Speaker 1: Pushkin. Over the course of a thirty five year career,
Speaker 1: Damon Auburn has reached international fame with two very different groups.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty eight, Damon created the rock band Blur
Speaker 1: with four friends in his native London. Blur started out
Speaker 1: as what Damon calls a classic art school band, but
Speaker 1: they quickly morphed into one of the seminal groups of
Speaker 1: the nineties britpop explosion, along with their former rivals Oasis.
Speaker 1: After a series of successful albums with Blur, Damon started
Speaker 1: Gorillas in nineteen ninety eight with cartoonist Jamie Hewlett. Dubbed
Speaker 1: is the world's first virtual group, the Gorilla's rotating lineup
Speaker 1: includes collaborations with De La Soul, Stevie Nicks, Bobby Womack,
Speaker 1: and Lou Reed. The band's influences are as diverse as
Speaker 1: electronic music, hip hop, and world music, and over the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years, Gorillas has been wildly successful, selling
Speaker 1: over thirty million albums worldwide. Despite having found such success,
Speaker 1: Damon's never stopped exploring his artistic potential. He's written in
Speaker 1: an opera, released solo and side projects, and recently he
Speaker 1: reunited with Blur to release the band's latest album, called
Speaker 1: The Ballad of Darren. On today's episode, Lea Rose talks
Speaker 1: to Damon Albarn about what it's like for Blur to
Speaker 1: headline music festivals in twenty twenty three. Damon also reveals
Speaker 1: how Gorillas are about to undergo a major paradigm shift,
Speaker 1: and he explains how, according to family lore, John Lennon
Speaker 1: and Yoko Ono first met at his dad's art gallery
Speaker 1: in London. This is broken record liner notes for the
Speaker 1: digital age.
Speaker 2: I'm justin Mitchman.
Speaker 1: Here's Lea Rose with Damon Albarn.
Speaker 3: Let's talk Blur. Okay, so it looks like you've been
Speaker 3: on a you all have been doing a little run
Speaker 3: of shows in Europe. How has it been being back
Speaker 3: on stage with everybody?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's great. Yeah. We did three four small gigs
Speaker 2: in England and then we went over to Spain and
Speaker 2: did the Primavera gigs. First one was Pastime. I mean,
Speaker 2: the only problem problematic thing is that if you're headlining
Speaker 2: you go on at two am, which are our age
Speaker 2: is almost unthinkable, but we can just about do it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And then the next date was in Madrid and it
Speaker 2: was the first time they were ever doing it and
Speaker 2: the weather was so bad that they had to cancel
Speaker 2: our concert at two am, so we managed to find
Speaker 2: a smallish club called labry Vieira about two thousand people
Speaker 2: and two thousand of the forty thousand managed to see us.
Speaker 2: So it was quite quite a magical evening really, considering
Speaker 2: what a tumultuous afternoon it had been.
Speaker 3: You know, what was the energy like in the club?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fantastic. Threw myself around with Wild Abandon.
Speaker 3: Very nice. How has it been for the other guys
Speaker 3: in the bank? So, I know, you've been consistently touring
Speaker 3: for the most part since the last Blur album, has it?
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say, you've been consistently
Speaker 2: tearing it up.
Speaker 3: Been thrashing, tearing the club up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, consistently yeah, yeah, Well, I mean everyone's been doing
Speaker 2: their own thing. Grahamson and lot of concerts, but not
Speaker 2: maybe of that size. Alex has his own festival, so
Speaker 2: he even he knows everything about about what a festival is,
Speaker 2: you know, the complete DNA of a festival. Dave's been
Speaker 2: doing everything humanly possible and also got his own little
Speaker 2: band out as well, So everyone's been super busy that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But it's necessary, isn't it. Otherwise it just feels like,
Speaker 2: I don't know this. This is supposed to be old
Speaker 2: for ends sort of finding each other latterly and trying
Speaker 2: to express that in a sort of, you know, vibrant
Speaker 2: and honest way.
Speaker 3: Have you learned anything new about the old friends and
Speaker 3: the process of recording the new album?
Speaker 2: Well, they're a lot more grown up, all of them,
Speaker 2: a lot more maybe resilient than maybe they were twenty
Speaker 2: years ago emotionally and physically. Yeah, I think there's a
Speaker 2: huge amount of necessary growing up that's gone on for
Speaker 2: all of us.
Speaker 3: Are the band dynamics? Do they feel exactly the same
Speaker 3: as they used to, you know, way back when, or
Speaker 3: have things sort of changed just like on a more
Speaker 3: like interpersonal level, things.
Speaker 2: Have changed a bit, but essentially so exactly the same dynamic.
Speaker 3: That's so cool. It's so nice to have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, it is really nice. It is really nice.
Speaker 2: But but I suppose the fact that we haven't kind
Speaker 2: of chased it much in the last twenty years means that,
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's still that possibility for something to
Speaker 2: surprise us, you know, And I mean this whole thing
Speaker 2: initially started off with a conversation about Okay, it's probably
Speaker 2: time we sang those songs again, with no real destination.
Speaker 2: And then when I was in the States in the autumn,
Speaker 2: I mean, I always take a studio on tour anyway,
Speaker 2: and I just thought, well, I'm just going to write songs.
Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting being here in all these mad
Speaker 2: cities and everything that you know that you carry on
Speaker 2: the road with you and the experiences you have, and
Speaker 2: I thought, maybe that's quite a nice sometimes it's quite
Speaker 2: a nice place to write about something else, you know,
Speaker 2: And so I just wrote lost songs. I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2: Then in the new year, I said to all of them,
Speaker 2: I said, just can I invite you down to the studio,
Speaker 2: I just like play some stuff suit you think And
Speaker 2: I said, look, I think I've written an album. There's
Speaker 2: twenty songs. You choose the ones you want to record,
Speaker 2: and that's really It was as simple as that. They
Speaker 2: were like into it, and it felt, I suppose of
Speaker 2: that moment, I was kind of, you know, I was
Speaker 2: still kind of a bit nervous about letting all that
Speaker 2: material go without knowing where it was going to go.
Speaker 2: But it went pretty much exactly where I hoped it would,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I didn't take us more than six weeks
Speaker 2: to do the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: But the most amazing thing about that was that that
Speaker 2: seemed to sort of inform the momentum of everything and
Speaker 2: the fact that we already had this sort of totemic
Speaker 2: Wembley gig. It's sort of everyone was like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: where we should get the record out in time for
Speaker 2: that as well, or at least least proximity to it.
Speaker 2: So something a process that that latterly, to be honest,
Speaker 2: has just become so sort of slow for me, you know,
Speaker 2: like having to wait a year sometimes to put a
Speaker 2: record out. She's just so that's happened a few times.
Speaker 2: So this was literally we we finished it and then
Speaker 2: it was like, oh shit, we need to rehearse for
Speaker 2: these concerts, and now we're here and I haven't and
Speaker 2: we're putting another single out next week and then an album,
Speaker 2: and that's it's just nice to know that that nothing
Speaker 2: existed in January apart from the songs I suppose, so.
Speaker 3: The gig existed first and then the album came yes,
Speaker 3: So it's sort of like a Beatles, get back, let
Speaker 3: it be situation.
Speaker 2: It's exactly like that, and it's.
Speaker 3: Just why did you get back right now?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is inevitable, isn't it. That's sort of
Speaker 2: for some reason because we come from this island. We're
Speaker 2: always going. But but I mean, this is the annoying
Speaker 2: thing about the Beasts is that they kind of sort
Speaker 2: of they created every kind of sort of trope that
Speaker 2: you throw up pop music really you know, not invented,
Speaker 2: but they seem to embody so many and you know,
Speaker 2: the the idea of mass hysteria, although it happened previously
Speaker 2: with Elvis, I don't think it ever happened for a band.
Speaker 2: The idea of the independence that are banned when it's
Speaker 2: a good one kind of offers its its audience. You know.
Speaker 2: They know that these these individuals have come up together
Speaker 2: and that they share very similar kind of sort of beliefs,
Speaker 2: you know, and passions, and that like you know, there's
Speaker 2: no need to have since they were kids. So it's
Speaker 2: just it's so important really that bands exist. And I
Speaker 2: suppose I feel like, I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 2: it was a bit more excitement about guitar music again
Speaker 2: at the moment, and that can't be a bad thing
Speaker 2: because it got so sterile. I mean, you know, for me,
Speaker 2: really the last great guitar band would have been the
Speaker 2: Artic Monkeys. I don't really know if there's anything as
Speaker 2: good as that since. I mean, but but now there's
Speaker 2: bands who look got a huge amount of potential, and
Speaker 2: it's really it's kind of dismantled itself guitar music, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of putting itself back together again in a
Speaker 2: different form, you know, you get you've got some fantastic
Speaker 2: new kind of sort of mutations of the the genus
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are some that you're thinking of when you
Speaker 3: say there's new there's some new bands out there that
Speaker 3: are bringing back aut our music.
Speaker 2: Well, I really, I really like I really like a
Speaker 2: band like Wooloo. They seem to be really cool. There's
Speaker 2: one that I picked up on somewhere in the American countryside,
Speaker 2: but I like, I can't remember his name. That's narrowing
Speaker 2: it down, isn't it.
Speaker 3: American countryside? Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the American countryside, the great the great American
Speaker 2: country side. Yeah, it's a collective of I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's sort of just felt like exactly what a young
Speaker 2: band should sound like. Lots of there are lots of them,
Speaker 2: and you've got bands like Yard Acts who are here.
Speaker 2: It seemed to be getting better and better, and obviously
Speaker 2: not that they're new, but I still see them as
Speaker 2: kind of emerging bands like Sleaford Mods, you know, brilliant.
Speaker 2: So it's and lots of great language being used again,
Speaker 2: you know, not the generic rock shit. I hate that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I hate that. I like I like poets and guitars,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like that's what always inspired inspired me.
Speaker 3: I was curious about your relationship to the Beatles because
Speaker 3: you came up you were sort of the generation after
Speaker 3: the Beatles, and we've had a lot of artists on
Speaker 3: this show who talk about, you know, someone like Ozzy
Speaker 3: Osbourne when he heard the Beatles, it was like it
Speaker 3: went from black and white to color, so you.
Speaker 2: Being and then back and then back to black permanently.
