2D In His Own Words

I’m 2D. Lead vocals and keyboard. I also write some of the songs, even though Murdoc takes all the credit. But I don’t mind. I’m not in Gorillaz for the glory. I’m in it ‘cos Murdoc threatened to hunt me down with his crossbow if I ever left. But that’s just what misunderstood geniuses do. My therapist says I’m suffering from acute Stockholm Syndrome and that I’m basically a hostage, but I doubt it because I’ve never even been to Norway. Besides, humans are too complex to simplify like that. We have many layers, like a lasagne or multi-storey carpark.

I first met Murdoc when he ram-raided his Vauxhall Astra into the keyboard shop where I worked. It was a pretty cool job—11 pence an hour, minus expenses (of 11 pence an hour), which might not sound like much today, but it was the ‘90s. Anyway, the car hit me and I ended up in coma, so Murdoc used the ancient Yogic technique of repeated face-punching to wake me up. When my eyes opened, he told me he wanted me in his band. I wasn’t sure at first. So he ran me over again to convince me. It was clear he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and I couldn’t say no anyway ‘cos I was in another coma. When I came to again, he broke the news—he’d created Gorillaz, and I was the frontman. The rest is history.

I mean, it’s not all good history. A lot of it still gives me nightmares. Like the time I was eaten by a giant whale. We were living on Plastic Beach, this island in the Pacific made of rotting garbage, when some pirates attacked. I fled into a dark cave, which turned out to be the mouth of a great white whale called Massive Dick. Massive swam off with me inside him, and for months I was his prisoner. It was a bit cramped, but I made a nice little home between the spleen and the aorta. To be honest, it was just good to have some me-time. In the end, Massive died, and we washed up on a beach where I was marooned for a year, before finally coming back to London to work on the new album.

It’s brilliant being back with the other Gorillaz, but fame can be weird sometimes—like when fans steal your pubic hair and make a collage out of it. Some people dream of being in a band, but my dream is to go back to Eastbourne funfair and run the dodgems again. You have to be careful with dreams, though, ‘cos if you achieve them, then what will you have left to dream about? That’s something Murdoc taught me. See, he can be nice sometimes. And since he’s started drinking more he’s had less time to beat me up and torture me. So I think we’ve really turned a corner. I only hope that what’s around the corner isn’t much, much worse. But that’s the future, you can’t worry about that too much. What’s happening right now is all that counts. For example, right now I really need the toilet, so I better go.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you like the new album.

Published January 01, 2017.