Saturday, 7. April 2012

Damon Albarn: Gorillaz, heroin and the last days of Blur


Do Blur have a future? Are Gorillaz gone for good? Is his feud with Noel Gallagher really over? The heroin issue… Damon Albarn answers some tricky questions

You get a good view from the top floor of Damon Albarn's west London studio: the uneven sprawl extending out towards Kensal Green and Wormwood Scrubs. The first thing you notice, though, is the huge elevated road celebrated by Albarn's band Blur, whose single For Tomorrow crystallised the queasy alienation of London living as a matter of being "lost on the Westway".

Soon enough, Albarn tells me, what we can see is set to be transformed by a 34-storey student hall of residence. He is not best pleased, and having registered a planning objection, his pain has been poured into a new song he plays me just before I go home, full of references to "men in yellow hats" and a world "where the money always comes first".

guardian.co.uk Olympic gig will be Blur's last

... Comment