Damon Albarn has spoken about the album he once “nearly” made with David Bowie and Ray Davies in the ’90s.
Speaking to Dan O’Connell on Radio X last night (November 12), Albarn appeared with Jamie Hewlett to talk about their upcoming album as Gorillaz, ‘The Mountain‘.
When asked about some of his “favourite” collaborators from his work with Gorillaz, Albarn namechecked acts like De La Soul, Bobby Womack, Fatoumata Diawara and Dennis Hopper as some of his favourites. “People who I’ve gone on to make records other records with tend to be the sort of people you get to know the most”, he told Radio X.
However, he also added that “there were people pre”-Gorillaz who he also counted as his favourites. “I mean, someone like David Bowie who… I nearly made a record with [The Kinks frontman] Ray Davies and David Bowie back in the late 90s,” he went on to say. “That didn’t happen”.
Albarn has cited Bowie as a key influence throughout his career, even writing a song ‘M.O.R’ on Blur‘s eponymous album inspired by Bowie’s work with Brian Eno.
Meanwhile, Albarn has praised The Kinks and their influence on him, once admitting the song he wishes he had written was ’Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks: “Without a shadow of a doubt. It’s the most perfect song I could ever hope to write, with my sort of voice.”
Meanwhile, both Albarn and Hewlett admitted they almost had Dionne Warwick as a collaborator on ‘Demon Days’, with Hewlett going on to recall: “She was in the studio on the piano with Damon saying, ‘I’m not sure about the name of this album. ‘Demon Days’. Why have you called it ‘Demon Days’?’”
“I think she just found some of the lyrics and sort of some of the ideas a bit problematic,” Albarn added. “But an amazing, amazing person nonetheless.”
Albarn has previously spoken about this lost album before, telling The Quietus in 2012: “I mean, for about 24 hours, many years ago, I was making a record with David Bowie and Ray Davies. But that only lasted 24 hours.”
He doubled down on the story in 2021, adding that the album “was actually a serious thing we were going to do”.
“[Bowie] summonsed me when he was playing in Switzerland into the labyrinth of his backstage and I went to see him and he said, ‘Well, we’re going to do this, but if this tour keeps doing as well as it is then I’m going to carry on touring’,” Albarn explained to The Herald.
The tour continued, Albarn added, “and that’s why there’s no album”: “I regret that one. I just imagine what that might have sounded like.”
Elsewhere, Damon Albarn has shared how he and Jamie Hewlett losing their fathers and travelling to India shaped the new Gorillaz album.
