carpet... -And nobody cheered?
..everyone went crazy,
and then we realized...
Who was behind us? Destiny's Child?
We kept asking to go in the back door,
and they said, "No, go up the carpet."
We said, "No one knows who we are."
They made us do it, and it just
went quiet when we walked out.
Yeah!
When you did a track with D-12,
Eminem wasn't present, right?
- No. 911.
- That was your...
Yeah. That was your post September 11th...
Day after. And we'd talked
about doing something together.
It just happened that we were actually
booked in the studio the day after.
I had this track which had a sort of...
a certain flavor to it.
And they were up for it.
And then Terry Hall came in
and sort of finished off the choruses,
and it's got a very strong
sort of Middle Eastern flavor to it.
So, hopefully, the whole thing
is quite a sort of...
a peaceful statement.
A balance of all things.
- Crazy.
- Yeah.
That's what I kind of did for you,
you know? The sort of form, you know?
Your style of rapping
will be really nice on that.
Right. What about something...
So that's what we've kind of
brought to the table.
I want to go through that.
You're not gonna be
talking about death every day.
Talking about people on the plane, they
know they're never going home again.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Sure.
The rhythm of it.
Seems like the snare is just like a little bit...
You know what I'm saying?
Kind of slightly earlier, I want to hit it
exact, you know what I'm saying?
- Tighter.
- Yeah, like the snare should be,
like, a little tighter, just the snare.
There's a sound, yeah, like a...
You know what I mean? When it come in.
You know what that is?
No, you don't. When the Fat Boys
was going into the place
before they did All You Can Eat
on Krush Groove,
that was the beat played.
Do you know who used that beat?
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, see?
Yeah! Hip-hop history trivia
with Olivia Newton-John!
..at 12 o'clock. What time is it?
Yeah, the whole point of rap, I presume,
is to express feelings that people are having
but not necessarily you're having, you know?
- You know what I mean?
- Yeah.
And they're all about that sort of thing,
they're pretty kind of
revolting on ocassions,
but they're just... they're
on the Eminem tip
about, I mean, the psyche of the country.
I never knew you could get
that kind of Arabic sort of...
I've never heard you
sing those... like that.
Can you show me something like that?
I've started working
with an Iranian sometimes.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- There you go.
- Perfect.
That's really interesting, you're doing that.
We should definitely... 'Cause I
wanna do a lot more stuff like that...
with future Gorillaz stuff,
because I think, you know,
it's just fucking essential that we start
introducing more of that into our culture,
'cause it's... it's gotta be done, innit?
Do you enjoy doing live stuff with
Gorillaz? Is it as exciting as doing...
It's very different, but I'll tell you what,
I'm looking forward to going to America
with at least some sort of...
sense of...
I don't know, of achievement,
'cause I've been going there
for many, many years,
and I've always felt like,
as soon as I got there,
they were really showing me the door.
Yeah, I got an alternative.
It's getting in the whirlybird there,
find us an island someplace,
get used up and spend what time
we've get left soaking up some sunshine.
So, you guys are finally
playing live in the States?
- Yeah.
- Cool.
Yeah, we lost our original bass player
on the first day.
- Something rather unexpected.
- Basically, we lost our man.
- Is that right?
- Yeah. That's as much as I wanna say.
- What the fuck are we gonna do?
- What the fuck are we even doing here?
- With this lovely stage...
- We don't have a fucking bass player.
We'll be all right, though,
because we have our...
it will sound really cool,
it might sound really cool.
- You never know, it might.
- You never know.
So let's just sort of keep
our sort of morale up.
Oi, there's one other thing,
because it might be...
Oi! All right, listen.
How the fuck do I sing
and play at the same time?
I'm more worried
about you singing that,
playing bass and
holding your melodica up and singing...
Liquidators going on.
It's a bit random here.
Right, gentlemen...
Gentlemen... Ladies, gentlemen...
Drink?
Just get some music back on.
Yeah, just for a minute.
It's nerves. He's new.
He's new in the game!
Can I have something to suck?
Do you want some water?
"Can I have a cock to suck!"
Is that yours?
- And one...
- Fuck!
- Liquidator, yeah?
- Liquidator.
Yeah, Liquidator.
Right, fucking hell!
We've gotta weave this
into our cartoon plot line,
otherwise the real band members
of the Gorillaz are gonna become
so much more knackered
than the cartoon characters.