Speaker 3: He brought it back to book.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sure where the color comes in really
Speaker 2: with Ozzy Osborne, but I mean, yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: So they still put out albums while you were alive young,
Speaker 3: but you.
Speaker 2: Were alive well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Growing up when you were finding your own music. What
Speaker 3: role did the Beatles play with you and your friends? Like,
Speaker 3: were you guys into the Beatles?
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I knew about the Beatles really
Speaker 2: was that my parents lived in the same mansion block
Speaker 2: in Emperor's Gate back in the very early sixties as them.
Speaker 2: And then what's my next connection and the other thing
Speaker 2: within my family kind of sort of folklore, is that
Speaker 2: my dad had a gallery in just off Carnoby Street
Speaker 2: and he put on the exhibition where Yoko Ono had
Speaker 2: the ladder and John Lennon climbed up a ladder to
Speaker 2: read the word yes or whatever. It was, so kind
Speaker 2: of he kind of got them together. That was their
Speaker 2: first meeting, really, yeah, I mean office, it's it's not.
Speaker 3: I've been dying to know how those two met watching
Speaker 3: Get Back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they met in he came to see her art
Speaker 2: show at my dad's gallery.
Speaker 3: Was she like a popular artist at the time.
Speaker 2: I mean underground, yeah, but very cool cool yeah, so
Speaker 2: so so that was I kind of knew more about that.
Speaker 2: And I also I used to love lucim the Sky
Speaker 2: of Diamonds because I got given it, but I didn't
Speaker 2: know that it was a Beatles song. I thought it
Speaker 2: was Elson John's song. Oh, but then and then I did,
Speaker 2: and obviously I did discover the Beatles, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: then then it becomes an obsession until you've kind of
Speaker 2: you've listened to everything and kind of assimilated the whole thing.
Speaker 2: But then you know, like other amazing things came into
Speaker 2: my life, you know. But I mean, it was one
Speaker 2: of the very early influences. Obviously very cool.
Speaker 3: I've seen your your house describe the house you grew
Speaker 3: up in described as bohemia, and I know what that
Speaker 3: means in America, but what does that mean in London?
Speaker 2: I did till I was nine. I lived in London
Speaker 2: when I moved to the to the Essex countryside. But
Speaker 2: he mean, I suppose in the sense that my dad's
Speaker 2: and my dad was like very into latterly into art education.
Speaker 2: My mum's always been an artist, painter and creates installations
Speaker 2: and everything really just everything is and yeah, I've got lots,
Speaker 2: just lots of artists in my family, which is pretty normal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it wasn't. I mean, I don't know. I
Speaker 3: guess I picture sort of just like people sitting around
Speaker 3: on pillows and smoking hookahs and yeah, that.
Speaker 2: Sort of thing. I mean, it was a bit like
Speaker 2: that in the late sixties, me and my dad's. Amongst
Speaker 2: the many things he did, he created happenings and psychedelic
Speaker 2: buildings in weird places. In fact, once he kind of
Speaker 2: worked with a soft machine and they did a concert
Speaker 2: in the south of France and be a really good
Speaker 2: idea to go out the night before because it was
Speaker 2: on a beach. He went out into the bay and
Speaker 2: it doused the whole bay in Petrol, and then when
Speaker 2: they came on that evening, he lit it. So they
Speaker 2: had this amazing, very dangerous but no one would ever
Speaker 2: let you do that now, but that Hey, it was
Speaker 2: the sixties. I mean, but you know, I just heard
Speaker 2: all of this through, you know, just the thing that
Speaker 2: all families have, which are like these stories you know
Speaker 2: that you want to hear again and again and again.
Speaker 3: Totally the family law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's at the family law exactly.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you went through like an early
Speaker 3: experimentation drug phase when you're a teenager or whatever, But
Speaker 3: were they cool with that, like, could you talk to
Speaker 3: them about Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents were always very good with all my yeah,
Speaker 2: my dalliances, you know, I didn't necessarily think I was
Speaker 2: being very responsible sometimes, but I mean they were never
Speaker 2: judgmental ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I read that your primary school burnt down like
Speaker 3: seven or eight times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: Why what is that about.
Speaker 2: Well, it turned out that our form teacher was a
Speaker 2: complete psychopath. But the sad thing is that the school
Speaker 2: care segue, the school caretaker was blamed initially, and he
Speaker 2: had a heart stack because he was so distressed that
Speaker 2: anyone could think he'd do anything like that. But it
Speaker 2: kept happening and it really disrupted two years of my
Speaker 2: education like terribly. And then in the end it turned
Speaker 2: out it was our teacher who'd been burning the school down. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Was it big fires or was it just like little yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, like classrooms and stuff on them. Once we'd
Speaker 2: done his whole projects of raising all these hamsters, and
Speaker 2: then he burnt the hamsters as well, which you know,
Speaker 2: it was not nice.
Speaker 3: It's like serial killer stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean yeah, I mean sort of. Essex in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties was a fairly errant place, to be fair.
Speaker 1: We're taking a quick break and then coming back with
Speaker 1: more from Leo Rose and Damon Albarn. We're back with
Speaker 1: more from Damon Albarne and Lio Rose.
