JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

In the late ’90s, musician Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett were roommates, and that meant the two of them ended up watching a lot of television together.

DAMON ALBARN: We had this really excessively expensive television. You could watch up to eight channels simultaneously, which you’d never been able to do.

JAMIE HEWLETT: So as some kind of terrible punishment, we watched…

ALBARN: Everything we could.

HEWLETT: …Eight channels of music television.

ALBARN: Yeah, and I think it just…

HEWLETT: Constantly.

ALBARN: Yeah. I think it just became like, well, this is all very manufactured and quite cynical.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FEEL GOOD INC.”)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Laughter).

ALBARN: (As 2-D, vocalizing).

SUMMERS: All that cynical television consumption led to an idea for a new project.

ALBARN: Maybe it would be interesting to kind of create a cartoon that’s a satire on that.

HEWLETT: I think we were also aware of the fact that the manufactured pop scene was directed at kids. And that troubled us a little bit because…

ALBARN: Yeah, we had our own kids.

HEWLETT: We were – we had our own kids, and we felt that kids should be given something a little bit more interesting to become crazy about.

SUMMERS: The result was a band, started more than 25 years ago in Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s flat – Gorillaz.

(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ’S “CLINT EASTWOOD”)

SUMMERS: Albarn had made a career as the front man of the British rock band Blur, and Hewlett was a comic book artist. Gorillaz was something new for both of them, a cartoon band of their own invention. There was lore, animated music videos, a website, and it was fresh and of the moment. The music mixed genres like rock, dub, hip-hop, and it featured collaborations with artists from Elton John to Andre 3000.

ALBARN: When you do something like that, you have no idea. And we got signed on the back of one song and one picture.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “CLINT EASTWOOD”)

DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN: (As Del, rapping) Finally, someone let me out of my cage. Now, time for me is nothing ’cause I’m counting no age.

HEWLETT: It was a good song and a good picture.

ALBARN: Yeah.

SUMMERS: The band is still making music, and the latest album is called “The Mountain.”

(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ’S “THE MOUNTAIN”)

SUMMERS: We asked them to look back and remember the original inspiration behind Gorillaz, starting with how Jamie Hewlett came up with the cartoon concept.

HEWLETT: I grew up obsessed with animation and watching cartoons, and I was a huge fan of Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny and all the early Bob Clampett and then Chuck Jones stuff. It’s kind of part of my DNA, really. That’s what I’ve always done. So when me and Damon decided to do this together, for me, as an artist, to work with a musician, it’s kind of a no-brainer. And it was never intended to last this long. We were going to do one album, and then it really took off. So 25 years of doing this, it’s essential for the characters to change because they’re not quite like other animated characters inasmuch as they change their clothes and they change their hairstyles and they grow a little bit older.

ALBARN: And in a way, like, I think they probably – next time after this, they’re going to change so much you hardly recognize them.

HEWLETT: Yeah. And 25 years of drawing the same character wearing the same clothes would drive me insane. So it’s like the music’s growing, the art is growing, the stories are growing. And everything is informed by what’s happening in the world. And there’s a – since we did the first album, a lot of stuff’s happened in the…

SUMMERS: Oh, yeah.

HEWLETT: …Last 25 years.

ALBARN: (Laughter).

HEWLETT: And that – you can’t – that can’t help but feed into the narrative of what we’re doing.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE HAPPY DICTATOR”)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) …We live in.

ALBARN: (As 2-D, singing) If you’re empty and abstracted and your broken heart is full of rage.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Oh, what a happy land. Oh, yeah.

ALBARN: For example, a song like “The Happy Dictator,” which kind of was inspired by a visit I made to Turkmenistan, which is a really fascinating country stroke society.

SUMMERS: Yeah. What did you take away from that visit that came into the song?

ALBARN: One of the things is they don’t – they censor all bad news so that they only have good news. And the reasoning behind that is that they don’t want people to, like, have bad dreams and interrupted sleep, you know? So…

HEWLETT: They want them to sleep well.

ALBARN: They’re wanting them to sleep well. And in a way, I mean, as an autocratic kind of command goes, that’s quite a reasonable one. And yet…

HEWLETT: Ignorance is bliss.

ALBARN: Here we – and yet here we are.

HEWLETT: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE HAPPY DICTATOR”)

ALBARN: (As 2-D, singing) No more bad news so you can sleep well at night and the palace of your mind will be bright.

SUMMERS: One of the things that I’ve always loved about Gorillaz is how collaborative the project is. Damon, you’ve worked with artists from Beck to the late, great Bobby Womack. Who are for some of the…

ALBARN: My goodness. Can you imagine working with Bobby Womack?

SUMMERS: I cannot. That’s – I mean, you’ve got to tell me about it.

ALBARN: Honestly, I’ve – I had such a – I would say it was an indecent amount of time sitting next to Bobby at a piano, with him just singing. Unbelievable. I can’t believe it. I mean, he was – growing up, he was one of my favorite voices with Nina Simone and people like that. Just – voices I just lost myself in. So to be able to actually sit down and play piano for him was amazing.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “STYLO”)

BOBBY WOMACK: (Singing) If it’s love, it’s electric. It’ll be flowing on the streets.

ALBARN: What a voice.

SUMMERS: Yeah.

ALBARN: Definitely a voice from God. In fact, he always used to say before we’d do anything, see you in church.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “STYLO”)

ALBARN: (As 2-D, singing) Overload.

WOMACK: (Singing) It’s got a way of passing through man and woman. In another world…

ALBARN: (As 2-D, singing) Coming on to the…

WOMACK: (Singing) In another world, in the universe, o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ow (ph).

SUMMERS: Tell us about some of the collaborators that you’ve worked with on your latest music.

HEWLETT: Asha Bhosle.

ALBARN: Yeah.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE SHADOWY LIGHT”)

ASHA BHOSLE: (Singing in non-English language).

HEWLETT: Oh, she’s a deity, really, isn’t she?

ALBARN: A living deity.

HEWLETT: A living deity. You go to Mumbai, and they have statues of her all down the streets. She’s really a highly respected individual.

ALBARN: And she’s done – I mean, it’s not clear exactly how many tunes, but approaching 5,000 tunes. Just a mind-boggling amount of music in film, you know?

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE SHADOWY LIGHT”)

BHOSLE: (Singing in non-English language).

SUMMERS: You have new music out now. There’s an international tour coming up. And while you’ve released a number of albums and projects over 25 years, I mean, 25 years has passed. You two are 25 years older. What was different about this moment?

HEWLETT: We’re 45 years old now.

ALBARN: Irrelevant. We’re irrelevant.

(LAUGHTER)

ALBARN: We’re irrelevant. I mean, we’re on the, you know, the yellow brick road to irrelevance.

HEWLETT: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ’S “DAMASCUS”)

HEWLETT: We’re still experimenting. We take a lot of excitement from what we do. And traveling is very important to us. Traveling the world and working with people from all cultures is a necessity.

ALBARN: Yeah. I mean, but the velocity of the travel is sometimes kind of – it’s crazy, isn’t it? Things are definitely getting faster, for sure, so…

HEWLETT: And we’re getting older (laughter).

ALBARN: We’re getting older. We’re getting so – I mean…

HEWLETT: Weaker.

ALBARN: Weaker. Older, weaker, sadder.

HEWLETT: Sadder and tireder.

ALBARN: Sadder and tireder, yeah.

HEWLETT: (Laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ’S “DAMASCUS”)

YASIIN BEY: (Rapping) The fantasy is real. Feel free, enjoy.

OMAR SOULEYMAN: (Singing on non-English language).

SUMMERS: We have been speaking with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. Thanks so much.

HEWLETT: Oh, it was a pleasure talking to you.

ALBARN: OK.

HEWLETT: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF GORILLAZ’S “DAMASCUS”)

SOULEYMAN: (Singing in non-English language).

BEY: (Rapping) Here to navigate the waves in the dark, no map. Stars in the heavens and the breeze on my back.

SOULEYMAN: (Singing in non-English language).

BEY: (Rapping) Hallelujah holler. Faddal, yalla. Turkish coffee, Starbucks, get off. Here to navigate the waves in the dark, no map. Stars in the heavens and the breeze on my back. Know where I’m headed and I’ll be where I’m at.

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