I'm more interested in the music
and the musicians
than the rest of the fucking bollocks
which I don't give a shit about.
As I told you, anyway, you know?
And you called me a cunt
for saying it. -What?
- "I don't fucking give a shit."
- About what?
- Promoting.
- About promotion? That's fine.
But it's not fair to make
Dan and Jamie do it all, is it?
It's good for them.
How much is the Gorillaz about Damon?
- It's got nothing to do with Damon.
- Nothing at all?
OK, 'cause I heard a lot of people
explaining the concept as,
"You know Damon from Blur?
It's his project.
"It's an animated group."
And his name's always thrown in there.
Yeah, well,
that's what happens when...
You're a megalomaniac
and you try to get in front of everything!
Yeah. Damon's very famous
so, you know,
we try to play him down
as much as possible
'cause at the end of the day
all he really does is play the triangle.
Obviously, you guys are all jokes,
having fun with the Gorillaz.
- No, we're deadly serious.
- You are deadly serious?
We're trying to knock
those NSYNC guys off the charts
'cause then once that happens,
I think Justin can join our band.
Yeah, we wanna destroy NSYNC
so Justin has no choice
but to come and join Gorillaz.
OK, tonight's show,
what will each of you be doing?
Can I just ask, could you recommend
any good lingerie shops in Toronto?
- Laundry?
- Not laundry, lingerie.
- Lingerie, oh!
- Where do you shop for lingerie?
I don't like lingerie.
I don't get the point.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- But it feels so nice on your skin.
- I don't know! I've never worn it!
I'll ask you about it.
How does it feel on your skin?
- Silky.
- Is it silky? Yeah? OK!
OK, but back to tonight's show.
What are you each gonna be doing?
I'm gonna be walking around
in my lingerie!
- Fuck off, you fucking...
- Don't leave the door open, then!
Don't fucking come
and have a look at me, then!
- Just talking...
- Yeah.
I'm just having a chat
with my fucking pal!
- What?
- Oi, pervy!
- Who's "Me"?
- Roberto.
I can't let you in, Roberto.
It's embarrassing.
Did your mother ever tell you
not to turn your back
on someone while he's taking a shit?
- What do you wanna do?
- Let's do the whole set.
- Do the whole set?
- The whole set.
- Yeah, we'll do the whole set.
- No, bullshit!
Do the whole set
and see where the holes are.
We're back, we're back.
- We're back.
- We are officially back!
In the middle of the show,
somebody actually said to me,
"This is kinda like Pink Floyd
for the next generation."
Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett
or Pink Floyd without Syd Barrett?
I don't know. The big pig with those
wires and you know what I mean?
The assault on the senses that,
you know...
Well, no disrespect to Pink Floyd
but, you know, we've got tunes.
Look at the tache!
- It's good. You've gotta leave it.
- Yeah, man.
Fuck off!
You've got to keep it like that
for one gig.
There were some really big screamers
out there, weren't there?
They were going mental
from your silhouette.
My silhouette...
- It's the shave.
- It's the shave!
So what other ideas
have you had for Gorillaz?
Is it a continuing project
or is this the conclusion?
- Another album?
- Yeah.
- Really?
- Mm-hm.
Damon, how are you gonna fit this in?
I'm going to Africa and then Mongolia,
then coming back,
finishing the Blur album...
It's like you were rocking then
when you started to say all that...
He's the Indiana Jones
of pop, isn't he?
And then we start
working on this again.
The day I woke up
and realized that being a musician
was about music and nothing else,
my whole life got a lot simpler...
I recommend it to anybody
who's involved in music.
Just concentrate on the music
and everything will sort itself out.
Damon had the idea
that the next album
should be presented differently.
- What, the soundtrack?
- Yeah, the score.
But not like any normal soundtrack.
That would really be fucked up!
It could be a soundtrack
with pop songs.
The next stage of this,
really for us,
is right back to the attitude
we had with this one,
which was like...
We're gonna have
to convince everyone again.
That's what we thrive on.
That's why we make really good stuff.
You have to go into the wilderness,
so to speak, really,
to come up with really good ideas
and then you come back.
If I'm like that... got it like that...
I reckon that'll be all right.
Listen, you've gotta try these things.
It won't be too loud in my ear,
though, will it?