Speaker 3: As a kid, like what was how did you find music?
Speaker 3: What was the first music that you felt was like
Speaker 3: really spoke to you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was more family law. I had a harmonic
Speaker 2: hererap that was in my cot which I used to play.
Speaker 2: I've always always been interested in music. Yeah. I went
Speaker 2: through quite conventional musical education, classical, and then I just
Speaker 2: sort of with Graham, discovered other kinds of ways of
Speaker 2: playing music, you know, and here I am.
Speaker 3: Now what were you guys into music wise? Were you
Speaker 3: into punk or were you like what was a new wave?
Speaker 3: What was there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean a lot of our early stuff
Speaker 2: is comes directly from Thursday Night on Top of the Pops. No,
Speaker 2: it's a national obsession with the youth. Really, it felt
Speaker 2: like that where I lived. That was my connection with everything,
Speaker 2: you know, Top of the Pops, clothes, music, hairstyles.
Speaker 3: How much did you guys think about the way that
Speaker 3: you looked, like the aesthetic look of Blur when you
Speaker 3: first started. Was there are a lot of thought put into
Speaker 3: the haircuts and the clothes.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of thought put into making it
Speaker 2: not look like there's a lot of thought put into it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just a classic art school band really yeah,
Speaker 2: slightly foppish, slightly foppish, slightly disheveled, but kind of you know, cool. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But the hair was always good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had good hair. We had good hair.
Speaker 3: Like it looks dishovel, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean remarkably, we've still pretty much all got our hair,
Speaker 2: which is honestly, that's quite the thing. Fifty five is
Speaker 2: definitely not something to take for granted. For sure, you
Speaker 2: know it's true.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I've always wondered that because you always look cool,
Speaker 3: and it's like, how much thought, I'm just curious, how
Speaker 3: still you look cool your cool outfits. You obviously make
Speaker 3: cool choices with what you wear.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, I mean you know, we we were
Speaker 2: in second hand shops from day one. I mean it's
Speaker 2: it's one of our great joy especially Graham and I
Speaker 2: you know, we just love shopping for old clothes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but still you have to be good at it,
Speaker 3: like someone on you two three thousand, like always looks cool.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you could walk into the same shop and no, of.
Speaker 2: Course, but it's like it's like everything practice makes perfect,
Speaker 2: you know, It's like all those things that you tried
Speaker 2: on that really didn't work, but you put down and
Speaker 2: I bought a lot of stuff that I was convinced
Speaker 2: was a major statement in fashion that when I got home,
Speaker 2: it's like, and these days I have I mean my
Speaker 2: daughter because she's at London School of Fashion, very serious,
Speaker 2: very very serious about everything. To that, I mean, I
Speaker 2: can't get with anything anymore, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I have to really be my top a game every
Speaker 2: day otherwise she will call me out.
Speaker 3: So does she like your style?
Speaker 2: Well? I think, I mean I'm a dad, do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? I can't. Yeah, I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: never going to be have as much trip as other people,
Speaker 2: but you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you remember I was reading about your first Blurs
Speaker 3: first tour in America and it sounds like it was
Speaker 3: a bit of a disaster. I don't know if that's accurate,
Speaker 3: but do you remember first going on the road and
Speaker 3: playing shows in the States.
Speaker 2: They weren't all a disaster, but we did play quite
Speaker 2: a lot of kind of sort of Midwest towns where
Speaker 2: no one had an idea who we were at all,
Speaker 2: you know, which is part of I mean, looking back,
Speaker 2: it's an incredibly important part of our development, and I
Speaker 2: mean of recently, especially with Grid, as I spent so
Speaker 2: much time in America. I've done a lot of playing
Speaker 2: in America, so I feel I feel very comfortable and
Speaker 2: at home in America these days. Yeah, ironically, I feel
Speaker 2: very home in America these days. I've even got my
Speaker 2: Hala hat on.
Speaker 3: I know it seems like you like that hat.
Speaker 2: I'm I know it right, I've literally I can't get
Speaker 2: rid of the fucking hat. I love it?
Speaker 3: Is it just the same hat every time, the.
Speaker 2: Same hat I dropped. I've bought so many hats since
Speaker 2: I got this hat, and nothing, nothing kicks like this hat.
Speaker 2: But it's totally the wrong hat for Blurd. I shouldn't
Speaker 2: be wearing a hat like this. I should be wearing
Speaker 2: I shouldn't be wearing a hat. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: wear a hat on stage obviously, but and all the
Speaker 2: clothes that I kind of sort of you know, the
Speaker 2: whole look that I've got. Yeah, but I've thought about anything.
Speaker 2: It's just ruined when I put this hat on. So
Speaker 2: I can't really wear the hat. I shouldn't really be
Speaker 2: wearing the hats in this podcast, But I just I
Speaker 2: can't help it. But you but you're right, I literally,
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't washed it either since I've had it,
Speaker 2: and it was about thirty years old when I bought it. Really,
Speaker 2: this is a truly loved hat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a cool hat. It's gotten broken in over
Speaker 3: the years. I've watched a lot of your videos. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and in the beginning it was a little bit more stiff. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I saw you had it at Coachella.
Speaker 2: What you're trying to say about my hat?
