G-U Interviews: Jamie Hewlett

Art by Myles Sherman and Cody Collins (Azoo). Interview and text by Jack Seda-Schreiber

After running through a hail of Plastic bullets, we found amongst the wreckage remaining a lone pelican sitting at his stoop. After managing to get the spanner out of his mouth, he started telling us that he was none other than Gorillaz artist and mastermind Jamie Hewlett! We didn’t believe it was him, of course, but just to humor we decided to have a chat about his day, and if he knew anything about Plastic Beach that we didn’t.

Jamie: Hit me.

Jack: What were your artistic influences on “Plastic Beach”?

Jamie: Uhm, my artistic influences on “Plastic Beach,” god blimey. Probably a little bit of “Yellow Submarine.”

Jack: That makes sense.

Jamie: Uhm, probably some things like “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” with Captain Nemo. We took the idea of Point Nemo, Nemo meaning “no name.” We did a little cross reference and found the furthest point from any landmass on planet Earth, which is in the middle of the South Pacific, called Point Nemo. The grid reference had a lot of 23’s in it, which we found quite interesting cause that’s the number we tend to use a lot. So, it was a coincidence. So; Point Nemo, Captain Nemo, “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,” “Yellow Submarine,” “Treasure Island,” “The Old Man And The Sea,” — a lot of stuff like that was referenced or researched or read. Anything in the ocean or on the ocean was an inspiration. As far as drawing style, I’m not quite sure. I can’t remember what was inspiring me at the time. I think I was just discovering how to use Photoshop properly at the time. Because, ya know, the first Gorillaz album I used to have a guy who did the Photoshop for me, cause I didn’t know how to use Photoshop. I’d do the drawings and then I’d sit with him and say, “Make this blue, make this red, put a shadow here” and basically he turned to me and said, “You should just learn Photoshop.” And I thought, “Really? Fucking hell, that seems like a lot.” And he said, “No, it’s really easy.” And we sat down and he showed me the basic commands which I wrote down in my drawing pad, and then I got to practicing. I did all kinds of photoshop coloring on “Demon Days.” But by the time I got to “Plastic Beach” I had gotten quite good at it, so I was experimenting and using the program properly.

Jack: Wow at the ‘23’ thing!

Jamie: Yea, 23 being the number of Gorillaz, it was a coincidence. It also turned out that Point Nemo is also where all the ocean’s currents meet. So all the crap and rubbish collect in the ocean and eventually winds up on Point Nemo. We were looking at photographs – National Geographic photographs – of these giant areas with miles and miles of condensed plastic floating. And then that was the idea for “Plastic Beach,” of course. What if all the rubbish from our history wound up in the ocean and formed an island in the middle of the South Pacific called “Plastic Beach?” That’s why the model we had made included old German airplanes, boats, tanks and all sorts of stuff that had been thrown into the ocean all over the years. A little bit of “Thunderbirds” [was an inspiration], I guess a little bit of “Tracy Island,” too.

Jack: What was the original concept for “Plastic Beach” and how was Phase 3 supposed to progress and end?

Jamie: The original concept of “Plastic Beach…” Well, it was about the environment, obviously, but without getting on a soapbox and preaching about it — which is never the right way to put a message across. We turned it into a story, where Murdoc had obviously run out of credit and time, and was basically on the run, so he fucks off to the South Pacific. Somehow, miraculously, he manages to build a plastic island all by himself. We never explained how that happened, but he built Plastic Beach. How was it supposed to end? Right, so it starts off with the chase in “Stylo,” where they have obviously done something to upset Bruce Willis and he’s after them. They drive the car off the cliff, the car turns into a submarine and they go to Plastic Beach in “On Melancholy Hill.” I think it has to do with the Pirate Jets, who are basically mafia; they were after Murdoc. Maybe Bruce was employed by the Pirate Jets to bring Murdoc in, cause maybe when he’s not being an A-list Hollywood movie star, he’s also like a bounty hunter. He was supposed to bring Murdoc in, but he failed. So they send the Jets to Plastic Beach to bring back Murdoc.

The third video, “Rhinestone Eyes,” [was] made into a storyboard and then we started animating. It was basically a big battle on Plastic Beach with lots of explosions. It was like Pearl Harbor on Plastic Beach, with all of the featured artists arriving in their submarines. There was a pitch battle on the beach with planes flying over, and then it ends with Russel coming out of the ocean, grabbing one of the planes and throwing it. That video didn’t get made, because we were a week into animating it when the record company pulled the budget and said, “We’re not paying for anymore videos because ‘Stylo’ didn’t go to number one.” Fucking record companies. And they didn’t wanna wait for “Melancholy Hill” to be finished with animation. They were desperate to get something out, cause they felt they needed to put a song out to get us in the top ten, and they put “Superfast Jellyfish” out without a video, and that didn’t really work. I think before “Melancholy Hill” came out, we had a bit of a little fall out with Radio One, so “Melancholy Hill” didn’t really impact. Although it ended up being one of the most popular Gorillaz songs ever, it didn’t perform at the time. Back then, we’re talking ten years ago, everything was really dependent on if you got in the top five and if you had plays on Radio One, blah, blah, blah, all this fucking bullshit. Bit like a movie having an opening weekend; if it doesn’t make its money back in the first week, it’s considered a failure. But today we have platforms on Netflix, where you can put a program or a film on that platform and it has time to gather an audience. It can be on there for a year before people notice it, and then suddenly it’s the biggest thing on Netflix. So, you don’t really need to follow that route anymore, but at the time, it was all about that.

So, I think “Plastic Beach” didn’t fulfill what the record company were expecting, although in my opinion, I love that album; it’s a fantastic album, I love everything about it. But the record company wanted hits, hits, hits. Although “Melancholy Hill” ended up being a big hit at the time, it only had a few weeks in the charts to prove itself. You do all this work and it’s supposed to be successful immediately, which is bullshit cause it takes time for everyone to come around to something. It caused problems for everybody and we were a bit pissed off. I was a little angry, cause I had two more videos and wanted to make and finish off the story. I think the ending was supposed to be that a giant hand comes down out of the clouds, like the hand of a God – we don’t know which God – pulls Plastic Beach out of the ocean. And underneath Plastic Beach, is a giant rusty chain as thick as the Empire State Building. He pulls it, and attached to the bottom of the chain, is a huge plug, which comes out of the Earth’s seabed and the whole of the ocean is just sucked down the plughole, and the world comes to an end. I think it was something like that.

Jack: We actually heard something about that before. Cass Browne actually told Gorillaz fan podcast, “Hallelujah Monkeyz,” about the idea of The Book Of Man in Phase 3. Did this actually mean the demise of Gorillaz?

Jamie: Oh right, them, yes of course, The Book Of Man. The Book Of Man was epic. That was something else that me and Cass worked for quite a long time, which also never happened. The idea came from watching the Woody Allen movie, “Zelig,” where you see all these famous bits of footage and they sort of superimpose Woody Allen in the background of every major historical event since the dawn of time. We followed the same sort of path with Murdoc. Murdoc was an immortal, and he’s been around since the universe was created — since the Big Bang. We were taking famous images throughout time – images of pyramids and tapestries and everything from the past – and we were somehow putting Murdoc in there. The Witch Trials, famous paintings — and there was Murdoc in the background. That was connected to it. It’s all a little confusing now, but it was something along those lines, yeah. Another good idea that just never found its place unfortunately. I think it was a bit too complicated for a pop band, ya know?

Jack: Had you had gone through with the idea that God comes down and pulls the plug on Earth, would that mean the end of Gorillaz?

Jamie: Uhm, no. I don’t think it was God, it was some kind of God, but not God as we know it. Some kind of being, maybe even like some sort of extraterrestrial being, I don’t know. But I can’t remember, so you got me there.