Yes, mate. It'll definitely...
ear off your head, yes.
- Do you think it'll feed back as well?
- Obviously.
OK.
Fucking hell!
You know when they come out
with a new eyeliner,
they don't necessarily test it
on rabbits, do they?
'Cause it's already been tested.
You know what I'm saying, dude?
- Yeah, yeah.
- You know what I'm saying?
Well, do you?
- Are you wearing lipstick?
- Fuck off!
Cunt!
Look, if you're gonna try
and do something, right,
that is a bit of cartoon magic,
you've got to be somewhere,
you know.
- You can't...
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Can you cope with that, Tim?
- That one? Yeah.
Well, he's already on the net.
It's so nervy using producers.
You get it right, it's a breeze.
You get it wrong, it's hell on earth.
Yeah, but last time
we didn't know that with Dan either.
- I know.
- And it just happened to work.
You've got to make
some sort of calculated risk.
But I always like the idea of
just adding something to what we do
and then adding a bit to it
so it's a joint...
It has to be a co-production,
whoever it is.
Yeah. I know, of course, yeah.
Exactly.
I think you've pretty much taken...
A lot of the songs
are pretty much there, anyway.
It was almost quite loose
on the last record as well, I think.
Yeah, but I think I've got some...
- That's what I'm saying...
- If I don't mind saying so myself!
No, but it feels much tighter.
There's fantastic stuff in there
and I haven't really started on it.
That's what I mean. It feels much
harder, much tighter on this already,
from what I'm hearing.
That's just the musicianship's
improved a bit, you know?
- A bit?
- Yeah.
Not enough to put on...
you know, on your passport,
"Occupation: Musician" but...
We're getting there.
I was born in Whitechapel Hospital.
OK. Fair enough.
I was born in fucking... hell!
Could you hold that
while I light my cigarette, please?
- Could you roll me one as well?
- Yes, of course.
If you hold that for me
because I'm not an octopus!
- Don't be daft!
- Let me just have a sip.
Don't be spilling coffee all over my
fucking nuts before we get to the shoot!
Just relax. Learn how to relax.
I am relaxed,
except for when I'm with you.
When I'm not with you, people
think I'm on Valium, I'm so relaxed.
I'm like all the bones have been
removed from my body. I'm like...
As soon as I get near you...
See! Look, this...
I'm not happy about this!
You've just got to believe
it's gonna be all right.
That's that laugh.
Yeah, something like that.
Do you know where
that laugh came from?
You just laughing at the music
that was happening that day.
You were just laughing at it.
'Cause it was making you feel like that.
You, too, though.
You were making me laugh, too, though.
Your mannerisms. You're funny, man!
You really make me laugh!
You, too, though.
No, you, in the day...
You're different in the day
than you are at night.
That's 'cause I'm sober in the day.
Are you really?
They had recorded
a bunch of stuff already.
All played like he did first time.
And when I sat and listened to it,
a lot of it was great.
Then the first single we worked on
was Dirty Harry.
We got along and it worked out OK.
He's our greatest rapper.
Even though it's...
You know, people like
The Streets and thing...
would never ever have happened
if he hadn't...
He did those...
It starts with Ian Dury
and then it's Shaun Ryder,
and then everything after that
is a composite of those two things.
If you can pull this off, then you've
really earned your producer stripes.
You really have.
- I don't know.
- No, you really have.
If you can do this,
then you really have.
You can work with anyone.
I don't really remember doing this,
you know.
Am I...? Am I doing this all in one take
or am I doing my vocals again?
No, we're doing one take live.
'Cause I don't know what the lyrics are.
Just make 'em up!
- Get an album copy.
- I have no lyrics! It's all made up!
No, we're not gonna
do the vocals again.
I know!
- You don't know what the lyrics are?
- No!
That's a problem, really.
- Sorry about this.
- He's not done his homework!
- What are we doing?
- We're doing a take.
We're actually now ready
for doing takes, so...
Well, shouldn't there be
someone singing?
- Yeah, there should but...
- He doesn't know the lyrics.
We were saying that "castrophony"
could actually be
a whole new word that you've created
and maybe we should leave it in.
That's what's...
Of course it's staying in there.
Don't pull that face!
We're just saying you created that word!
I deliberately created
a new word called "castrophony".
- Castrophony.
- Castrophony.