Speaker 3: It's a good thing. It's like a nice pair of
Speaker 3: leather shoes.
Speaker 2: It is. It is. But I mean, the only other
Speaker 2: kind of hats that I really feel comfortable and have
Speaker 2: been like old Fisherman's beanie hats, you know, like those
Speaker 2: are cool. Yeah, but I can't wear them in the summer.
Speaker 2: Too hot, too hot. Nothing else I've got. I found
Speaker 2: some nice old deer stalkers that I might be able
Speaker 2: to get away with, but it's been so hot. Really,
Speaker 2: this is the only hat I can wear.
Speaker 3: It seems like I don't know if this is true,
Speaker 3: But was Gorilla's the first project where the music really
Speaker 3: super resonated with Americans?
Speaker 2: Well, no song Too was, but no one knew who
Speaker 2: made too. It's just that you be just woo who song. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're probably probably people who listened to Bisco. No, they
Speaker 2: didn't do that, did they. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: It's so sort of detached from us. Yeah, but yes,
Speaker 2: that's our biggest song by far.
Speaker 3: Obviously, after you make a song, too, do you want
Speaker 3: to incorporate a little woohoo or something similar in every you.
Speaker 2: Want to make You definitely want to make a song free.
Speaker 2: But it's quite it's hard. It's harder than you think.
Speaker 3: It seems very difficult. But I don't know. I just
Speaker 3: feel like I would be tempted if you get something
Speaker 3: that really sticks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I've had a few, but you know, but then,
Speaker 2: as Frank Sinatra said, I've had too few to mention. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's really poor. It's a really really really really poor Joe.
Speaker 2: It's poor Joe. Apologize. It always goes wrong when I
Speaker 2: try and be amusing.
Speaker 3: Have you ever tried to analyze what works in America
Speaker 3: versus it works in the UK or in Europe? Is
Speaker 3: that something that you even think of when you're making music?
Speaker 2: Or you just oh, I don't I don't think about
Speaker 2: I don't think about it. I just you know, you
Speaker 2: make and then you just wait.
Speaker 3: Do you care or are you just making to make?
Speaker 2: I'm existing to make.
Speaker 3: It must be so nice to have such a clear passion.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean it's I mean, it's a condition, isn't it.
Speaker 2: You know I've got I have some these days. It
Speaker 2: would be be on a spectrum somewhere. You know, he's
Speaker 2: got a name. I'm sure, I just haven't chosen to
Speaker 2: go down that path to be analyzed.
Speaker 3: Is it near constant? Is it something you can always
Speaker 3: rely on or does it ever leave you the ability
Speaker 3: to make new songs?
Speaker 2: Well, it's like yoga. I do try and do yoga
Speaker 2: every day, and I try to write every day. I
Speaker 2: get up basically in the morning unless you can be
Speaker 2: disciplined enough to do it in the evening, which I can't.
Speaker 3: Are you working on any new Gorilla's music.
Speaker 2: I've done a few tunes. I'm doing an opera at
Speaker 2: the moment about using Geta's fragment. He wrote of the
Speaker 2: Magic Flute, Part two, which is fascinating, very cool. You've
Speaker 2: heard of the Magic Flute, Mozart's Magic Well, Gertzer, who's
Speaker 2: the contemporary of Mozart, wrote part two of that, like
Speaker 2: you know the sequel, but it never got put to music. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's this this legendary lost thing. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know very cool what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: I've never really known what I'm doing in that world
Speaker 2: at all. I'm a complete and that's a idiot.
Speaker 3: But you were trained with in music theory and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can, Yeah, I mean, I you know, I can.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether it's any good put it that way,
Speaker 2: you know, whereas with songs I'm kind of more confident about.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, so New Gorillas. You're working on New Gorillas
Speaker 3: a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to do We're going to do something.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a not as dramatic as a
Speaker 2: quantum ship, a paradigm be a paradigm shift would just
Speaker 2: be very different. No cartoons, yeah, but just an entirely
Speaker 2: different approach to everything, to the to the band, to everything.
Speaker 2: We're just a point where we're going to change.
Speaker 3: Why. Why does it feel like it's.
Speaker 2: Time because it was always just Jamie and I. So
Speaker 2: you know, really, although it's a very big thing now,
Speaker 2: it's still in essences to people. So if we decide
Speaker 2: between us that we want to do something unrecognizable then
Speaker 2: we will.
Speaker 3: That's exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean you need that, don't you two, Yeah,
Speaker 2: for it to keep to stay alive.
Speaker 3: Really definitely, that's cool. So when abouts do you think
Speaker 3: that will start surfacing?
Speaker 2: Well, I will keep writing, but until I've kind of
Speaker 2: written the opera, I can't really do anything much else
Speaker 2: of than that. But you know, you know, I might
Speaker 2: write it really quickly. It's got to be next autumn anyway,
Speaker 2: So before that, I'll be working on Guerrillas.
Speaker 1: We're gonna pause for one last quick break and then
Speaker 1: come back with Leo Rose and Damon Albarn. We're back
Speaker 1: with Leo Rose and Damon Albarn.
Speaker 3: What's the significance of the album title.