Jack: Honestly, not remembering seems kind of fitting to the story, like, where do you go from there?

Jamie: (laughs) Like most of the Gorillaz stuff, especially in what we’re doing now, we are doing it as it’s happening. I just finished the second “Song Machine” video, and I’m working on two other videos at the same time. We are really right up to the mark, it gets done, it goes out. I think that’s what we were doing on “Plastic Beach.” We were working our way through it. We had The Book Of Man idea, and I had the fourth video idea, which was kind of a sketch idea in my head. But because an actual plug got pulled by the record company, the whole thing sort of ceased to exist. I think I killed the budget with the “Stylo” video, because it was really expensive. When I did the storyboard, I thought, “Hey, this would be a good idea, this would be cheap to do. We’ll just get a car, drive it around, and we’ll stick em innit.” But, of course, I didn’t realize that it was gonna be complicated to put animation in a moving car. And then we went and shot it just outside of California, then we needed stuntmen, then we needed police, then we needed a helicopter, then we needed paramedics, then we needed a firetruck in case there was a car crash, then we needed two cars for each car in the video, so we needed four cars, and then the whole thing turned into a fucking nightmare. Although it’s a great video, it was very expensive, and I think the record company was a bit pissed off at me cause I spent quite a lot of money on one video. I promised them the second one wouldn’t cost as much, “On Melancholy Hill,” but that ended up costing a lot of money too. So, it’s probably my fault in the end really for not planning ahead, and not trying to think of a cheaper way to make the videos.

Jack: Can you remember what the last song was going to be for the final video?

Jamie: The last song, might have been “Broken.”

Jack: That makes sense, that seems like a good single.

Jamie: I really love that song, I think the lyrics were quite fitting as well, “My heart is an economy due to this autonomy,” those are some of my favorite lyrics on the album.

Jack: Not to be that guy, but those are the lyrics to “To Binge.”

Jamie: Oh, fuck! Yes, right! It wasn’t “Broken,” it was “To Binge!” That’s what I meant to say! “Binge,” “Broken,” both start with a B, ya see? “To Binge” with Little Dragon, not “Broken.” It has that sort of desert island sound to it. “To Binge,” thank you for correcting me!

Jack: Haha, no problem. When “Plastic Beach” came out, the Gorillaz website was turned into an amazingly expansive adventure game. What was it like making that and what kinds of ideas were you toying with for future updates of the game?

Jamie: Oh my god, back then I had my company, Zombie Flesh Eaters, so I had like ten people working for me. I completely work on my own now, but back then, I had tech guys and girls and computer programmers and people who were very computer savvy. So, they were kind of making all that stuff. But that was back when websites were popular. By the time we came back with “Humanz,” the whole idea of the website had sort of run its course. We were gonna have rooms inside the Plastic Beach that other companies could rent, be like online landlords. You could come to the Gorillaz website, and you can rent a room, and all the fans who come to the Gorillaz website might open your door and see what you got to offer. We were gonna rent out to the right clients, obviously. We were gonna put an advert out, “rooms to rent at gorillaz.com”! Try and find some cool companies to have rooms on our website, but that didn’t happen. Coulda been cool, coulda made a bit of money renting, I coulda been a landlord, coulda been great.

Jack: The Plastic Beach model used in promotional material is well loved among the fan community. What was it like making that model? How long did it take to make?

Jamie: I think it took about six weeks to make. It was great, the idea came from watching “Thunderbirds” and wanting to come up with a new style for “Plastic Beach” that wasn’t just animation. Miniature model sets like in the old Bond movies and stuff. We made it up in Black Island Studios and we had a huge tank of water. We put the Plastic Beach in the middle of the tank of water, and we put oil on top of the water, and we put the fan on, and the oil made the water move like giant waves. We shot it all there. It was really fun, it was like being a kid and making a giant model. We still have it somewhere in storage, in a big crate. It was a very delicate model, it kept breaking. I’m sure we’ll use it if we ever do an exhibition in the future of Gorillaz stuff.

Jack: Oooh, I would love to see an exhibition.

Jamie: Yea, me too. Get all the cars in there, that would be good.

Jack: Oh, there’s so many cars in Gorillaz, wow, I didn’t even think of that.

Jamie: The “Stylo” car, the Geep, yeah! But yeah, the model was very fun to make. But I think the point is every time we do a Gorillaz album me and Damon both try to do things differently. Just to make it fun and make it different. In “Humanz,” we tried to be cutting edge and use state of the art technology, and now we’ve gone back the other way. Do it all analog and everything by ourselves. Keep it smart and cheap and make stuff without any money and see what we come up with. That’s the new addiction now.

Jack: The album’s promotion began with a series of beautifully shot teasers depicting the Plastic Beach model. What was the conceptualization process behind said teasers? Was it difficult to imagine unique scenarios on the island, or match specific songs to the footage?

Jamie: I think the campaign, which also had bits of character animations as well, was just to kind of reveal details of “Plastic Beach.” We didn’t think someone had done a campaign with a model for a while, so we used it to draw people in and follow us to Plastic Beach.

Jack: They are really cool teasers, we still wish we heard some of the songs used in those teasers. And speaking of, are there any songs you can recall that you were surprised did not make it on to the album?

Jamie: There was a track we did with The Horrors, but I can’t remember the name of it.

Jack: Was that “Leviathan”?

Jamie: There were two different versions of “Leviathan,” one with The Horrors, which we were gonna call something else. The process with Damon is that he makes a lot of demos; he just churns out songs like there’s no tomorrow. He has so many melodies in his head; he’s never at a loss for a good melody. He’ll probably spend two days on each demo, and then there will be 50-60 songs, and then he’ll break it down and work on 30 songs, and then he’ll break it down even further and end up with 10-15 songs for the record. The ones that are left over either find their way out on a G-sides album or they never find their way out. We did one with Omar Souleyman when we were in Beirut. I don’t know what happened with that one though. (gasps) That was a good song! I mean, they are all at Damon’s studio. I keep saying to him, at some point, we should go through some of it. Some of them were quite worked on. They weren’t four track demos; they were reaching a point where they actually started to sound like songs that had guide lyrics on ’em and stuff. They needed mixing, mastering and maybe a feature. But there were a whole bunch of songs that didn’t make it, especially on “Plastic Beach.” If you go beyond 15 songs on a record, people get tired. We had plans to do stuff with the songs, but we had our hiatus. But when we came back, we kinda forgot about them. We were making new stuff — you don’t look back on the past, you look forward to the future. But at some point, it would be nice to compile stuff from all over. There’s songs from the first album, “Demon Days,” there’s a whole bunch of stuff from “Humanz.” Damon made so much for that one. So at some point, it would be nice to do a big roundup of all the songs that didn’t make it on to all the albums and do a special album with those songs. But that’s not really my decision; it’s Damon’s decision. And once you start going down that road, and listening to old songs, and getting excited about it, you gotta finish them. There could be 40 songs that are at a point where they could be continued and finished, but that’s a lot of work. And right now, we are lucky to be in a place where we are still having new ideas and we are more excited about the new ideas. Maybe that’s something you do when you run out of ideas, but I don’t know if we’ll ever reach that point. The thing with Gorillaz is that for me and Damon it’s just fun, we really love doing it. So we are just experimenting, and having fun, and making art and videos, and that may not stop. Maybe it’s something our kids will do when we are dead and buried.

Jack: I, for one, am a huge supporter of what you guys are doing cause you guys are doing amazing things right now with the “Song Machine.” I know a lot of people in the Gorillaz-Unofficial headquarters started a “Free The Sea” campaign to get the unheard “Plastic Beach” songs out, I don’t know if you’re aware of that.

Jamie: We’re aware of that… I’m not saying anything, but we’re aware of that. It would be nice to do something with that… but it wouldn’t be for a while.