Then there came a sound,
distant at first,
that grew into a castrophony.
So immense,
it could be heard far into space.
OK, now... now...
But we just want you to say it how
you'd say it. Do you know what I mean?
Once upon a time,
at the foot of a great mountain,
there was a town where the people
known as Happy Folk live.
Their very existence,
a mystery to the rest of the world,
obscured as it was by great clouds.
Here they played out
their peaceful lives...
I'm so nervous
I can't smoke my fucking joint!
Can I have a light off someone?
Fucking come on! Fucking...
- Calm down, mate.
- I can't.
You've gotta ask, ain't you?
"Spirit of the mountain called Monkey,
was enough."
You know when it moves to a...
That sort of spooky,
Morricone kind of thing...
That's when the camouflage,
that's when the strangers...
Yeah, I think that's...
"Then one day, strange folk..."
If we could get to that and then
when that starts, then this bit starts, so...
For the first time,
the Happy Folk felt fearful
for they knew that soon the monkey
would stir from its deep, deep sleep.
Then there came a sound,
distant at first,
that grew into a castrophony.
So immense
it could be heard far away in space.
There were no screams.
There was no time.
The mountain
called Monkey had spoken.
There was only fire.
And then... nothing.
That's it. That's your lot.
End of album, boys.
OK, gentlemen, thank you very much.
- It's been lovely knowing you and...
- Bloody hell!
It'll have to be sung a cappella.
What?
Jolly good!
Yes.
Well, anyway, the best of luck
to you all and bye-bye.
Demon Days,
the new album from Gorillaz,
featuring the single Feel Good Inc.
Out now.
I bet Keith Richards
doesn't have to do things like this.
Fucking...
The NME are just...
Just absolute...
The NME are...
And the editor of the NME is a...
And all the journalists
who write on the NME are...
It's like fucking, you know,
either get behind us
or don't bother, you know?
So what have they done?
Just rewritten Cas's interviews,
edited out...
Asked him loads of venomous questions
and he's written loads
of very funny answers as Noodle.
Then they've edited them
and rewritten them
to make themselves look
like a bunch of smart-arses,
which they're not,
'cause they're a bunch of...
who change their opinion
every week.
We're supposed
to be doing a cover with them.
They wanna do a Dirty...
When Dirty Harry comes out as a single,
they wanna do it as a cover.
I don't know if I really wanna
even have my artwork
on the front of the NME.
It can't really help you sell
that many singles any more, can it?
Being on the cover of the NME
must mean absolutely fuck all,
especially when you're in the top five
in America with your album.
What's the NME gonna do for you?
Sell you an extra five copies
to a couple of Razorlight fans?
Maybe we should just not bother
'cause they're...essentially, aren't they?
Did I say that, Glyn? Did I tell you
I thought they were all...?
Yeah!
You're preaching to the converted.
Anyway, I need to get on now.
I can feel his beady eyes
on the back of my neck
while I'm trying to draw!
Here, look, Ceri, look.
This is what the editor
of the...is.
Oh, yeah. You get me?
Sorry, I thought Dirty Harry
was the first single
'cause it got out
onto the internet very quickly.
That started off on an album I made
on the last Blur tour
called Democrazy,
which was just all on four-track.
It was a whole record,
totally unfinished.
Just the first sort of scratchings
that you make in hotel rooms
when you're on tour.
I left it like that.
I never developed it.
That's how Dirty Harry started.
So you get that sort of Arabic music
and then you hear that...
And that sort of scream sound
as you're raising up.
Then... you throw it off
and, bang, you start.
OK, no problem.
As the rap goes on, you probably
start to calm down a bit more
because in the end of it,
all I wanna do is dance.
- And you're sort of like that.
- OK.
Would it be nicer if he, like,
comes out of the hole and does that?
And then he's here
and then he's on top of the truck
and then by the side of it
like he's a phantom that
keeps appearing in different places.
If we're gonna get the truck in it,
we might as well...
He could be on top of the truck
and we could be looking up,
then he could be
down with the camera...
- OK, are you ready?
- Let's go.
Walk this way.
This is the point of the day
where we bury
our featured artist in the desert.
Are you all right under there, Bootie?
- Can you hear us?
- Yes.
A tiny little voice under the sand.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
Cut it.
'Cause I was like this,
it was kinda hard for me to...
- Yeah.
- I can't use my legs to...
