The first voice you hear on Gorillaz’s ninth studio album, The Mountain, belongs to Dennis Hopper, talking softly over a buoyant rush of Indian instrumentation. Close listeners will recognize the late actor’s vocals as an outtake from the long-running cartoon band’s 2005 masterpiece, Demon Days. “I just thought, if we’re going to talk about the subject of death, I need some people who are dead to help me talk about it,” says Damon Albarn, sitting beside visual collaborator Jamie Hewlett on a Zoom call from southwest England. “Somehow they know more about it than me.”
They made this album in the wake of some major personal losses and a pivotal trip to India that filled them with new ideas for animated characters Russel (drums), Murdoc (bass), Noodle (guitar), and 2-D (vocals). In the end, The Mountain — which also features posthumous cameos from past Gorillaz collaborators including Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, soul great Bobby Womack, and rap trendsetter Dave Jolicoeur of De La Soul — stands as the most rewarding Gorillaz album in more than a decade. “It’s kind of the next one after Plastic Beach, really,” Albarn says, referencing the acclaimed 2010 release that brought together Lou Reed, Snoop Dogg, and half of the Clash. “It’s an entire world itself.”
Why do you think this album turned out so cohesively?
Albarn: It’s because we spent more time [together]. Jamie, after Plastic Beach, changed his life quite dramatically and moved to France, and that was quite a cataclysm in our relationship at the time. But we managed to completely find each other again. And I suppose going to India was the pinnacle of that: Jamie and Damon, Part Two. Reconciliation and the renewing of the vows.
Hewlett: We found ourselves on a very similar page. Damon’s father passed away, and my father passed away 10 days later. We were like, “OK, the themes of this record are starting to present themselves quite clearly.”
Damon, you’d never been to India before, right?
Albarn: No. It’s interesting, being English, going there. I mean, aside from all the colonial history, someone like me grew up in a terraced house in East London next to an Indian family. It’s very much part of being English, is Indian culture, whether it be Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh. I definitely was listening to Ravi Shankar more than the Beatles when I was a kid.
What was it like to be there while you were grieving? Did you find it inspiring?
Hewlett: Just visiting [the ancient city of] Varanasi was quite an experience. Damon swam in the Ganges.
Albarn: You don’t forget that in a hurry. It’s a beautiful thing, because you’re immediately immersed in thousands of years of spiritual activity and ritual. You just allow it to wash over you, and maybe some of it infuses and then some of it haunts you.
You recently performed the first three Gorillaz albums live in London. Did you enjoy looking back on those projects?
Albarn: I don’t get any pleasure out of looking back on anything.
Hewlett: We’re very much about what’s next. What’s next is exciting.
Albarn: I feel like if people start telling you how great you were, there’s something terribly missing in your life. Do you know what I mean?
Hewlett: Yeah. And if you’re living off something you did 25 years ago because you haven’t done anything new, then that’s a shame.
Did you learn anything new about those early Gorillaz projects when you performed them, though?
Albarn: They didn’t have any lyrics! The songs on the first album, the lyrics that they had were just weird. And even the weird stuff makes sense now. That shows you how mad the world is now. “Hey, we’re going to have a character who has dead people come out of his head, and the record’s not going to mean anything.”
Hewlett: That’s not even a crazy idea these days. But 25 years ago, that was pretty crazy.
Albarn: I dressed up as a priest for Demon Days. I really enjoyed that.
Hewlett: He was supposed to be Father Merrin from The Exorcist. I thought that would be a good look for Damon.
Albarn: I loved it. I would do it every night, to be honest with you.
Speaking of cartoon bands, have either of you seen KPop Demon Hunters?
Hewlett: I am going to watch it. My oldest son keeps telling me, “You’ve got to watch it, Dad.” Even if he’s 30, he likes animation.
Albarn: I thought you had to have kids to watch that. I don’t think you can watch that on your own. It’s too weird.
But it’s funny, isn’t it? You guys had this out-there idea of a cartoon band all those years ago, and now that’s the biggest thing in the world.
Albarn: [Laughs.] Between that and the fucking ABBA hologram show, there’s really nothing left of our ideas. All have been taken and monetized.
Hewlett: I think that the fact that we are an animated band has helped just a little bit. Young people go, “What’s that? I love that animation. Let me check it out.” Then they hear the music and go, “Oh, my God, I love it.” And then it brings a new audience.
And the characters never really age, do they? They’re eternal.
Hewlett: Well, we don’t know what’s going to happen next. I’m working on something.
Albarn: They need to become cubist. Hewlett Oh, that would be great. Wow.
Albarn: Murdoc becomes a green rectangle [laughs].
What do you both think about the use of AI in art?
Hewlett: Well, for me personally, I wouldn’t use it in my work. But at the same time, AI, if you’re using it in the art world, is a tool. Just like when Photoshop arrived on the scene. It’s what you do with it that matters.
Albarn: I don’t know how to use it, so I don’t have that problem.
Hewlett: I’ve seen artists who use it really well. But there’s a lot of people who know how to tap a command into a computer and get a picture out of it, and they consider themselves to be artists, which is a little bit far- fetched for me.… Part of the reason you fall in love with an artist’s work is because it’s their work. It’s their vision, their story, and a computer’s just harvesting the information from the entire world. So it’s not the same thing, is it? You can’t fall in love with it. It’s not like looking at a Van Gogh painting or a David Hockney and being reduced to tears.
Albarn: I think it’s too soon to say whether we can fall in love with it. It’s like Mao, when he was asked about the French Revolution, he said, “It’s too soon to tell.”
Damon, is it true that you don’t even own a phone?
Albarn: That’s right. It’s easy. You just lose it one day and don’t get another one.
What about streaming? Do you listen to music that way?
Albarn: I’ve never streamed anything in my life.
Your other band, Blur, is huge in Europe, but Gorillaz are much better known here in the U.S. How do you feel about that these days?
Albarn: We did feel at Coachella, when we came over with Blur [in 2024], that maybe it was a slight mismatch, us being at that festival. From when I started doing Coachella [in 2003] to now, it’s transformed. It’s kind of the embodiment of social media now, isn’t it?
Hewlett: It’s the only festival where the phones aren’t pointed at the stage, but at the person holding the phone.
Do you think Blur will ever play the U.S. again? It’s been a long time since the show you played at Madison Square Garden in 2015, which was incredible.
Albarn: Something like that’s more possible. Yeah. The only problem with bloody playing Madison Square Garden, and I’ve done it a few times, is that there’s all these banners for flipping … what’s his name?
Billy Joel?
Albarn: Billy Joel. Any sense of achievement is just so deflated. I can’t bear it.
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