Speaker 2: Ballads of Darren. Well, Darren's a very very old friend
Speaker 2: of everyone in the band. He's been kind of sort
Speaker 2: of there in various reincarnations since almost day one. And
Speaker 2: we have this group of very close friends who work
Speaker 2: with us, and I've always worked with us, and he's
Speaker 2: one of them, so therefore he represents all of us.
Speaker 2: So the ballot of Darren is Darren is this moment
Speaker 2: the every man? You know?
Speaker 3: Did he go through something significant recently?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we've all been through significant things, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean obviously, as I write with songs, it's probably
Speaker 2: I've probably been through some significant things as well. But
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I am a I am a
Speaker 2: certified sad fifty five year old.
Speaker 3: I hear you. I feel sad too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fine, it happens. I mean, I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not afraid of sadness, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're productive. You're a productive fifty five year old.
Speaker 2: I'm a very productive saddow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's right. So this album, when I first
Speaker 3: started listening to it, it feels like it needs like,
Speaker 3: you know, like a pair of shoes. Sometimes you need
Speaker 3: a break in period. Yeah, this album just there's no
Speaker 3: break in period. It immediately sounds good.
Speaker 2: Oh good.
Speaker 3: I got in there really easy. I woke up yesterday
Speaker 3: singing the Narcissist. It was just it was there. It's
Speaker 3: in my consciousness. Do you have any sort of tricks
Speaker 3: or little formulas that you've developed at this point for
Speaker 3: making something just go down easy?
Speaker 2: Well? What was the song in My Fair Lady, A
Speaker 2: little bit of Sugar helps the Medicine go down?
Speaker 3: Would the sugar come in the melody?
Speaker 2: I don't know I mean, it's certainly not in the lyrics.
Speaker 2: The lyrics are rarely uplifting. But I suppose it's that
Speaker 2: juxtaposition with the music that creates you know, it's the
Speaker 2: classic ram It's the end of the world kind of thing,
Speaker 2: isn't it? You know what I mean? Where you are singing,
Speaker 2: it's like Spike Milligan. You're probably not familiar with him.
Speaker 2: He's a brilliant comedian writer. And on his gravestone he
Speaker 2: had inscribed he had inscribed, I told you I wasn't
Speaker 2: feeling well.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: You know. What I mean is that that is in
Speaker 2: the joy and sadness of life. It's kind of, you know,
Speaker 2: that final victory that makes people laugh. And yet I
Speaker 2: suppose in a way that's kind of sort of the
Speaker 2: essence of melancholy, you know, it's that sort of realization
Speaker 2: that you are both living and living your best and
Speaker 2: dying your best life.
Speaker 3: Is there like an overall emotional framework to the album
Speaker 3: or how would you describe the vibe?
Speaker 2: I think once they catch you, certain songs will play
Speaker 2: with your emotions quite heavily, you know, songs like the
Speaker 2: Everglades I think will smap people around the face at
Speaker 2: one point.
Speaker 3: M h.
Speaker 2: I mean, so it's got that it's in there, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't it's not going to scare anyone away, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. I don't think, but I mean,
Speaker 2: I can't talk about me at work. I just all
Speaker 2: I can do is make it and then sing it.
Speaker 3: Do you ever have any trepidation about putting about writing
Speaker 3: vulnerable lyrics or exposing a part of your experience?
Speaker 2: I suppose, I mean, I suppose in many ways this
Speaker 2: is my vulnerable. But I think vulnerability is by singing
Speaker 2: about it, You're you're somehow kind of easing it. You know,
Speaker 2: You're the vulnerability is diminished by your ability to express.
Speaker 3: It through writing songs. Does it help you understand your
Speaker 3: emotions or is it just a way to talk about
Speaker 3: it and share emotions?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't make it all about myself strictly.
Speaker 2: It's kind of use. I use where where I'm at
Speaker 2: in my life and how I feel as a kind
Speaker 2: of tool to talk about other things. Sometimes. You know,
Speaker 2: it's that, you know, there's quite a lot of politics
Speaker 2: on the record as well. I mean politics, not affiliated,
Speaker 2: not not not pastes and politics. But you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, So I can Russian strings, say that there's
Speaker 2: the strings attached to all of us. You know that
Speaker 2: we're all complicit, and therefore, you know, what are we doing?
Speaker 3: How did the narcissists come about? How did that song
Speaker 3: come to be?
Speaker 2: Well? I think I think it's kind of sort of
Speaker 2: maybe is kind of came about from my belief that
Speaker 2: we're living in the most narcissistic age of epoch of
Speaker 2: man's man. Basically, I don't know if you can get
Speaker 2: any more narcissistic than the years now, m M, they
Speaker 2: are now or whatever we are, you know, collectively, we're
Speaker 2: living through this.
Speaker 3: Do you talk about that with your daughter, since she's,
Speaker 3: you know, at a young age where this just feels normal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's she thinks, you know, like understandably that. I mean,
Speaker 2: she's called me a boomer on a couple of occasions,
Speaker 2: which I'm sure is not a good thing.
Speaker 3: Are you a boomer?
Speaker 2: I don't think so, aren't you just I really have
Speaker 2: no idea what I am, but boomer is surely before me.
