Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett found themselves back in "Orange County" this week, inside the KROQ studios to talk about the group's upcoming 9th studio album, The Mountain, with the Klein.Ally.Show.
LISTEN NOW: Gorillaz on 'Klein.Ally.Show'
Along with the album will come a hand-drawn 8 minute film, which Albarn cautions does not include any AI. "It goes back to the techniques they used in the sixties in animation, so it's absolutely stunning," says Damon.
"I wanted to go back to the golden era of animated movies, referencing things like 'The Jungle Book' or '101 Dalmatians,' or just that period of animation which was beautifully done," adds Jamie, "animation made by humans."
The duo have stayed away from AI for this project, and in general, in fact Damon shares he doesn't even own a cell phone. "I've got a phone at home, like a landline," he reveals.
"Gorillaz are almost Amish is what we're learning today on the show," jokes Klein, which Albarn quickly adds, "On my dad's side, my grandparents were Quakers, so, I have it in me."
As for the album, The Mountain, which feature themes of death woven throughout, the band managed to resurrect a few voices that are no longer with us, featuring posthumous appearances from Dennis Hopper, Bobby Womack, Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul, and more. "I just felt that they needed to be part of this," Damon says. "It's kind of weird, kind of meditating on this subject and not bringing in everyone."
"We went through all the recordings we had to try and find anything that hadn't been used, some of them, the engineers at the time had been very tidy and they cut everything, but the more messy engineers had left all this wonderful stuff, and we found so much, and just worked with it. No real kind of agenda, just sort of see if we can do something with it, you know, and sew it into our tapestry."
To hear more from Gorillaz' Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, check out the full interview above. The Mountain is out everywhere on February 27