Quotes by Damon Albarn

“On Blur bassist Alex James: I used to punch Alex a lot. He used to say really annoying things. I think he liked being punched.”

“The concert was all about raising awareness, but Peter looked like he was having trouble raising his own awareness - he looked wasted,”

“With Africa, were talking about a nation battling through immense poverty and he cant quite get it together to sing a song. On that day he just seemed like an odd image”

“We dont sit around thinking, Thisll be great for kids - it just happened to really appeal to them,”

“Well, whatever,”

“We intend to do a massive world tour with Demon Days, but I wont be involved with it. Itll be all animation and big sound systems and stuff.”

“Manchester is the centre of Britain, were only ever going to do this once so it makes sense to do it somewhere in the middle of the country. London gets all the gigs. Its time to do something a bit different to readdress the balance. Were very excited to be getting all the guests artists together in one place for these shows.”

“Were kind of working it out. Youre going to see a lot of the guests on the album [live on stage].”

“I cant really make another Blur record thats a big landscape sort of thing, due to my very basic guitar ability, ... I want to sing and play so it has to be three chords. I can only do three chords and not look at the guitar.”

“I feel John Peel was somebody that we could all trust. Throughout his life, he gave people a sense of a bigger world out there.”

I hope we can keep doing it this way - making music and art that are pure products of our influences while not really having to let the whole celebrity side of it get in the way. Then maybe more virtual bands will come out and do the same thing.

Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music thats being made all over the world.

Music is something that should speak for itself, straight from the heart. It took me a long time to understand that.

The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that theres some intelligence behind the cartoons, and theres a lot of work thats gone into it, so it cant all be just a lie.

The things that make me happy most are my family and working.

What you learn from working with other performers and musicians is invaluable, really, and can only help you grow. I mean, if you spend your whole life focusing on yourself, youre not really learning much.

The cartoon is a metaphor really for the fact that its almost impossible in our celebrity obsessed culture to move around genres and sort of change you ideas, change your face, you know?