If I can... If I can sit like this...
- In the bag!
- In the bag!
In the bag!
- Well done, mate.
- Thank you, thank you!
We're trying to create something
that has no references to,
kind of, rock music whatsoever.
It's more like a sort of...
a film score revisited...
..you know, with some reference points
of the film around it.
But it's, kind of, very much
a program of music.
This gives you an idea
of the stage set.
A normal theatre stage, huh?
No, no, but for some reason I just...
envisaged a slightly bigger...
width to it,
not necessarily depth.
Look at it.
You can see the depth
from round this side.
I don't think it's big enough.
Do you want to come
and look round the side here, Damon?
Damon, come and have a look
round this side.
You can look all down that side you
like. This is... This is it, innit?
It's there to there.
There's your stage. Curtains. Pit.
Screen hanging... Well, forget the screen.
That's up in the sky.
But here's some colored panels
at the back.
Band in front of them.
And then you've just got the whole
thing here for a choir, strings.
With its glossy floor
so you get the colored reflections.
My initial thoughts were let's try
and make an interesting-looking stage
but fuck it, let's just have everybody
on the same level.
- You right at the back.
- Yes.
We have some panels
that flash on and off at the back
but you'll be
a smaller silhouette at the back.
You'll be less...
And then you've got your choir here.
You can have
all of the strings on stage.
- All the choir's on stage.
- I'm happy with that now.
- Good.
- That's really easy.
I'm ready. All right.
That's the sequence.
I said good luck!
- Oh, right. Are you off, then?
- I'm going down the pub!
It's you who's been sick, is it?
No, it's not me!
It's just the smell, innit?
We need to get
that smell out of the fucking...
Someone's been
puking up in there, man!
What the fuck? Come on!
I'm gonna be sick, man!
I can't deal with that!
Yes, ginger bollocks, out!
- It's the best show in town, mate.
- Yeah.
- Saw a few reviews, it's great.
- It's brilliant! Brilliant!
Two nights down... Sorry,
my head's a bit all over the place.
What was it like just being on stage
for three and a half minutes
and you've done your set?
It's beautiful,
like, for us to walk off
and then someone try to hand us a towel.
It's, like, funny!
You know, we do two hours, like,
and you're handing me a towel
after being on stage for three minutes?
Keep your towel, man!
What a day, hey? What a day!
You know, you set the agenda there,
which was fantastic.
It's another "wow", really,
in a series of "wows"!
I wanna get out of here
before Sean Paul's posse come out
and start giving me this.
What does that mean?
It means they're gonna stick
three fingers up your arsehole.
Hey, you!
I'm gonna go like this.
Yeah? Fucking come on!
Congratulations.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Let's do the Shopping Channel!
One more! Yay!
He killed 'em! He killed 'em!
We got the world in our hands,
we got the world in our hands!
On the phone with us right now,
it's Damon from Gorillaz.
- Hey, Damon, good morning.
- Good morning.
I heard you guys had a long night
getting into the States.
- Pardon?
- Oh, no, nothing.
What are you trying to say about me?
Yeah, you just flew in.
Is that right?
- Yeah, I flew in last night, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
All right, Damon,
so I guess my first question is...
But how on earth am I gonna get here
unless I have a long flight?
You've had a long flight...
Unless you've invented
a new form of travel.
You've had a long flight.
I just wanted to see
you got through this. Whatever!
Well, I... you know...
- I'm Dr Lundy.
- Right.
I have four children who have come
from my congregation in New Jersey.
And we were invited.
I was just told
to show up at three o'clock
with some kids that could sing.
And I did. When I heard the words,
which was my first time,
I was shocked.
I was like, "Wait. Am I hearing this?"
So I asked if I could see the words
and I was about to bring them out
and I was told, "Let me explain."
So could you help me understand why
does it have African-American males
in the context of New York,
at the Apollo, no doubt,
singing, "I need a gun
to keep me from harm"?
No, it's "to keep myself among."
"To keep myself among
the poor people
who are burning in the sun."
- That says harm.
- No, that's not the lyric.
See, then, that's something different.
That's not the lyric at all.
It's says, "I need a gun to keep myself
among the poor people
who are burning in the sun."
- Say the last word again. "The mong"?
- It's among.
Among!
- A-M-O-N-G.
- Among.
That one word
makes a major difference.
