Demon Days was born in the dark

Gorillaz

16 may. 2025

Noodle’s account of the record that rose from the wreckage.

"The birth of ‘Demon Days’ appeared to me on a train travelling from Beijing to the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, as I returned from Japan to Kong. As I was travelling across Northern China, I suddenly realized that there was nothing there. It was partly because of the encroaching desertification coming from the Gobi desert, but also because of the incredible amount of over-farming. It had disappeared . . . the land had disappeared!

All that was left were deserted plains with a constant cold wind and trees with paper bags and old toilet rolls for hundreds of miles. Litter trees. There may have been the odd vulture or peasant scratching in the dirt, but nothing else. I went to sleep very troubled by what I’d seen; the realization of the consequences of our actions. My dreams were dark and full of powerful, rattling winds that night.

And then I awoke and it was a beautiful sunny day! A beautiful blue sky, golden desert everywhere and camels. The darkness had been lifted, and the brightness, the light, had once again returned. The beauty was again revealed. This journey is what inspired the origins of the record; the idea of the world falling to pieces.

This journey with its nocturnal trauma and terrors, and shrouds of darkness became a voyage that the album would also have to make. Hopefully we could steer the music through the mire to a brighter dawn and then finally on to the album’s ultimate destination, as I too had arrived; when I woke up in the Gobi desert. Hope."