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Ace. Website. gorillaz .com. Gorillaz are an English virtual band created in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, from London. The band primarily consists of four fictional members: 2-D (vocals, keyboards), Murdoc Niccals (bass guitar), Noodle (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Russel Hobbs (drums).
- Murdoc Niccals, 2-D, Noodle, Russel Hobbs
- 1998–present (hiatus: 2012–2015)
- London, England
- Paula Cracker, Cyborg Noodle, Ace
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The official YouTube home of Gorillaz.
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Gorillaz (also stylized as ɢoʀiʟʟaᴢ or GoRiLLaZ) is a virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett that consist of four fictional animated band members: 2-D, Murdoc Niccals, Russel Hobbs and Noodle.
Creation
Damon Albarn first met Jamie Hewlett when Blur's guitarist, Graham Coxon, asked Hewlett to interview Blur in 1990 and the two originally formed a hatred for each other (Albarn stated: "I was jealous of his personality"), but it wasn't too long until the two became roommates in Trellick Tower. Damon wanted to distance himself from Blur's Britpop days and was looking for a solo career so he could experiment with other genres, but wasn't sure where to start. Meanwhile, Jamie Hewlett was growing tired of his Tank Girl series after the movie became a critically panned box office bomb and had no interest in continuing. The two ended up throwing several celebrity parties in their flat at Trellick Tower (which were often packed), and it was here that Gorillaz would emerge. The idea to create Gorillaz came about when Albarn and Hewlett were watching MTVW. Hewlett said, "If you watch MTV for too long, it's a bit like hell – there's nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a virtual band, something that would be a comment on that". Albarn recalled the idea similarly, saying "This was the beginning of the boy band sort of explosion... and it just felt so manufactured. And we were like, well let's make a manufactured band but make it kind of interesting". The band was originally called 'Gorilla', an idea that stemmed from a pun on the collective term for gorillas - a 'band' — and as a reference to the year 1968, "the year of the monkey", when both of them were born. The first song recorded by the band was titled Ghost Train, released to the public a few years later. The band's initial visual style evolved from The 16s, a rejected comic strip Hewlett conceived with Tank Girl co-creator Alan Martin. On early 2000, Hewlett also founded the Zombie Flesh Eaters, a creative agency and design team, initially dedicated exclusively for Gorillaz content initially composed of just him and Mat Wakeham, the writer and co-creator along with Hewlett of the comic series Get The Freebies, who became one of the storywriters and video creator during the band's early years. Although not released under the Gorillaz name, Albarn has said that 'one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes' was Blur's 1997 single On Your Own, from their fifth studio album, the self-titled Blur.
Phase One (1999-2002)
From 1998 to 2000, Albarn recorded Gorillaz' self-titled debut album at his newly opened Studio 13 in London as well as at Geejam Studios in Jamaica. He and bassist Junior Dan arrived back from Jamaica in late May 2000 after finishing recording the debut album's master recordings. Shortly after, Damon invited the crew from Middle Row Records — a record label with a recording studio on the same building as 13 and the Zombie Flesh Eaters — to listen to the finish masters after Parlophone, the record label, requested for a set of remixes to be made of the three songs heavily considered to be singles to work out which ones became more popular in order to be moved to broader releases. These songs were Clint Eastwood, Slow Country and Tomorrow Comes Today. One of these remixes, specifically the Clint Eastwood one, was made by producer and DJ Ed Case and featured vocals by reggae singer Sweetie Irie. It was finished shortly before the Notting Hill Carnival 2000 in London where, during a soundsystem held by Middle Row, Ed Case asked Damon if he wanted to perform the refix live. This resulted in the band's first ever public appearance, before most of their other songs were even completed. These recording sessions resulted in the band's first commercial release, the Tomorrow Comes Today EP, released on 27 November 2000. The EP consisted mostly of tracks which later appeared on the album, and it also included the band's first music video for Tomorrow Comes Today, which introduced the virtual band members to the public for the first time. With Gorillaz, Albarn began to branch out into other genres which he had not explored with Blur, such as hip-hop, dub and Latin music, a process he described as liberating: "One of the reasons I began Gorillaz is I had a lot of rhythms I never thought I could use with Blur. A lot of that stuff never really seemed to manifest itself in the music we made together as Blur." Eventually, Albarn invited American hip-hop producer Dan "the Automator" Nakamura to serve as producer on the album, explaining "I called Dan the Automator in after I'd done more than half of it and felt it would benefit from having somebody else's focus. So I just rang him and asked whether he was interested in helping me finish it off." Nakamura and Albarn had recently collaborated on Deltron 3030, the debut album by the hip-hop group of the same name featuring rapper Del The Funky Homosapien and DJ Kid Koala, both of whom Nakamura recruited to assist in finishing Gorillaz material. Del featured on two tracks on the album, including the lead single Clint Eastwood, while Kid Koala contributed turntables to various tracks. The album featured additional