Koze has worked with some big names, including Damon Albarn, on Music Can Hear Us’ lead single, “Pure Love.” In 2015, Koze said, “I’m not gay at all, but a little bit I could imagine with Damon Albarn.”
“Did I really say that?” Koze says, snickering. “I don’t really know him, but as an artistic figure he is like a role model for me, how you can get old with dignity, be so open-minded, how you spend every day of your life making music, and of course, the musical genius, his expression, how he sings. For me he has a magic voice. It just hits me.”
He met Albarn at Coachella in 2022. They were in adjacent trailers, and, with Koze having remixed a Gorillaz track in 2019, Albarn introduced himself. They drank champagne and spoke about the writings of Hermann Hesse, and Albarn showed Koze that he speaks a little German. Albarn may well have aged with dignity as Koze says, but shortly afterward, Billie Eilish brought the Gorillaz frontman onstage during her headlining set and some of her fans mistook him for her dad.
Rolling Stone: Who’s your favourite person to follow on Instagram?
DJ Koze: I don’t have Instagram but if I did, maybe Damon Albarn. I’m not gay at all, but a little bit I could imagine with Damon Albarn. He’s a nice guy and he has a good attitude.
Pet Shop Boys] asked us if we’d like them to remix it and we thought their association with the song would give it extra spice as it is about anal sex, not graphically or in any particular context, but in the chorus. The brilliant thing is in America all the reviews think it’s ‘Girls who love boys who love girls who love boys’ which is an innocuous thing. It’s actually 'Girls who do boys who do girls like they’re boys’. It works with the Pet Shop Boys and they like it for that reason. They make it sound like the Pet Shop Boys, which they’re very good at.
