The Guardian, March 2001

This interview was originally transcribed on the old official Gorillaz fansite. I have pasted it here for preservation.

Q) In a sentence, tell me what the Gorillaz are all about.

Murdoc
I’ll leave the commentary on contemporary popular culture to you mate and I’ll stick to making it.

Russel
Media friendly wouldn’t you say? We call our sound Dark Pop or Zombie Hip-Hop and we’re here to save the nation from soulless, record company puppet, pop stars. How’s that for a sound bite?

Q) Are you keeping it real?

Murdoc
What on earth do you mean by that? That’s just the type of second hand, meaningless arse offering I’d expect to hear from some middle class, west London tit in a pair of engineered Levi’s, buying the latest Snoop Diggidy Dog album on import while shouting down his Nokia 7110 to his retarded east end, media, coke, flip-flop, whore of a girl friend.

Russel
There you go, the Niccals does it again.

Murdoc
Hail Satan!

Q) Your music contains an interesting mix of styles - including hip-hop and garage. how did this evolve?

Russel
What else would you expect of a group of musicians from our varying musical and cultural backgrounds? To paraphrase post structural theory, I think it’s fair to say that we are all products of our environment.

2D
No, what happened was Murdoc got carried away, high on Rum Punch, at Carnival and forced his way onto the Middle Row Records sound system with an acetate of Clint Eastwood. He then dribbled his way through an impromptu two step version of Clint before stumbling off to get some goat curry, leaving the vinyl with Ed Case who knocked out a remix.

Murdoc
Stick to showing yourself up face ache, don’t ever try to question my methods or musical genius in public again.

Q) How is del tha funkee homosapien finding being a ghost?

Murdoc
You want to tread carefully when you ask a nineteen stone, NYC brother, how the phantom of his brutally slaughtered best friend might be feeling.

Q) what do you think of the current state of pop music?

Murdoc
I notice that our pal Damon has been chipping in on this one recently. We’re current pop music so it can’t be all bad can it?

Q) Who would win in a fight: tank girl or lara croft?

Murdoc
Shut up, you sad toss pot. I tell you what though, I wish someone would pick a fight with those two mindless cows on the Big Breakfast. What’s her face and Donna Air deserve to be tied up and thrown into a small pit, covered in goose fat, with a couple of randy Great Danes.

Russel
Of what relevance is either of those two late twentieth century, consumer society anti-heroes? Thinking of publishing a fifteen years too late, post-modern, deconstruction of simulacra?

2D
Donna Air isn’t in her late twenties is she?

Q) What’s your preference: oasis or blur?

Murdoc
What is this, 1995?

2D
Super Furry Animals.

Noodle
Graham Coxon-san.

Q) 2D - who is the captain howdy on your T-shirt, and where can i get one?

2D
Captain Howdy is the name that Reagan gives to the spirit she contacts on the Ouija board in William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist.

Murdoc
You got his name off of the cover of the DVD, admit it, you’ve never read any books.

Q) Noodle - what was it like being in that fed-ex box for so long?

Russel
You’ll be lucky, that girl keeps her shit to herself. Anyway I think she’s had her MP3 hat turned on all the way through the interview. It’s all a bit boring for a ten-year-old who doesn’t speak any English.

Q) Russel - what's it like having a ghost in your head?

Russel
Despite what Murdoc may have said earlier, I’m just happy that my years of possession as a child made it possible for Del to stick around when we were caught up in the drive by. Don’t push it too far though.

Q) murdoch - why so angry?

Murdoc
Because you spelt my name wrong.