Story/ERICA HAWKINS
Photos/KRIS FUENTES CORTES
Glass Animals have no chill. I came to this conclusion not during our Austin City Limits interview, but later that night when they took the stage. See, they were deceptively relaxed during our photo shoot- lying down on lounge chairs and letting our photographer frame their heads with dandelions. But that all changed just a few hours later as they shared an explosive performance with fans who, too, may have felt equally deceived.
The indie rock quartet consisting of Dave Bayley, Joe Seaward, Drew MacFarlane, and Edmund Irwin-Singer have often been mistaken for an electronic outfit instead of a band, and their lead singer and guitarist has even had his voice mistaken for that of a ladyâs (but more on that later).
We caught up with Dave Bayley at Austin City Limits to discuss armies of fans, the sanctity of tiny sweaty venues, and how stories the band heard on the road became their latest album, How to Be a Human Being, as well as a strained social commentary on how the world we live in impacts our character.
Your set isnât until later on today, right?
Yeah so we have a little time for it to get a little cooler but… probably not. We didnât play last week. We get a one weekend get-out-of-jail-free card or something like that.
Thatâs good then, itâll make you more in demand, it means that more people have to come see you.
Weird. I think itâll be fun. Austin City Limits is always fun.
If you had to compare sets like the one youâre playing tonight at ACL and sets at smaller/more intimate venues, which shows would be your favorite?
Theyâre all good in different types of ways. Intimate venues have this type of energy because youâre right there, you can see people, the whites of their eyes, everyone sweats on each other, and itâs cool and raw and nice. And then those big stages, you walk out and see that many people, and youâre like âholy shitâ – itâs a different type of energy. The human body isnât really meant to see that many people at once. I think in history the only times people ever saw crowds that size was when they were seeing an opposing army, so the initial gut instinct is to fucking run.
Iâve never thought of it that way. Itâs like you versus thousands.
Youâre outnumbered. But once you get over that, itâs fine.
Comparing your first album campaign to touring for your sophomore album, is there a marked difference? Do you feel like fans are reacting to the music differently?
Venues have definitely gotten bigger which is really really nice. It definitely adds to the volume of energy in the room like we were kind of talking about. When you have that many people in a room, when you have a quiet moment it feels really quiet. If you have a tense moment and everyone feels tense, it feels really tense. You can do a bit more of that kinda stuff and bring a little more variation into the set. In those smaller rooms, you just go full-on high energy the whole time. I think with the bigger shows, bigger venues, the new albumâs worked well because it has some really quiet moments in it, you can really sense the moments.
Do you feel like it took the first album to have a little bit more confidence when having those quiet moments while youâre on stage? Does it give you confidence like– âwe did this before, we can do this againâ?
Kind of. I mean, we had no idea what we were doing making that first record – and we still really have no idea what weâre doing. Ultimately, it never gave us confidence, it made us feel like we could just have fun again and make whatever we want and hopefully it will go OK again.
Do you think making music gets easier as you move past your first EPs and album and create your discography, or harder since youâre trying to push against doing the same thing again?
Well, you always have to kind of push yourself. Even with the first record you push yourself to the best of your ability at that time and do something thatâs hopefully new and interesting and not your standard three chord pop stuff thatâs on mainstream radio. We always put that pressure on ourselves, and I think hopefully we always will. When we stop putting that pressure on ourselves is probably when weâll make really shit music.
When people walk away from your set today, what message do you want them to leave with?
I want them to forget how hot it is, thatâs the main thing. Thatâs it. I think weâre going to have fun today. Weâll watch the crowds a bit today and see what the vibe is like, then choose our set list. We donât do the setlist far in advance, so itâs not the same show every day. Itâs quite reactive to the crowd which is nice, it keeps us on our toes. A lot of people obviously donât know our music, especially at festivals. Often itâs the first time people have heard what we do. I think people are surprised sometimes that itâs a band. Some people think itâs an electronic thing, some people think Iâm a lady cause my voice is quite high when I sing. So I think people are like âoh itâs a band and itâs live, thatâs coolâ; thereâs no backing tracks for us.
So, the world is in a crazy place right now. From where youâre standing, what do you hope your music does in times of turmoil, fear, and worry?
With the first record, the idea was to kind of have a little holiday. It takes you to another world, a totally different world. With the new album, itâs weirdly meant to be a mixture of that and a kind of strained social commentary. Itâs all different characters on the record, each song is a different character. I guess you can either get lost in their personal stories and kind of become those characters for a bit; like we made websites for each of them and you can really get stuck into who these people are. So you can kind of escape from reality, hopefully, be someone else for a bit and get a glimpse of someone elseâs life. Also, if you want to look past it, I think what we learned– I was hearing a lot of stories on the road and people were telling me stories, and you realize on the surface itâs a little story, a little tale – sometimes itâs creepy sometimes itâs sad – but a lot of the time ultimately itâs saying something about the world they live in and the state of here. The state of America a lot of the time, because we spend so much time here. So yeah, there are layers to the new record that I donât know if the first record had.
CONNECT WITH GLASS ANIMALS:
INSTAGRAMÂ Â // Â Â FACEBOOKÂ Â // Â Â TWITTER
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave