'Gorillaz' is a multimedia project created by singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett. The pair created the idea of a fictional band, called 'Gorillaz', who would, despite their fictional nature, participate in as many activities as a real band would as possible. Thus the Gorillaz have been on a world tour, released albums and singles, made acceptance speeches at award shows, given print and radio interviews, talked with fans on their website, amongst other things. These were all possible due to the utilisation of a vast array of modern media and a huge range of talented artists who have all played their part in bringing the Gorillaz to life. For a list of all their manifestations and the way these were carried out using a variety of media, see the media section of the biography.

Damon Albarn first met Jamie Hewlett when the latter was working for the UK comic magazine Deadline in 1990. Damon was just starting out in his relatively new band Blur at the time, and their guitarist Graham Coxon was a big fan of Hewlett's work, which led to Jamie interviewing the band for the magazine. As Hewlett recalls, Albarn was "arsey, a wanker". It's clear that the pair did not become friends after that first meeting, yet they met again through mutual acquaintances in the mid-nineties (possibly through their girlfriends at the time - both were going out with members / ex-members of the band Elastica at the time). Oddly, despite their own intitial misgivings and those of mutual acquaintances (“They told me he was a cunt,” Hewlett recalls, “and they told him I was a cunt”), Hewlett and Albarn decided to share a flat on Westborne Grove in London, in 1997. Both had recently turned 30 and were newly single following long relationships. They threw many amazing parties to which celebrities flocked, and had an amazing time. All in all they lived together there for 8 months. It was during this time that they came up with the idea of the Gorillaz. They perhaps naturally began thinking of how they could use their talents to collaborate, and came up with the idea of an animated band. They quickly began running through ideas about how to make the band 'as real as possible' despite the fact they were fictional, ways in which they could do all the things regular bands could do. For example, they could tour if an animated show was projected onto a screen, and a 'real life' band played live behind the screen. Music videos could feature the band in cartoon form. Even though no definite ideas about what characters would be in the band had been settled, the idea of the Gorillaz was born.

In 1997, Damon was far too busy with his Blur duties to think about doing any work on the Gorillaz project. It doesn't seem that much headway was made with it in 1998 either (a relatively lean year for Blur aside from recording the album 13). In 1999 Damon spent some promoting 13, but work on his songs that were to become Gorillaz songs may have started in earnet in 1999 (certain demos, such as the one that would become 'Tomorrow Comes Today', were done as early as 1998). With demoes completed, Damon and Jamie signed the virtual band to Parlophone, an EMI record company. With this done, work began in earnest on the band's debut album in Damon's Studio 13 in London, with his engineers Jason Cox and Tom Girling. Songs were put together in a free-flowing way, a bit recorded here, a bit recorded there, parts of songs going to others, and so on. From early on in the recording sessions it was clear Damon was determined to explore a range of musical styles, that the Blur album '13' had hinted at, including world music, reggae, and Hip-Hop. With an animated band, Damon was freer to experiment with other kinds of music that he was not well known for it, and for which a white artist might be scoffed at for attempting (something that he has protested against in interviews). In early spring of 2000, most of the tunes on the debut record had taken shape, and Damon called in producer Dan The Automator to look over what he'd done, and had production as he saw fit to the material (for this Dan The Automator got the producer's credit on the album). Many Hip-Hop beats and samples were added, and The Automator got in his friend Kid Koala to add scratching to the tracks. Collaborations with Tina Weymouth and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien were flown in on CD, recorded by the Automator separately. A collaboration with Ibrahim Ferrer was also recorded. In late spring the engineers, The Automator along with artist Miho Hatori and Damon went to Jamaica to finish the final album mixes and record the final vocals for the album. Meanwhile Jamie had been busy on the visual side of things. The members of the band were designed only after Hewlett had heard Damon's early recordings for the album. Even then, one underwent a change later in the day (The original line-up of the band was 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc and Paula, Paula was changed to Noodle). Jamie also assembled a company, Zombie Flesh Eaters to help him do all the work that would be needed to promote the band, including working on the interactive website which would let fans explore and interact with the Gorillaz studio.

The Gorillaz official website went live in early November 2000. An EP was also released, 'Tomorrow Comes Today' with minimal promotion apart from a band interview in UK magazine Dazed and Confused (their first ever media piece). Damon at the time was denying in interview that Gorillaz was his project, saying it was 'something Dan The Automator' put together, that he guested on. The denial that he was a director of the project would continue for some time, right up until the Q interview with Damon and Jamie was published in July 2001 (this told the 'full story' at least in outline, though there had been hints before then), even after this Damon would insist that the project was a 'genuine collective' that nobody should take sole credit for - although by the first promotion for 'Clint Eastwood' in early 2001, the pretence that he had only a minor role in the project was dropped. Little other promotional work was done in 2000 (save mailouts of promotional postcards to the Blur mailing list, and other minor advertisements), though in December a white label promo featuring 3 remixes of tracks from the debut album, including the famous Clint Eastwood (Ed Case Refix) was circulated. In January the video for Clint Eastwood was premiered, and in late January / early February the Gorillaz publicity machine went into full effect for the launch of the first single proper off the album, 'Clint Eastwood', on 5th March. There were interviews across all media with the band and creators for the first time, including their first NME cover. Clint Eastwood became a number three smash in the UK, remaining in the charts for weeks, though it was the Ed Case Refix that got more airplay. The song was a hit all around Europe, becomming the biggest hit of Albarn's musical career at that time. The first Gorillaz live show took place at the London King's Cross Scala on 22nd March 2001. Damon claimed beforehand he would not be there, this was of course untrue. Nobody knew quite what to expect at the time though - in the event, Damon and a group of session musicians (which would stay pretty much constant throughout all live shows in 2001 and 2002) played behind a screen upon which animations were projected, their shadows being occasionally visible. The debut album, 'Gorillaz' was released around Europe on 26th March, also reaching number 3 in the UK, and it was also a big hit across the continent.