Jack: Noodle’s return in “Plastic Beach” was always surrounded in ambiguity and mystery, and since fans never got to hear the full story, we never found out why she wore that costume, where the bruise on her face came from, or even the truth to her whereabouts. Where, if you remember, was Noodle’s character going during that time period? Is there even more about her that we don’t know?

Jamie: This was following the “El Mañana” video where she crashes down the mountainside after being shot down by the helicopters. I think they all thought she was gone, never to return, and Murdoc built the Cyborg to replace her in the band. Murdoc was in control of Cyborg and he could do whatever he wanted. It was Cyborg who helped build Plastic Beach. God, you’re asking some difficult questions here, aren’t you mate? Trying to go through my addled brain to remember what happened ten years ago! But yeah, Noodle was always the one who got in his way with the band, so I think Murdoc was quite pleased that Noodle was possibly no more. But then of course, Noodle wasn’t dead and she came back traveling on Russel’s bald head throughout the oceans. There was gonna be a big fight between Noodle and Cyborg Noodle — like a face-off between the two of them. That’s what the last music video was gonna be with “To Binge.” There was gonna be a big fight between the two of ’em on the beach. The video was also what was gonna be at the beginning of “Humanz,” the four illustrations I did. The white whale swallows 2D, Russel ends up in North Korea as a side show/freak show, Murdoc is picked up by the EMI battleship and Noodle ends up with amnesia working in some sort of dodgy club in Tokyo.

Jack: I remember these “Book Of” things. It was really cool seeing them suddenly after so much silence.

Jamie: That was what was supposed to happen at the end of “Plastic Beach,” all four characters were gonna disperse in different directions and we were gonna leave it on that note. Russel gets wounded by the planes in the fight, and he swims away and gets covered by seaweed and urchins, and becomes unrecognizable as a human being. Murdoc saves only himself, as always. Cyborg Noodle was with Murdoc, but we don’t know where she is now. Maybe she’s in his bedroom, in a case or something. There you go, that’s the end. Everything is written down in piles of sketch books and notepads all over the place, so my mind is somewhere else at the moment.

Jack: It’s amazing you’re recalling any of this at all!

Jamie: It’s amazing to me as well!

Jack: “Plastic Beach” had a lot of interesting characters involved both on and off the record, including some that would’ve been actual characters such as Mos Def, Mark E. Smith and Einar of Ghostigital. Would you be able to tell us more about these concepts?

Jamie: Yeah, originally the video for “Stylo” was gonna have Bobby Womack and Mos Def in it. The video was gonna be that Murdoc and Cyborg Noodle kidnap Bobby Womack from his home, to take him to Plastic Beach to force him to sing on the album, and then they send a bounty hunter to save Bobby. Originally, I wanted Dog The Bounty Hunter to be the bounty hunter. Me and my kids, we used to watch his show cause we loved it; it was so fucking ridiculous. We contacted him, asking him to be in the video, and he said yes. We were getting ready to meet him, but then some stuff came out on the internet on how he made some racist remarks to his daughter’s boyfriend or something. We decided we didn’t want to work with a racist, so we dropped him quickly. I suggested we ask Bruce Willis to replace him. I met him three years ago, with a friend of ours from 20th Century Fox coming out to see “Monkey” in Paris. I sat with them during the whole opera, and he loved it, and then we had dinner and we stayed in touch. We had a couple dinners over the years, and I became his friend, so I asked him to do it. Bruce said yes immediately, so we asked what his fee was. And he said, “You don’t have to pay me, but it is my daughter’s birthday that weekend. So, if you could organize a helicopter to pick me up from LA, I would do it just for that!” The helicopter cost $5,000, but we thought it was a bargain cause we were getting Bruce Willis! In the video, the cop was supposed to be Mos Def, but he didn’t want to play a cop.

Jack: That makes sense.

