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Phase 2 of Gorillaz lasted from 2004 to 2008 and is named after their second studio album, Demon Days. The name Slowboat to Hades comes from the DVD released for Phase 2 in 2006.
Following Gorillaz' fight, 2D entertained himself in L.A. by befriending celebrities and moving in with Britt Ekland. 2D decided to go back to England because he no longer liked Ekland. He got a job working at the fairground his father worked at. During this time, 2D's ego grew, and he even gained some maturity. 2D's stockholm syndrome for Murdoc started to fade, too. 2D saw himself as the pop star he was, and he was very popular with the ladies. In fact, he had several blue-haired children (whom he refuses to pay child support for).
When Murdoc stormed off at the end of phase 1, he went to Mexico to catch a break, However, he was caught using fake cheques at a brothel and arrested (you might find it fun to keep track of how many times Murdoc gets arrested throughout the Gorillaz backstory). In the La Mesa State Prison, Murdoc befriended some fellow inmates and a raven named Cortez. Murdoc was very productive in prison, becoming a general practitioner with a medical degree. But he still wanted to make a new album, so he broke out of prison and flew back to England.
Wanting to discover more about her past as a result of her nightmares, Noodle went to Japan to discover what happened in her life before joining Gorillaz. Noodle searched for a year, until she finally felt like giving up and entered a fish restaurant. When she entered, she heard the words "ocean bacon," and suddenly she remembered. She found Mr. Kyuzo, who had said the phrase. Mr. Kyuzo was Noodle's mentor when she was younger, and he told her everything that happened in her past. It turns out that as a child, Noodle was part of a program created by the Japanese government to become a super-strong soldier/assassin (explaining her exquisite martial arts skills). However, the government deemed the 23 children of the program too dangerous to continue training, so all of them were eliminated, except for Noodle.
Mr. Kyuzo allowed Noodle to live, recognizing her talent which was greater than the rest of the children. Each of the kids had one special talent in addition to their fighting skills, and Noodle's was music. She could play any instrument flawlessly. Mr. Kyuzo erased Noodle's memory, but the words "ocean bacon" would be the words that could bring her memories back. For each child, a specific phrase could trigger them to lose or gain their memories, or to assassinate anything. Mr. Kyuzo sent Noodle to Kong Studios in a FedEx crate when he saw Murdoc's advertisement in NME magazine for a guitarist. Noodle also discovered that she was fluent in English (previously, she had a difficult time communicating with the rest of the band because she only knew Japanese)! Feeling satisfied, Noodle went back to Kong Studios with her pet Mike the Monkey to pursue her destiny: music. Upon returning to Kong, Noodle found that the building was infested with zombies, which she defeated. Noodle wrote virtually the entirety of Demon Days herself.
During Gorillaz' split, Russel stayed in L.A. like 2D, though Russ did not have as nice as a time as him. The Grim Reaper waa haunting Russel, which he realized after he took a photo with a fan. In the image, the Grim Reaper exorcised Del from Russel, causing him to pass out. Musician Ike Turner woke Russ up, and let him stay at his place to recover. There, Russel made some demos, but while making them he started to lose his mind. Convinced that his demo tapes were causing problems in the world, Russ buried them and went back to England.
Noodle succesfully cleared the zombies out of Kong Studios, and contacted her bandmates to get Gorillaz back together. Noodle unveiled the project she had been working on: the album Demon Days. Danger Mouse would produce the album with the help of Damon Albarn.
On the 8th of December, Gorillaz released the music video for their song Rockit on their website. This song was part of Gorillaz' "Reject False Icons" campaign, which encouraged music fans to not idolize celebrities. On the Gorillaz website, G-fans could print out stickers reading "Reject False Icons" and stick them over pictures of celebrities.
Gorillaz also hosted a talent contest in the end of 2004, titled Search for a Star. They announced the winner in September 2005.
On the 9th of May. Gorillaz released the single that would become their most popular song, Feel Good Inc. (feat. De La Soul). Today, the Feel Good Inc. music video has over 1 billion views on YouTube. The release of the single replaced Clint Eastwood as Gorillaz' most polular/mainstream song. Feel Good Inc. gained popularity after Apple featured it in an iPod commercial. Ironically, Feel Good Inc. sends anti-consumerist messages.
Gorillaz released Demon Days in Japan on the 11th of May, and released the album to the UK on 23rd May. The album is renowned for being one of the most popular and successful albums of the 2000s, earning the #1 album in the UK Charts. Gorillaz, Demon Days, and tracks on it received a multitude of awards.
The band started a tour called Demon Detour, and it went well except for the fact that their tour bus got shot at every night. Growing frustrated of these attacks, Murdoc called upon Jimmy Manson, the tour manager, to stop the shootings, which ceased immediately.
On the 29th of August, Gorillaz released the single Dare, featuring Shaun Ryder (and Roses Gabor as the voice of Noodle). It was the first Gorillaz track to reach #1 on the UK Singles Chart, with a music video that Noodle filmed secretly by herself.
Gorillaz released the single Dirty Harry (feat. Bootie Brown) on the 21st of November.
On Christmas Day, Murdoc delivered his own version of the Queen's Christmas speech.