Two live dates in Ireland and Paris followed in June, and they also released their second single '19/2000' which would also become a massive hit around the globe. On the back of Clint Eastwood's success stateside, the debut got a full release there coupled with two bonus tracks. The album was also re-released in Europe to include the Soulchild Remix of 19/2000. Around this time Damon also collaborated with the rapper Redman, doing a remix of his track Let's Get Dirty, and cutting a version of 19/2000 with Redman rapping. August saw an appearance at the UK dance festival Creamfields and two Japanese dates, and in September the band took to the road in the UK for a 4-date mini tour. The band collaborated with the rap act D-12 and Terry Hall in September to produce the track '911' about the September 11th attacks. November saw the release of the single ' Rock The House' in the UK, and the screening of a self-penned (and self-mythologising) mockumentary 'Charts Of Darkness' on Channel 4 in the UK. In December the band played two anti-war gigs, one in Bristol, England and the other in London, where their live shows were altered to incorporate photographs from the Afghanistan war. In late December a compilation of the B-sides of the singles so far was released in Japan, 'G-Sides' which would also be released in all other territories a few months later, with a slightly altered tracklisting in the US.

The new year saw them off to a flying start with an appearance at the Brit Awards in London, opening the show. They were to go away empty-handed but they would win many other awards at other shows, and gave their acceptance speech (an animation of the virtual band on video) at some of them. Their biggest wins came at the MTV Europe Music Awards where Gorillaz were awarded Best Dance Artist and Best Song for "Clint Eastwood." Their debut album would go on to sell around 5 million copies worldwide, including over a million copies in the US (going platinum) and 700,000 in the UK (double platinum). In February 2002 the band undertook an 11 date tour of North America, with an altered live show (two screens this time, the lower one featuring the silhouettes of band members and quotes, and a new rapper, Jamal Grey. In addition two Gorilla Bites, short animated clips of the band, where shown during the set). They also re-released the track 'Tomorrow Comes Today' as a single in the UK on 25th February, it would reach number 33 in the charts. Work on a dub-reworking of the Gorillaz debut album was completed by the Spacemonkeyz and released in June of that year with the title 'Laika Come Home', with an accompanying single 'Lil' Dub Chefin'' which was a reworking of the debut album track M1 A1. July saw the last Gorillaz show of what became known as Phase One at the 'Isle Of MTV' in Portugal. At the time Damon said that this would probably be the last live show Gorillaz ever did. In all the interviews when asked what the next stage of Gorillaz would be, Damon and Jamie said that they were planning a movie, and that the second album would be its soundtrack. There was a rumour that Steven Speilberg's Dreamworks company were in negotiations to produce it.

On October 31st 2002 the Gorillaz site changed to a view of a portacabin outside Kong Studios, and a story was put out that police had cordoned off Kong Studios due to a naked man running screaming near the studios. This marked the start of promotion for the first Gorillaz longform DVD, 'Phase One : Celebrity Take Down' which was a compilation of most of their video output in Phase One including all the promo videos and Gorilla Bites, and 'Charts Of Darkness'. The interactive menus on the DVD were in the style of the Kong Studios part of the Gorillaz website, i.e. you could walk around the studio and access items in the various rooms, and was released. It was released in the UK on 18th November 2002 and worldwide shortly after. This output of almost all their video material to date neatly rounded off the first phase of Gorillaz activity.

Damon would be occupied with promoting and touring the seventh Blur album in 2003, and he didn't get around to starting work on new Gorillaz material until early 2004. In the meantime fans were treated to a new 3d version of the Gorillaz website to play around in as a little bomb disposal robot, and the Gorillaz made a few postings on the official Gorillaz messageboard. While Damon was off with Blur, Jamie and his team had spent the best part of a year on various stages of the Gorillaz film idea with film studio dreamworks. They had gone as far as to agree on a preliminary budget of several million pounds. However, after lengthy discussions, Jamie could not agree with Dreamworks on a script for the film. 'Creative differences' were blamed, and the film was shelved indefinitely by the end of 2003. Instead Jamie and his team decided to focus on the idea of a sensational animated tour that colud be bring Gorillaz to the masses. The sessions for Gorillaz' second album began at the start of 2004. Damon would work on the album, with only minor forrays into other projects, for a full year. DJ Danger Mouse, famous for having mashed up The Beatles and Jay-Z to create 'The Grey Album' was the producer of these sessions, and collaborators included The Bees, De La Soul, Shaun Ryder and Roots Manuva.

On 25th November 2004 the portacabin on the Gorillaz website that the police had been using as an office was removed and the cordon taken down. On 1st December it was announced that Noodle had returned to the studios, immediately publicising a new competition 'Search For A Star' a talent contest to find a new collaborator for Gorillaz, that the band would judge and which fans could vote for entries in. The studios on the website opened their doors again on 8th December and fans were treated to a whole host of new things to see and do, including a new video for a song called 'Rock It', though it was later announced this would not be on the new album. Band member Noodle did a Q&A; session in mid-December on the band's online forum.

The new year heralded the first new Gorillaz release; on January 20th a white label promo 12" featuring a new Gorillaz song 'Dirty Harry' was released in limited quantities. Gorillaz announced on 11th March that their second album 'Demon Days' would be released 23 May in the US and 23 May in the rest of the world. It was promised to be a lot 'darker' and 'scarier' than their debut album. The lead single of 'Demon Days', would be 'Feel Good Inc', to be released 9th May.

And so the second phase of Gorillaz' masterplan swung into effect....

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