Damon Albarn Prepares For First Solo Album And Career-Spanning Tour

Damon Albarn, frontman for Blur and the man behind Gorillaz, has been recording his first solo album and is planning a tour to support it. For the first time, his shows will contain material from his entire career, including Blur, Gorillaz, as well as the new solo album.

Albarn sat down with Rolling Stone before Blur's Coachella 2013 performance and discussed everything from playing and recording with Blur again, to touring the world with 70 musicians for Gorillaz shows:

That was the most expensive tour of all time. I had 70 musicians. I toured around the world, played massive venues all around the world. I made about 20 pounds by the end of it [laughs], so I won't be going on another of those. It was incredible fun, I loved doing it, but economically it was an absolute fucking disaster.

He also talks about traveling through China to learn how to make a Peking-style opera:

I had four very interesting journeys across China. Like two weeks at a time. We were taken to some very rural, untouched places far away from the crazy commercial growth aspect of China. Back to places that felt positively medieval. I listened to a lot of traditional music, too. One day I had lunch with a music professor in Beijing and I quite earnestly sat down with him and said, "So what advice can you give me as to how to approach this?" And he took me into this library and there were like 1000 books of Chinese folk music notated and said, "Well, you either do it that way or just . . . do it instinctively." So I went for the latter.

Check out the full Rolling Stone interview to learn more.

Here's Blur at Coachella 2013, performing their biggest song in America, "Song 2". They have many other songs though, so don't be afraid to look them up.