Jamie: So, I changed the part. It was very stressful, that shoot. I was staying at The Sunset Marquee in LA. The week leading up to the shoot, there were a lot of problems. Bobby couldn’t be in the video, he wasn’t feeling too good at the time and didn’t wanna be in a car chase video. Then Mos Def pulled out at the last minute, but everything turned out alright in the end. Real crazy shoot though. But yeah, Mos Def really wanted to be the Boogeyman, but I already started animation on him, so it was too late for that. Oh well, at least we got Snoop Dogg in a video!

Jack: Follow up question: How often do you draw the artists who collaborate with the project and how often do they see the light of day?

Jamie: It was mainly “Melancholy Hill” that we did that. We reached a point where we thought if we have a collaborator in a video, then they should be themselves. And I quite like that. I’m really into filming the real world and then putting the characters into the real world right now. Cause then I could do my take on the real world — which is slightly twisted, and create a place in-between the cartoon world and the real world. And ya know, animation is so fucking expensive, and it never goes down in price, and we gotta keep it hand drawn. I much prefer, say, shooting a video in Venice Beach and sticking 2D in there, cause then it brings them over to our world and they exist in it. So that’s what we do now with “Song Machine.”

Jack: Phase 3 is often a fan favorite for its larger narrative than Gorillaz’ other eras. Do you ever think you’d be interested in doing a larger-scale story with the Gorillaz characters again?

Jamie: Yes, I am interested, and uh… I can’t really say too much about that. (laughs)

Jack: Oooooo

Jamie: Yes, we are working on something for about three years on and off, trying to find a way of doing something we wanna do that is along those lines. And we’ve found a way of doing it, and we’ve found people to do it with. That will be the next project after “Song Machine.” I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s along the lines of a more in-depth kinda epic story with the characters and music. Not just an album, but bigger.

Jack: You guys have always been so ahead of your time, so I am excited to see what happens!

Jamie: (laughs) Right on our heels!

Jack: What is one cancelled Gorillaz project that you wish had survived?

Jamie: Uhm, the holographic live tour. The idea was too before it’s time. I think it might be possible now, but it’s not such an original idea anymore. We did the performance at the Grammys which looked great on television, but was a disaster in person. The music was really quiet, and we were so embarrassed. You could hear people talking in the front row. Last time we investigated the technology, they still hadn’t figured out how to keep the screen from vibrating from the loud bass music, and ya know, a concert’s gotta be loud! The people who developed it actually got back to us a few years later and said, “We developed the technology, we should talk more.” We looked into it, but it was so expensive, and we can’t afford to do that; it was crazy. The idea was that you could play 10 shows a night in 10 different cities in the world, which would’ve been cool, but it didn’t happen.

Jack: Both “Reject False Icons” and the new “Song Machine” content so far both feature an amazing logo for Gorillaz Productions. What can you tell us about Gorillaz Productions?

Jamie: Well, we aren’t signed to a record label anymore. We are ourselves; we are doing everything for ourselves. So, Gorillaz Productions will be the company that puts out everything that we do. With all the videos we are doing now, I’m filming everything, I’m editing everything, doing all the key animations, storyboards and then working with a small animation company (The Line). So, everything is being done in-house now. We don’t have the finances of a record company behind us, so we are doing everything on our own…which is fun, but don’t be surprised if you see some brand tie-ins popping up just to fund things. As I said, animation is expensive. I remember on “Humility” we did something with Beats. I remember reading a few comments saying, “Fucking Gorillaz have sold out! Beats man!” Firstly, Beats isn’t a bad company. It’s not like we are working with McDonald’s; it’s Beats, they make headphones. Second of all, we need the money to make videos. How else do these things get made unless there is money behind it? Beats are a cool company, as are Converse who we also worked with in the past. If we work with companies it’s always gonna be someone cool, not assholes. I was happy to work with Beats and Converse, they are cool companies. Without it, there’s not gonna be any videos, there’s not gonna be a world tour, there’s not gonna be anything. All of this costs money. Gorillaz tours have so many people. The “Humanz” tour had nine tour buses going around America! That’s a lot of people from all around our catalogue to put in hotels, to feed, to pay; it all adds up! So the money has gotta go somewhere!