Speaker 2: I can't be a boomer.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think you're a boomer. I think you're
Speaker 3: gen X.
Speaker 2: But I think she's been doubly rude by calling me
Speaker 2: a boomer. I think it's intentionally. I mean I deserve it,
Speaker 2: so it's fine. No, No, I just think by the
Speaker 2: very nature of the way we go about our business
Speaker 2: and where we communicate with each other, and our ability
Speaker 2: to send pictures of ourselves, and our ability to distort
Speaker 2: those pictures, to filter those pictures, to create narrative through
Speaker 2: those pictures of ourselves and our expressions, we are in
Speaker 2: love with the image of ourselves, which is in the
Speaker 2: essence of the original story of Narcissus. And we do
Speaker 2: live in an echo chamber, which is another key component
Speaker 2: of the original, not the echo chamber, but echo being
Speaker 2: the counterpoint to Narcissus that he couldn't hear, he couldn't see,
Speaker 2: he couldn't kind of externalize any empathy for anyone who's
Speaker 2: just about himself and his image.
Speaker 3: Do you feel that when you're playing in you know,
Speaker 3: in different countries all over the world, like if you're
Speaker 3: going over to Molly or you're playing somewhere in Africa,
Speaker 3: do you feel that same force there? Or is that
Speaker 3: a total eskill?
Speaker 2: I mean, not as much as it used to be,
Speaker 2: because the world's changed and everyone is everyone everywhere anyone's
Speaker 2: got phone is in on it, aren't they in one
Speaker 2: form or another. So that reason I don't have a phone.
Speaker 3: You have an iPad, right.
Speaker 2: I do have an iPad, but you know it's just
Speaker 2: not the same thing. You can't whip out the iPad,
Speaker 2: you know, it's quite it's a sort of it's an
Speaker 2: event getting an iPad to take a photograph. It's not
Speaker 2: very boome exactly. You can't do it one hand. It's impossible.
Speaker 2: You have to have two hands. And the whole point
Speaker 2: is this mediacy A boom they go. That was where
Speaker 2: I started. But really the song is about a story
Speaker 2: of my own kind of you know, from being a
Speaker 2: kid in my bedroom looking in the mirror and using
Speaker 2: an old Strobe light that my dad had given me,
Speaker 2: which he'd used in the Ufo Club with Pink Floyd
Speaker 2: back in the early sixties.
Speaker 3: What's the Ufo Club.
Speaker 2: It was a very famous club where Pink Floyd started.
Speaker 2: It's like a cool place in the early sixties where
Speaker 2: people played. And he had the strobe light and he
Speaker 2: gave me this strobe light. So I had my sympthesizer
Speaker 2: a mirror strobe light, and I'd switched off my bedroom light,
Speaker 2: so I'd be in the dark just with the stroke flickering.
Speaker 2: I put on whatever record I wanted to transport myself to,
Speaker 2: and you know, so that was my kind of weird narcissism,
Speaker 2: and then I'd just sort of trace the the journey
Speaker 2: really of the band during that song.
Speaker 3: That's so cool. So would you kind of just like
Speaker 3: watch yourself in the mirror and practice, yeah, dance moves
Speaker 3: and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but in strobe all the time. I don't know
Speaker 2: if anyone would ever be allowed to have something quite
Speaker 2: so mind my I mean, you know, I really didn't
Speaker 2: need any any other drugs when having a strobe like that.
Speaker 2: I had. It had a dial, so you could go
Speaker 2: from very slow to very fast.
Speaker 3: Very cool. Do you feel when you write songs that
Speaker 3: a lot of it is inspired from when you were
Speaker 3: a kid and when you were a teenager, Like, does
Speaker 3: everything feel like it comes from that? Well?
Speaker 2: No, not really, I mean it just comes it comes
Speaker 2: from the portable well I carry around with myself.
Speaker 3: So there's still things today that are inspiring. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean new music.
Speaker 2: It's not oh, one hundred percent. This whole record is
Speaker 2: completely kind of informed by how I feel about what's
Speaker 2: happening now in my life, in everyone's lives.
Speaker 3: Have you ever thought about it if you didn't do this,
Speaker 3: what you would be interested in doing? What you feel
Speaker 3: like you'd be really good at.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't think I'll be good at anything else.
Speaker 2: I mean I do sometimes think it's like, how would
Speaker 2: I have been? How would I have fared in like
Speaker 2: an early Viking community? Yeah, because I went once to
Speaker 2: a beach where they have five stones outside of Rekavik
Speaker 2: in Iceland, and these stones have been this for a
Speaker 2: thousand years and basically depending on which stone you could
Speaker 2: lift and take to the shoreline, you were allocated a
Speaker 2: job within the community.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't lift the heaviest stone, which was the
Speaker 2: one reserved for people who traveled, so I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be doing any traveling. People who rode basically you know,
Speaker 2: they had this, But I was able to pick up
Speaker 2: the one before that, So I suppose i'd have been
Speaker 2: I would have worked and worked the land maybe and
Speaker 2: hopefully you know, being able to write and play music
Speaker 2: and sing.
Speaker 3: When you sit down to play with somebody new, do
Speaker 3: you ever feel that you have to impress that person?
Speaker 3: Are you nervous, Like, what's the feeling in you?
