Damon Albarn: I never called Adele insecure, we had a cup of tea

Damon Albarn has responded to rumours he fell out with Adele when they tried to work together on music for her new album.

He says the reports were concocted from someone overhearing a conversation with a friend in "not the most private of space".

And he says he "never" called Adele insecure.

Damon was talking to Newsbeat ahead of the opening of his new musical wonder.land at the National Theatre.

The production is an updated version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland but this time Alice's rabbit hole is the internet.

"No, no, no. Here we go.

"I have to get this right otherwise it just becomes kind of clickbait, doesn't it?" he said when Newsbeat asked him why he apparently called Adele "insecure".

"What happened was I didn't speak to anybody about Adele."

Albarn then mentioned a well-known British newspaper and added: "I did have a conversation with my mate and it wasn't in the most private space.

"Somebody definitely overheard it, but took very, very small details from it and cobbled them all together and presented it as something I said.

"Insecure... I never called her insecure.

"I found when I was hanging out with her that her openness was her great strength.

"And clearly that was something she was channelling into her music and that's what we talked about."

Damon said he would "never ever call her insecure".

But what about the comments in Rolling Stone magazine, where Adele is quoted as saying the experience was a "don't meet your idol moments"?

"Oh well, she's just reacting to what she thought I said. It's one of those things, isn't it. I hope she doesn't really think that."

And is there any resentment that none of his contributions to Adele's album managed to make the cut?

"Oh no, I'm cool about that. She just came in and had a cup of tea. We just played some bits and bobs, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like I went away and spent weeks trying to construct the perfect pop song for Adele.

"We had a very casual meeting, I enjoyed hanging out with her and that was the end of it."

One thing that Damon has spent a while constructing is the music behind his new National Theatre production wonder.land.

The production is described as "Aly struggling with all the pressures of being a teenager: family, school, friends and her own insecurities. Then she discovers wonder.land - a mysterious online world where, perhaps, she can create a whole new life. The web becomes her looking-glass".

Aly creates an online avatar which takes on the look of the traditional Alice in Wonderland; blonde hair and blue eyes.

Damon says when he started the project his daughter was 13-years-old and he wanted to understand her experiences, because he "kind of questioned it and you're fascinated by it and terrified by it in a way".

"It's just hard to get a teenager's attention sometimes, I find.

"It's been a fascinating adventure that we've been on. The story carries through now and you get a sense of someone's journey down the rabbit hole through the internet and then out the other side and they're a transformed person - which is in a way what happens in Alice, the traditional story."

Damon says that the main character Aly is really lonely, after arriving at a new school and isn't really getting on with the girls in her year.

"I just saw it as a really obvious route to start telling the story in a modern way."

wonder.land opens at the Olivier Theatre from 10 December.

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