Well, it's not harm.
That's bureaucracy going...
- That's what the kids are singing.
- They're singing the wrong...
And I don't know why...
Wayne, he's done it in England
with kids of similar ethnic backgrounds
and it was recorded in Atlanta
with purely...
- African-Americans.
- Exactly.
So its origins are already amongst...
But when you say that word...
Just for you to change
this word from harm to among...
- Why have you got "harm" on there?
- He didn't write these lyrics!
I know, but...
That's never... That's not.
It's "I need a gun
to keep myself among."
It's a kind of rhetorical thing.
It's an anti-war song.
If you look at Bootie Brown's,
the lyrics...
It's utterly and totally anti that. It's pacifist.
The whole record is a pacifist record.
What's the gun here?
The gun... The gun is...
I suppose I see the gun
and I use it throughout the record
as a strong kind of...
It's such a...
It is such a negative image
that it has to be
somehow sort of destroyed
and turned into something else.
Do you know what I mean?
And that's all
I'm trying to do in the record.
That's why I'm being
very, very upfront
and, yes, using a kids' choir
on the record, it is...
But, you know, to be honest with you,
you're the first people
who have actually,
who have even
really thought about it...
- I find that very shocking.
- But, well...
My mother finds it shocking
that I make these records
and no one seems to kind of
understand that there's this.
And I'm...
I'm sure if I lived in the UK,
I could get more
of an understanding of it.
But I wrote this song...
The situations that happen here
and the way that the kids
use weapons here...
Yeah, but we have it in Britain.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't watch the BBC News too much.
We have it in Britain.
We have kids in schools with guns.
It's exactly the same. Really.
You know, there's no difference.
Yeah, I think what I hear you saying
is that it's almost the dichotomy
between dark and light.
Exactly.
The album is called Demon Days.
These words! OK, I get you.
I know but you've got to understand I...
- I'm not...
- I do.
I want a hug! Thank you.
Thank you for your work.
Where's Damon?
I've been stressed out, man!
I mean, really, seriously.
I mean, I've never gone on... I'm never...
I love music but, man, I've never...
Except for this one thing
when I played Sinatra,
have I ever even thought
about performing a song.
Much less, you know,
I can't sing a note.
But this is like,
you know, it's just a, yeah...
- Do you want to work out that tune?
- Sure. Let's try it one more.
Look at that hawk.
Just look, just look, just look.
Just look at it.
Oh, great!
- Looking for a meal, are you?
- Yeah!
So that should do it, man.
I don't think you need to devote
any more of your stress to this, OK?
Really, it's gonna be great.
It is, it is.
And I hope you have a fantastic
night tonight and really enjoy it.
Hopefully, you'll be itching
to get on that stage and do it.
Damn right!
I'm in the Apollo Theater, man!
It's like every-fucking-body
who was ever anybody!
And they've got this lucky tree stump
which they kind of carry around.
It's wonderful. You just touch...
You can stick your head in it
and it's just...
There's a sound in there
that's a very unique sound.
It's a beautiful place. I love Harlem.
I love the feel of Harlem.
I lived there for...
I lived there for almost a year.
A dancer
that I knew in the early '50s...
A very quiet reflection!
A very good stay!
- Oh, no!
- Yes!
Oi, there's fucking kids in the car!
I was wrong about that.
That's actually a brilliant T-shirt.
It says everything
you need to know instantly.
You've won it!
- Stop.
- Fuck that off, Chris.
Ceri, you really
should wear some clothes.
I keep telling you this
when we're filming.
Yeah, we've put up with it
for a long time.
You fucking stinky cunt!
Why did you do that in our one?
Where shall I do it? The girls'?
We've got to go on stage!
Fucking two pounds of ginger turd!
Ginger turd!
No, 'cause I'm gonna be sick
and if I'm sick,
then it ruins my vocal cords!
In Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em...
It's show time!
It's fucking...
That's not me, that's him there!
Oh, fuck off! You just
literally crapped your pants
in front of everyone
and go "That's not me!"
I can't take it, so it's not my smell!
It's natural!
I can't take it!
Great singing.
We'll come down
to where she was standing, OK.
- Thank you.
- OK.
- Thank you, Ceri.
- Thank you.
- What's up?
- What?
Something I've been working on
for the last six years.
What, smoking?
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Originally published 18/03/2014