Damon Albarn

Changes with Annie Macmanus

Annie Macmanus

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Damon Albarn is a man whose whole creative ethos is based on change. His career spans over three decades now, with thirty albums released. His band Blur have released 8 studio albums, with Park Life released in 1994 the same year that Oasis released Definitely Maybe. It defined an era, making Blur synonymous with the 90s and the term Britpop. As co-founder of Gorillaz with Jamie Hewlett he has sold over 25 million records worldwide.

He is prolific collaborator, forming various bands, like The Good, the Bad & the Queen with Paul Simonon of the Clash, Simon Tong of the Verve, and Tony Allen of Fela Kuti and Rocket Juice And The Moon, again with Tony Allen and flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers. He’s worked with the Strokes, Bobby Womack, De La Soul and so many more! Damon has also created film scores, composed an opera, written music for a musical called Wonderland and is one of the people behind the Africa express movement, a platform for exchanges between African and western musicians.

Damon is 53 now, with a grown up daughter and spends him time between London and Devon and Iceland, where he has just received Icelandic citizenship. He is as busy as ever. His latest solo album The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, has had rave reviews and is out now. You can buy it here: https://damonalbarn.ochre.store/?ffm=FFM_bc82b474204774cc44f23dbfe8711498

We met at Damon’s studio in Tottenham before Christmas and had a lovely meandering conversation starting with Damon as a teenager going through bullying in school, moving to rural Essex, the start and the end of Blur, the inception of Gorillaz, social media addiction, metal detecting, and being witchy …

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, welcome to Changes, my name is Annie McManus.
0:07.0	I'm so happy to tell you that our guest on this week's episode is the musical Chameleon,
0:18.5	an utter legend that is Damon Albarn.
0:22.4	Way back in the mid-90s, I was a huge, huge blur fan.
0:28.1	It was the first time I ever kind of felt part of something in the way that being a music
0:31.9	fan can provide, you know, that tribal aspect, us against the world.
0:37.6	I really felt seen and heard by Blurr's songs and albums.
0:42.5	I came to Modern Life as rubbish first, then went back to leisure retrospectively.
0:47.6	And then when Park Live came around in 1994, that was it.
0:51.6	That was the kind of pinnacle, it was like, oh my god, this is so exciting.
0:56.6	Definitely maybe by Oasis got released in the same year, and an era was defined.
1:02.0	Brit Pop was the term, Blurr became synonymous with the 90s.
1:07.6	Of course, so much has happened since then, Blurr released 8 GDO albums in awe.
1:13.7	Then Damon went on to co-found Gorillas with Jamie Hewlett and sold over 25 million
1:19.0	records with them worldwide, still releasing records under the Gorillas' guise.
1:24.7	Damon between Blurr and Gorillas has won a huge number of awards, including a Grammy
1:29.6	and 6 Brit Awards.
1:31.9	He's a prolific collaborator as well, forming various bands like The Good, The Bad and
1:35.7	The Queen, with Paul Simmonon of The Clash, Simon Tongue of The Verve, and Tony Allen of
1:39.9	Fae La Coutie's band.
1:41.2	He also had a band called Rocket Juice in the Moon, again with Tony Allen and Flea from Red
1:45.6	Hot Chili Peppers.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Annie Macmanus, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Annie Macmanus and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.