collaborations with Ibrahim Ferrer of Buena Vista Social Club, Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto and Tina Weymouth with Chris Frantz of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, as well as bass guitar by Junior Dan, brass instruments by Mike Smith, engineering, co-production and drum programming by Jason Cox and Tom Girling, and additional drums by Blur drummer David Rowntree, representing a pattern of collaboration with a wide range of artists which later became a staple of Gorillaz as a project. was released on 26 March 2001 and was a major commercial success, debuting at #3 on the UK Albums Chart and #14 on the US Billboard 200, going on to sell over 7 million copies worldwide, powered by the success of the Clint Eastwood single. The album was promoted with the singles Clint Eastwood, 19-2000 and Rock The House, in addition to the previously released Tomorrow Comes Today and the cancelled 5/4, with each single featuring a music video directed by Hewlett starring the virtual members. Hewlett and the Zombie Flesh Eaters also helmed the design of the band's website, which was presented as an interactive tour of the band's fictional 'Kong Studios' home and recording studio, featuring interactive games and explorative elements. Following the release of the album, the band embarked on a brief live tour of Europe, Japan and North America to support the album in which a touring band featuring Albarn played completely obscured behind a giant screen on which Hewlett's accompanying visuals were projected. The virtual band member's voice actors were also present at some shows and spoke live to the audience to give the impression that the fictional band was present on stage. The Gorillaz Live Band, as it is called, included musicians who had worked on the studio recordings as well as brand-new ones, such as drummer (and soon-to-be storywriter) Cass Browne, guitarists William Lyonell and Simon Katz, bassist Roberto Occhipinti and, most notably, keyboardist and saxophonist Mike Smith, who had also previously worked on with Albarn as a live musician for Blur and has been present on every single one of the band's live tours to date. In later interviews, Albarn described the band's first tour as difficult due to the limitations imposed by the band playing behind a screen: The debut album was followed by G-Sides, a compilation album of b-sides the Tomorrow Comes Today EP and the first three singles, released on 12 December 2001. On 7 December 2001, the band released the single 911 a collaboration with hip hop group D12 (minus EminemW) and singer Terry Hall of the Specials about the September 11 terrorist attacks. At the 2002 BRIT Awards the virtual members of Gorillaz "performed" for the first time, appearing in 3D animation on four large screens along with rap accompaniment by Phi-Life Cypher - a hip hop group initially intended to be featured on the self-titled album - a production which reportedly cost £300,000 to create. The band were nominated for four BRIT Awards, including Best British Group, Best British Album and British Breakthrough Act, but did not win any awards. On 1 July 2002, a dub reworkings album titled Laika Come Home was released, containing most of the tracks from the debut album remixed in dub and reggae style by another virtual group, the Spacemonkeyz, consisting of musicians Darren Galea, Richie Stevens and Gavin Dodds. On 18 November 2002, the band released the DVD Phase One: Celebrity Take Down, which contained all of the band's released visual content up to that point along with other extras. After the success of the debut album, the group briefly explored the possibility of creating a Gorillaz theatrical film, named 'Celebrity Harvest', but Hewlett later claimed they had lost interest in making it: "
Phase Two (2004–2008)
Albarn spent the majority of 2003 on tour with Blur in support of their newly released album Think Tank; however, upon completion of the tour, he decided to return to Gorillaz, reuniting with Hewlett to prepare for a second album. Hewlett explained that the duo chose to continue Gorillaz to prove that the project was not "a gimmick": "If you do it again, it's no longer a gimmick, and if it works then we've proved a point." Recordings for the band's second studio album started on 4 March 2004 and lasted almost the entire year. The band announced their comeback on 12 December with a new song, Rockit, along with an accompanying music video and the Reject False Icons campaign. The band's website and the Gorillaz Room game were also revitalized with new games and updated locations to explore. The result was Demon Days, released on 11 May 2005. The album was another major commercial success, debuting at #1 on the UK Albums Charts and #6 on the US Billboard 200, and has since gone six times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the United States, and triple platinum in Australia, outperforming sales of the first album and becoming the band's most successful album to date. The album's success was partially driven by the success of the lead single Feel Good Inc. featuring hip-hop group De La Soul, which topped Billboard's Alternative SongsW chart in the U.S. for eight consecutive weeks and was featured in a commercial for Apple's iPodW. The album was also supported by the later singles DARE, Dirty Harry, Kids With Guns and El Mañana. found the band taking a darker tone, partially influenced by a train journey Albarn had taken with his family through impoverished rural China. Believing that this new album needed 'a slightly different approach' compared to the first one, Albarn enlisted American producer Brian Burton, better known by his stage name Danger Mouse, to produce it, whom Albarn praised as 'one of the best young producers in the world' after hearing his 2004 mashup album The Grey Album. The band's studio lineup also changed, with