Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett sit down with Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson today (16 January) to discuss the Gorillaz new single Orange County. In the interview, the pair also talk about making the new record in India, Tony Allen, working with Bollywood icon Asha Bhosle and more…
Damon on recording the new Gorillaz album in India…
I find all practitioners of that kind of improvisational classical music some of the most wonderful people to play with. Honestly, I think it was a breeze going going there after so many years… starting in Mali kind of learning, and still doing it… just on this massive learning course. And the musicians in in in Mumbai, which was the first place we landed - it was kind of clear that there's just such a a great tradition and ability to speak multiple musical languages in that city, just in that city alone. So, I mean, we've only just scraped the surface.
Gorillaz on making the decision to make the album India…
Jamie: My wife was in India with her mum in Jaipur, she'd been for a month. And she was going to fly home and she was sending me messages saying, bags packed, taxi arriving. And then half an hour later, her mum had a massive stroke and was rushed to hospital and went into a coma. She was in a public general hospital during a pneumonia epidemic. So, you know, it doesn't get more traumatic. So I jumped on a plane and I went to join her and we spent we were there till we were there until um, the following year and middle depends of January, I know, six or seven weeks in Jaipur, dealing with that, which was pretty hardcore. But at the same time, I was visiting Jaipur in the afternoon just to have a break from hospitals and I kind of just completely fell in love with the place. And when I got back, I said, we should go to India and think about the next record.
Damon: And I in a Machiavellian way, thought, this might be a good place for Jamie to like explore his drawing.
Damon on working with the Bollywood icon Asha Bhosle
I was sitting cross-legged barefoot in her wonderful apartment, playing harmonium and she was singing with headphones on. James Ford was recording her. So really nice way to do it. If you're asked for direction, you do. If you're not, you don't. She's a pro. You don't do something like that for that long unless your spirit is so dedicated to it, you know?
Gorillaz on how their two new singles ‘The Hardest Thing’ and ‘Orange County’ complement each other…
Damon: It’s the same song, it's the same song. It’s slightly like if you're in one room, you feel something in you. You go into another one and it's got the right lighting and it smells right. It's a different room, although it may be exactly the same space. They're different sides of of a coin. My philosophical coin.
Jamie: But Orange County can also be about losing someone you love but not through death, but maybe a separation in a relationship. .
Damon on Tony Allen…
I don't know what to say about Tony. I'll never stop missing Tony, you know. Impossible to stop missing him. I mean, just he's a he's a giant.
Jamie on whether recording this album brought them closer together…
Well, we had a great adventure. I think that it’s reminded us that in order to really, to make something really good, you have to go somewhere that you've never been or an experience you've never had, not just, you know, be in the studio in LA or London or wherever, but go off on a journey, which is what we did and India was the place this time. It gave us a lot. If you're an artist or a musician or anybody creative and you go to India and it doesn't fry your mind, then clearly you're not a creative person. It's all there. Everything is right in front of you. And you come back just full. Your mind's just full of stuff. It had that effect on me anyway and I think it had the same effect just working with, with musicians who are just the moment they start to play, you're like, oh my God.
Gorillaz on performing in India…
Damon: That would be for me the first place we play it, but it's probably going to be the last place we play it.
Jamie: Takes a while to arrange that but it is being arranged. The India gigs are definitely going to happen and we've been pushing for that since we started talking about the tour but it's just taking a little bit longer logistically to arrange.
Jamie on recording in India…
We made a point of not recording in any flashy recording studios. We were literally in people’s… one of the studios was a guy's home, wasn't it? That studio was great. Yeah, they were fantastic. We were offered, you know, this and [Damon] was like, I don't want to go there. So we were really in someone's front room, someone's kitchen, but that adds to it.