The next day, an episode of MTV Cribs aired featuring Gorillaz. In the episode, Murdoc takes the viewer on a tour of Kong Studios.
Gorillaz had several events in 2006, including a performance at the Grammys, a performance at the BRIT Awards, and an exhibition at the Design Museum.
At this time, Jimmy Manson contacted Murdoc and revealed his backstory. Manson had been following Gorillaz for a while, and he originally wanted to be their guitarist, but couldn't because Gorillaz had already found Noodle. Manson hatched a plan to kill Gorillaz for money, and he was actually the person behind the Demon Detour shootings. He proposed to Murdoc that in Demon Days' final music video, the one for El MaΓ±ana, Noodle would stay on the floating island from the Feel Good Inc. video while helicopters shot at her. The band and Jamie Hewlett reluctantly agreed to this idea, because Noodle would have a parachute, and Murdoc said the bullets would be fake. But in reality, Manson planned to hide inside the island's windmill and shoot Noodle with his gun.
In the music video for El MaΓ±ana, fans were unable to tell if Noodle was acting or if she was actually scared from all the bullets being shot at her. Though, Manson never actually shot Noodle with his gun. Murdoc actually trolled him, and locked him inside the windmill. The island came crashing down, killing Jimmy Manson. After the crew filmed music video, panic ensued ad Noodle was nowhere to be found. Murdoc lied to the public that she was fine and in the Maldives, but in actuality, Noodle was presumed dead. Her absence filled the band with immense guilt, but especially Murdoc. He did admit that the helicopters and bullets used in the video were real, and not fake like he previously said.
Gorillaz split up once again afterward. 2D went to Jamaica, and then to Oxford to get his law degree. Russel returned to Brooklyn, New York, his hometown. Murdoc stayed at Kong Studios, where he received a transmission from Noodle in the deprhs of Hell. Murdoc ventured to these depths using his portal to Hell, but failed to save Noodle after months of effort.
The DVD "Phase 2: Slowboat to Hades" occuras after the El MaΓ±ana music video shoot. In it, the player acts as an investigator in Kong Studios. The DVD also features bonus Gorillaz content, like music, G-bitez, and live performances.
In October, Gorillaz published a book, with the help of musician and writer Cass Browne, titled Rise of the Ogre. The book tells the backstories of the band's members, and how the band formed. Rise of the Ogre also had an audiobook with the members reading it.
Murdoc fled the rotting Kong Studios and put it up for sale. Gorillaz was very quiet for much of the year. Their only activity was the release of the B-sides/remix album D-Sides on 19th November.
A documentary covering the creation of Gorillaz and its first two albums released in 2008, titled Bananaz. Ceri Levy directed the film, and Murdoc sent a drunken voicemail to him angry that Bananaz featured too much of Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett and not enough of him. A war emerged between Levy and Murdoc, which Murdoc ended when Levy leaked his sex tape.
Murdoc was struggling financially, so he started selling broken guns and other weapons to people, advertising them as if they were brand new. Unfortunately, one of the people he scammed was a demonic entity named Malthus. Malthus sent a group of mercenary pirates, named The Black Clouds, after Murdoc. Still needing money, Murdoc burned down Kong Studios (he couldn't get any buyers) and blamed the fire on some kids so he could collect insurance money.
Malthus and The Black Clouds were after Murdoc, but others joined them too. Mos Def, an American rapper and singer, had told Murdoc at a nightclub about the Boogieman, the embodiment of all evil. It turns out that Beelzebub sent the Boogieman out to get Murdoc's soul, as repayment of a past debt. With all these guys after him, Murdoc had to get away. Specifically, he had to get to the farthest point from any landmass.
Gorillaz began experimenting with using political themes in their music with the song 911. For Demon Days, Gorillaz fully embraced the political themes in their songs, which remains a staple of their music to this day. Demon Days is set in a post-9/11 time period ridden with political tension. As a whole, Demon Days is a pacifist album.
Each track on Demon Days is about a different demon/societal vice, and the album itself is meant to take the listener on a nighttime journey through an apocalyptic world.
Demon Days was released at the peak of the war in Iraq (AKA the Second Gulf War) led by the United States. The most prominent anti-war song on Demon Days is Dirty Harry, featuring the San Fernandez Youth Chorus and Bootie Brown. The children's voices contrasted with the dark lyrics emphasizes Gorillaz' message that the soldiers fighting in the war are young and just kids, and they don't need to fight violence with more violence. Bootie Brown's verse is from the perspective of a soldier whose orders are fueled by anger and fear. Dirty Harry, and other tracks on Demon Days, send these political statements partially to prove that Gorillaz is not just an unserious side project from Albarn and Hewlett.
The tracks O Green World and Every Planet We Reach Is Dead are about humans' negative impact on the earth, predecessors to the environmental themes of Gorillaz next album. The song Kids with Guns was inspired by an incident that happened at Damon Albarn's daughter's school, and is about youth gun violence (or immature people in power, whatever your interpretation is). Feel Good Inc., their most successful single, is about a fictional corporation who attempts to artificially send happiness to their melancholy town. The song paints the scene of a dystopia where big corporations convince individuals to "feel good" in the midst of a city in ruins. In the music video, 2D appears trapped, like how individuals cannot escape their controlling societies.