Speaker 2: Ah? I mean you want them to feel comfortable and
Speaker 2: have a sense that you know, you're not completely incompetent. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean really it's about it's about a shared
Speaker 2: sort of experience, isn't it. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: all writers and singers in my world, the good ones
Speaker 2: understand the sort of the aspect of connecting with the spirit,
Speaker 2: and so that's that's the main objective. Really, if you
Speaker 2: can call on the spirit, then whatever you make will
Speaker 2: have some kind of value to it.
Speaker 3: Is there any way to encourage the spirit?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Many ways, many ways really. I mean sometimes people
Speaker 2: like to have a drink. Sometimes like people like smoke weed.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people just like a cup of tea. But I
Speaker 2: think it's just about that being sensed and sensitive enough
Speaker 2: to each other that you can kind of pick up
Speaker 2: on them whatever vibration is being made.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaking of people you've worked with, is there anybody
Speaker 3: who's just collaboration wise you've started to play with where
Speaker 3: it's just an instant click.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean luckily, Well, I mean, okay, someone like
Speaker 2: Bobby Woman. As soon as you sit down with a
Speaker 2: piano with Bobby Womak. He just has to sing one note,
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: I saw that some of your fans on Instagram or commenting,
Speaker 3: and they're saying they wanted you to slow down and
Speaker 3: take care of yourself and get some rest.
Speaker 2: Well, I've just had four days off, So there you go.
Speaker 3: Are you? Are you in constant perpetual motion?
Speaker 2: Yes, you know I say about rolling stones, but I'm
Speaker 2: happy at some I understand by the sheer law law
Speaker 2: of physics and gravity. I will I will eventually stop,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I'll be more than happy to
Speaker 2: be completely disappear in the moss.
Speaker 3: Is that what you want to do? Disappear in the mass.
Speaker 2: Life sounds like quite a nice environment to sleep.
Speaker 3: Eternally, it seems like the album is a bit of
Speaker 3: a maybe a comment on morality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose that's there. It's kind of as a
Speaker 2: lot of questions post within the record. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's judgmental. I really am really not in a
Speaker 2: position to judge anyone. As I say, instant Charles Square,
Speaker 2: it's how fucked up. But I'm not the first to
Speaker 2: do it. So that's my kind of my one of
Speaker 2: my opening gambits really, do you.
Speaker 3: Pay attention to reviews about what critics are writing about
Speaker 3: the work?
Speaker 2: Well, if I was disingenuous, i'd say no, of course,
Speaker 2: of course I do. I mean I'm always interested. But
Speaker 2: I mean there's a kind of sort of there's like
Speaker 2: a slightly mad moment when the record is out there
Speaker 2: and you sort of get some start to get some
Speaker 2: feedback where you know, I mean I pick up on
Speaker 2: it a bit, I'm not obsessed by it. And then
Speaker 2: it's and then and then that's it. It's finished as
Speaker 2: I don't care anymore. You know, it usually lasts a
Speaker 2: few days, but it's definitely a madness.
Speaker 3: Does it bring you down or.
Speaker 2: What when people don't like it? I suppose if everyone
Speaker 2: didn't like something that I put a lot of work into,
Speaker 2: it might be a bit sort of I might, I
Speaker 2: might kind of feel a bit low. But I mean
Speaker 2: it's never like that, really, But.
Speaker 3: It's so nice that you have the experience of going
Speaker 3: out and playing for people because you get to see
Speaker 3: the effect on people.
Speaker 2: Well we see that, and that's the wonderful thing about
Speaker 2: finishing something and playing it almost simultaneously. You really, you know,
Speaker 2: while you're still and the sort of under its spell.
Speaker 2: You can cast that on other people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must just be so great. It feels so good. Exhilarius,
Speaker 3: it's great.
Speaker 2: So it's a good feeling for sure.
Speaker 3: Has your crowds changed a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's sort of there's people from our
Speaker 2: generation and people from this generation there.
Speaker 3: But the Gorilla's audience is really young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really young. I mean sometime, I mean it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I kind of go into the audience and I
Speaker 2: go quite deep into the audience and sort of in
Speaker 2: the middle of the moshpit almost it's like a five
Speaker 2: year old with headphones on. It's amazing. It's wonderful. I mean,
Speaker 2: just just the most wonderful audiences. Yeah. I've had some
Speaker 2: most beautiful experiences playing live in America with Griers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're The Coachella set was so good. I streamed
Speaker 3: it this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a wonderful band.
Speaker 3: So you know, it felt very joyous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. It generally is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Tiers. Thanks for taking the sign
Speaker 2: to talk to me.
Speaker 1: Thanks Damon Auburn for talking to Leah Rose about Blur's
Speaker 1: new album, The Ballad of Daring You can hear that record,
Speaker 1: along with all of your favorite songs from Blur, Gorillas,
Speaker 1: and Damon Auburn's various solo works on the playlist at
Speaker 1: broken record podcast dot com. You can subscribe to our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast,
Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced with help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Vent Taliday, Nisha Venkat, Jordan McMillan, and Eric Sandler. Our
Speaker 1: editor is Sophie Crane. Broken Record is a production of
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Speaker 2: I'm justin Richmond.