Welcome to my second ever blog post! Today i'm going to be talking about the history of Kong Studios, the Gorillaz personal studio and home. Surprisingly, there is actually a lot to talk about here, so let's get started.
PRE-GORILLAZ: 1665-1997
The hilltop where the building would be was used as a meeting point for gangs to hang out and smoke.
The land was used as a dumping ground for people killed in the Great Plague of 1665.
The first building built was the Khong Mansion, owned by Sir Emerick Khong. Murdoc once said his ghost is still walking around Kong, mumbling for a glass of water. The last known owners before Gorillaz were a gang of bikers known as The Nomads. One night they were having a party with over 2,000 bikers crammed into the basement. A fire soon broke out, and someone had locked the doors so no one got out. According to Murdoc, "They all got burned to a crisp!"
ORIGINAL KONG STUDIOS: Phase 1: 1998-2003
In September of 1998, Murdoc found Kong Studios on the website giganticdisusedhauntedstudiosinthemiddleofnowhere.com. The owners were looking for an "offseason caretaker." When Murdoc showed up for the interview, the owners threw the keys at him and ran down the hill screaming. Murdoc knew he found his home. He along with 2-D moved in before kidnapping Russel and "receiving" Noodle. Murdoc wanted fans to see what the life of Gorillaz was like, so filled up Kong with a ton of cool stuff and set up cameras around the studio that were connected to gorillaz.com. During phase 1, Kong had 2 games, Noodle Fight and Geep Simulator, a magazine section where viewers could see various articles about Gorillaz, a jukebox that played Gorillaz songs (which was the only place 911 was available on besides the promo vinyl), and various interactive things in most of the rooms. After Gorillaz left in 2002 to go on tour, 2D forgot to lock up the studio, and soon after the Spacemonkeyz broke in and stole the master tapes to the debut album and remixed it. Gorillaz soon found out after a CD signing after a concert, when Murdoc was handed an album he didn't know, dubbed Laika Come Home. I can go on about Gorillaz lore all day but for now, this is where I end the phase 1 story.
ORIGINAL KONG STUDIOS: Phase 2: 2004-2008
After Gorillaz broke up near 2002-2003, Kong was closed off by Essex authorities and was only accessible through a port-a-cabin set up near the studio. After Noodle came back in 2004, she found the place was filled with zombies, so she decided to get rid of them. While hiding in a closet in-between killing the zombies, Noodle had started ideas for Demon Days, the second album. Soon after she called her bandmates back to start recording, and Kong Studios was officially reopened on December 8, 2004 with the premiere of Rockit. This time around, Kong had outdone itself, with more games, more interactive stuff, and other things. This included a new room accessible through the Car Park which was an old underground bunker, complete with a hell hole (how pleasing!). This was found after Danger Mouse (Demon Days' producer) crashed Murdoc's Winnebago into a wall. Around March-April of 2006, moving boxes could be seen in Kong's lobby, which was later moved to Noodle's room. Soon after, the contents of her room were packed up and put on the flying windmill island (from Feel Good Inc.), which later flew away. This was the result of the El Mañana video, where afterwards Noodle was said to be dead and in hell. In a panic, 2D and Russel left the band, leaving Murdoc on his own, who soon after also abandoned Kong to take a trip around the world. The studio was then reclaimed by the surrounding environment before being burnt to the ground by Murdoc on July 25, 2008. Afterwards, he went to see the play Monkey: Journey to the West, before blaming the fire on some kids, who got thrown in jail. He later used the insurance money to build Plastic Beach, which is its own story for another day.
STUDIO 13: 2017-PRESENT
After the events of Plastic Beach, Murdoc moved into a new studio, Studio 13, to record a new Gorillaz album, which became Humanz. Although Studio 13 was used to record Humanz, during phase 4 the main Gorillaz HQ was the Spirit House. Gorillaz (apart from Murdoc) soon after returned to record The Now Now. After the band returned from traveling the world, they renamed Studio 13 to Kong Studios, which now had weird, unstable portals. The band filmed Song Machine episodes 1-5 at least partially at Kong. Episode 7 was filmed on a green screen, while Episode 8 had the garage a few seconds into the episode. Due to the big pandemic, Gorillaz were separated around the studio, with Murdoc building his time machine. Phase 6 lore is weird, and incomplete! After a sinkhole opened up under Kong, the band took a road trip in Murdoc's Winnebago, while promoting the Fred Perry collection. After recording the Meanwhile EP, nothing really is happening with Gorillaz, so I guess this is where I end this. Thanks for reading!
UPDATE 8/13/22
With the lore always being updated and phase 7 starting, I have updated this post to give more context (and to also fix some grammatical errors)
Apparently the sinkhole is still opened up under Kong, so Gorillaz moved to Los Angeles, California to record Cracker Island and hopefully a new album. This was found out through some Twitter posts, the Cracker Island video premiere, and Murdoc's Twitter Spaces Q&A.
