Damon Albarn will feature on Noel Gallagher's next solo album.
Noel Gallagher
The two men's former groups, Blur and Oasis, were bitter rivals in the 1990s, but the pair have buried the hatchet in recent years, and after Noel recorded backing vocals on 'We Got The Power', a 2017 track by Damon's virtual band Gorillaz, they are planning to get back into the recording studio again soon.
Noel said: "I don't remember asking to be on a Gorillaz record. I do remember being at Paul Simonon's one night and it being discussed.
"[Damon] was supposed to play on 'Who Built The Moon?' (Noel's 2017 solo album) but we couldn't make the timings work. Maybe next time."
And these days, Noel, 50, loves spending time with Damon even when they're not working.
He said: "I really love working and hanging out with that mob. Not just Damon, but all his people.
"It turned out we had a lot of mutual friends and they're all cool as f**k.
"The Gorillaz shows at The O2 recently were two mega nights out."
The 'Holy Mountain' hitmaker thinks his younger self would find his new bond with Damon hilarious.
He said: "If you'd told my younger self that he'd done one day be singing on a record by Damon Albarn he would have laughed and probably said, 'If either of you are still going it'll be a f***ing miracle - a sick joke that will fascinate speccy Guardian-reading journalists for years.' "
Despite his own songwriting success, the 'Don't Look Back in Anger' singer wishes he'd written Blur's chart-topping 1997 single 'Beetlebum'.
He told Q magazine: "'Beetlebum' is probably my favourite song of Damon's.
"When I heard it for the first time I did think, 'S**t, I wish I'd written that.'
"When I first heard Blur, I thought they were very English, like The Kinks.
"When it came to all the other projects he was doing, I thought, 'When does this fella go on holiday?' "
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