the departure of Junior Dan and Tom Girling and the arrival of bassist Morgan Nicholls and guitarist Simon Tong in addition to a brand-new 'in-house' string section, the Demon Strings, founded by cellist Isabelle Dunn. Similar to the first album, Demon Days features collaborations with several different artists, including Bootie Brown, Shaun Ryder, Roses Gabor, Ike Turner, MF DOOM (who was recording with Danger Mouse as Danger Doom at the time) and Martina Topley-Bird, among others. The band chose to forgo traditional live touring in support of Demon Days, instead limiting live performance during the album cycle to a five night residency in November 2005 at the Manchester Opera House billed as Demon Days Live. The concerts saw the band performing the album in full each night with most featured artists from the album present. Unlike the debut album's tour, the touring band was visible on stage in view of the audience but obscured by lighting in such a way that only their silhouettes were visible, with a screen above the band displaying Hewlett's visuals alongside each song. The lineup of the Gorillaz Live Band also changed, with the arrival of guitarist Simon Jones, percussionist Karl Vanden Bossche and turntables by Spacemonkeyz member Darren Galea. The residency was later repeated in April 2006 at New York City's Apollo Theater and the Manchester performances were later released on DVD as Demon Days Live at the Manchester Opera House. The virtual Gorillaz band members "performed" at the 2005 MTV Europe Music AwardsW in November 2005 and again at the 48th Annual Grammy AwardsW in February 2006, appearing to perform on stage via Musion EyelinerW technology. Albarn later expressed disappointment at the execution of the performance, citing the low volume level required so as to not disturb the technology: That was tough... They started and it was so quiet cause they've got this piece of film that you've got to pull over the stage so any bass frequencies would just mess up the illusion completely.W At the Grammys, the band won Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for Feel Good Inc., with Demon Days also being nominated for Record of the Year. Albarn and Hewlett explored the idea of producing a full 'live holographic tour' featuring the virtual Gorillaz appearing on stage with Munsion Eyeliner technology after the Grammys performance, but the tour was ultimately never realised due to the tremendous expense and logistical issues that would have resulted. In October 2006, the band released the a book titled Rise of the Ogre, presented as an autobiography of the band ostensibly written by the fictional members and expanding on the band's fictional backstory and universe. In actuality, the book was written by official Gorillaz script writer and real-life drummer Cass Browne with new artwork by Hewlett. Later the same month, the band released another DVD, Phase Two: Slowboat To Hades, compiling much of the band's visual content from the album cycle. A second B-sides compilation, D-Sides, was released on 19 November 2007, featuring B-sides and remixes associated with Demon Days as well as previously unreleased tracks from album sessions. In 2008, the documentary film Bananaz was released. Directed by Ceri Levy, the film documents the behind-the-scenes history of the band from 2000 to 2006. Albarn and Hewlett's next project together was the opera Monkey: Journey To The West, based on the classical Chinese novel Journey to the WestW, which premiered at the 2007 Manchester International FestivalW. While not officially a Gorillaz project, Albarn mentioned in an interview that the project was "Gorillaz, really. But we can't call it that for legal reasons".
Current Band Members
•Stuart '2-D' Pot (vocals/keyboard/melodica/synthesizer/piano) (1998–2007, 2009–2012, 2015–present) •Murdoc 'Faust' Niccals (bass/drum programming) (1998–2007, 2009–2012, 2015–late 2017, late 2018–present) •Russel Hobbs (drums/percussion) (1998–2006, 2010–2012, 2015–present) •Noodle (guitar/backing vocals/melodica/keyboard/synthesizer) (1998–2006, 2010–2012, 2015–present)
Former Band Members
•Paula Cracker (guitar) (1998) •Del Tha Ghost Rapper (vocals) (1998–2002, 2022-2023) •Cyborg Noodle (guitar/keyboard/backing vocals) (2008–2010) •Ace D. Copular (bass) (late 2017–2018)
Permanent Members
•Damon Albarn (vocals/keyboard/guitar/melodica/synthesizer/piano/production) (1998–2012, 2015–present) •Jamie Hewlett (illustration/animation/writing/direction) (1998–2012, 2015–present) •Remi Kabaka Jr. (drums/percussion/voice acting/production/sound system) (1998–2012, 2015–present)
Bass
•Junior Dan (1998–2002, 2018) •Roberto Occhipinti (2002) •Morgan Nicholls (2004-2007) •Paul Simonon (2009–2011) •Seye Adelekan (2016–present)
Guitar
•William Lyonell (2001–2002, 2005) •Simon Katz (2001–2002) •Simon Tong (2004–2007, 2010-2011) •Simon Jones (2005–2006) •Mick Jones (2009–2011) •Jeff Wootton (2010–2011, 2016–present)
•Tomorrow Comes Today EP (2000)
•Gorillaz (2001)
•G-Sides (2001)
•Laika Come Home (2002)
•Demon Days (2005)
•Feel Good Inc EP (2006)
The official music video for Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood Taken from Gorillaz debut Studio Album 'Gorillaz’ released in 2001, which features the singles Clint Eastwood, 19-2000, Rock The House...
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The Gorillaz Wiki is a free community-maintained encyclopedia about anything and everything related to the virtual band Gorillaz that anyone can edit. We are proud to offer 1,103 articles and 6,987 images & videos!
The discography of British virtual band Gorillaz consists of eight studio albums, three compilation albums, 11 extended plays, one remix album, and 46 singles. Gorillaz were formed in 1998 by Damon Albarn of alternative rock band Blur , and Jamie Hewlett , co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl .
