In 1998, Brian Burton was a distracted art student at the University of Georgia who spent his idle hours tinkering with a drum machine in his dorm room. So when Burton flipped Goodie Mob rapper Cee-Lo his glitchy demo after a show, he didn't expect much to come of it. Fast-forward to 2003: Burton, now calling himself Danger Mouse (and just months away from blowing up with the Jay-Z/Beatles mash-up The Grey Album), is producing an album by New York MC Jemini. Cee-Lo -- who had recently put out a critically acclaimed solo album of freaked-out soul -- agrees to sing on a track, impressed with Burton's wacky, symphonic production. "It was right down my alley," says Cee-Lo. "I was like, 'Let me get on a couple of your tracks.' And he said, 'I don't do tracks, I do albums.' " BEAT FREAKS Coming from Cee-Lo, who scored a hit with his 2003 Timbaland-produced "I'll Be Around" and Danger Mouse, who produced Gorillaz' Demon Days, it's no surprise that St. Elsewhere (the pair's first album as Gnarls Barkley) is a genre-defying mix of hip-hop, soul, electro and, uh, college rock (check the funked-up cover of the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone").
CROSS-COUNTRY COLLABO "Almost half the album was done via e-mail," says Cee-Lo. "He would send me something, and I would go into the studio and cut it." Adds Danger Mouse, "We were really competing, trying to impress each other. I was just trying to send him the most out-there stuff, and he was trying to outdo it." This year, the two finally got together in the studio to finish St. Elsewhere. Many of the songs -- including the Al Green-at-a-rave single "Crazy" -- were cut in a single take.
CROSSOVER HIT In the U.K., "Crazy" went straight to Number One before it was even available in stores -- based on the volume of downloads alone. But Danger Mouse fears stateside listeners might not be as quick to embrace it: "It's too out there for urban radio, and it's too urban for rock radio." Cee-Lo has a more positive spin, saying, "Were we crazy to try to break down boundaries? Well, was Dr. Frankenstein crazy? Or was he convinced, completely convinced of something?" The duo's much anticipated set at California's Coachella music festival in April kicks off a string of U.S. dates.