Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn
Damon Albarn, OBE,is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Blur as well as co-founder, vocalist, principal songwriter, and instrumentalist of the virtual band Gorillaz...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth23 March 1968
CityWhitechapel, England
missing ambassadors oxfam
I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician
moving ideas cartoon
The cartoon is a metaphor really for the fact that it's almost impossible in our celebrity obsessed culture to move around genres and sort of change you ideas, change your face, you know?
stars mean voice
And there are no stars and that you're never really sure who's doing what and what voice is what and, you know what I mean? It's supposed to be quite elusive
memories taken journey
I like to put my iPad on the window and leave it there for however long the journey is, so that I'm staring out, and it's staring out. We're kind of staring out together. It's very poetic to me, watching that absent-minded passing of time. You realize how much you've taken in. What is left of that memory of you staring out of the window for an hour? It's all on the iPad.
night one-day around-the-world
I have to wear a new T-shirt every night. I throw them into the audience. One day I'm going to go around the world and reclaim all my T-shirts
mean working-with-others musician
What you learn from working with other performers and musicians is invaluable, really, and can only help you grow. I mean, if you spend your whole life focusing on yourself, you're not really learning much.
music nice boys
It's important that Oasis are rude about everybody and that they get drunk...Fair enough. It's nice, isn't it? But it's nothing to do with me. They came to see us in Manchester and they were very pleasant boys. Very nice. I'd like to see that as a quote. Oasis are very nice boys.
albums needs break
I was going through a break up. I was depressed... I really did need to do something. Recording an album was a great escape. I don't know what would have happened if I wouldn't have started to work.
world funny-travel made
Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world.
my-family make-me-happy
The things that make me happy most are my family and working.
southern labels sahara
When you're doing a deal with someone in the southern Sahara, it's a very different way of doing business than in London. You can't sign them in the usual way because they'd end up getting ripped off, which would defeat the object of setting up a label like this
thinking chinese trying
I'm an English songwriter/composer, working in Mandarin and trying to find something about Chinese culture that I really relate to and respect and feel some genuine emotions for - and it's quite hard, the pentatonic scale, and that, in a way, is why I think it works. Because I'm forced to limit myself to quite strict rules about what I did. Maybe that's how I avoided pastiche.
writing years long
Trying to write music that's sensitive to 400 years ago takes a bit of madness, as it's such a long stretch of time.
home heroin used
I used to go to work and take heroin in the studio and then stop when I came home,