Jack: If you had three choices for artists to collaborate with Gorillaz in the future, who would you choose?

Jamie: Hmmm, who would I choose? Well, this would be my choice, not Damon’s. We always wanted to work with Dionne Warwick. It nearly happened, twice. On “Demon Days” and “Humanz.” With “Demon Days,” she didn’t like the name. She came in for the New York sessions on “Humanz” though. She’s very cool, Dionne Warwick, but it didn’t happen again. I’d love to work with Tom Waits at some point. And I’d love to do something with Bill Murray!

Jack: Ah, you guys named a song after him!

Jamie: We named a song after him but we have yet to do something with him. Get him in a video or something, or maybe have him do some spoken word like Ben Mendelhsson did on “Humanz.” But I’d love to get him in and see what happens. He’s notoriously hard to contact apparently.

Jack: How was the “Song Machine” idea born? What made you guys stray away from the concept of “phases” and releasing a traditional album?

Jamie: Uhm, I think we were just looking for a different way of putting out music. The music industry has changed now and conventional albums don’t really sell that much. People cherry pick songs, so we thought with “Song Machine,” each song needs to be a stand alone sort of single, especially if we are making it episodic like this. It gives us time to tell the story — let it come out and build and carry your audience on a little journey. I know where “Song Machine” is going, and so does Damon, but there’s always opportunity to change ideas, especially if you want to include what’s going on in the world into it as well. So, I think it’s just a new format that’s interesting to us at the moment. If you do stuff the same way every time, it gets boring, and I think what makes Gorillaz work is the fact that we both enjoy it. We are at the point where we could call just about anybody, and “Song Machine” allows us to do that and allows us to take our time and do it slowly. It’s a more fun way to work.

Jack: There’s a lot of talk and speculation about “Song Machine,” one of the theories being that the Maydeup Festival playlists you guys did included hints at future collabs. What can we expect from future episodes of “Song Machine”?

Jamie: I can’t answer that. (laughs) If I say anything, I’m gonna get in trouble. It’s all being very carefully planned. Our management company are fantastic, they are all women and they are all fucking amazing. There is a plan, and if I sabotage that plan, I will be in trouble. But it’s gonna be great.

Jack: Is there any chance of unreleased “Plastic Beach” material (aka Sea Sides) being released in the future, maybe even on “Song Machine”?

Jamie: Not on “Song Machine.” But, it’s always possible. We’re aware that people want it, and the more aware of it you become, the more you think about it, and then you eventually find a way of doing it.

Jack: How do you feel about “Plastic Beach” looking back on it 10 years later? Out of all of the amazing things you did for that record, what do you think was your greatest achievement?

Jamie: My god, uhm, I think the tour. I really enjoyed the “Plastic Beach” tour, that was really fun. We had just about everyone there with us, we headlined Glastonbury with it. We had Lou Reed on stage, we had Snoop Dogg on stage, we had Bobby Womack and Mos Def on stage. We had ’em all at Madison Square Garden; it was quite impressive. Mark E. Smith — god rest his soul, Shaun Ryder, De La Soul too. I remember we played San Francisco on Halloween 2010, and everyone on stage and in the audience was dressed up, and we had pumpkins on stage. The entire audience, dressed up, in mainly Gorillaz costumes. There was a guy in the front row, who had his four year old kid dressed up as a Superfast Jellyfish. It was so fucking cool, and I remember looking at that audience and thinking that everyone gets it. That moment was my most enjoyable moment of the ”Plastic Beach” era. Doing Halloween in America is better than doing it anywhere else, everyone really gets into it. De La Soul were zombies on stage! That’s my highlight.

Jack: Jamie, thank you so much for talking to me!

Jamie: My pleasure, thank you for helping me to remember all these things I forgot! Pleasure talking to you Jack!

Jack: Enjoy yourself, Jamie!