More about: Glass Animals

‘I think a particularly large amount of weird shit happens to us’ says Dave Bayley, frontman of Glass Animals.

The Oxford indie outfit recently released their debut album, the sultry, psychedelic trip-pop Zaba, appeared on Letterman and have toured the globe. They’ve also met a lot of strange people along the way. We caught up with Bayley to hear what it’s like to be chased by semi-naked men, to watch a woman unload her stomach on their tour manager and to be baked a not inconsiderable lt of cake.

Gigwise: I heard that you were hospitalised before the tour even started, what happened?
Dave Bayley: That was annoying. Somehow I managed to get septicaemia (bad blood poisoning), so I just ended up throwing up until I blacked out and woke up in hospital. Not a brilliant start. I got better for our homecoming show though.

How did that go?
It was great, my Mum was there. It’s the first time I’ve allowed her to come to one of our gigs. She really liked it as well, and she brought all her friends along. So the crowd was basically 50% of my mum's friends. Thousands of them. Thousands of middle-aged ladies. They crowd-surfed. They moshed. They did LSD. There was a nice cloud of crack smoke wafting about the place. It was crazy. They got dragged out.

How has the crowd been on the tour so far - more drug-addled middle-aged ladies?
They're not usually middle-aged ladies, although there are sometimes some. The crowds can be pretty rowdy to be honest; we had a crowd in Australia that was just ridiculous. It was the biggest crowd we'd ever played too. People were wearing weird dresses and climbing up the rafters of the tent we were playing in. One man climbed up the side of a tent, and poured wine from a belt made of bags of wine into the crowd. I loved it. People should lose their inhibitions and have a great time, that's what music is about. It’s all about people cutting through the layers and the defences they put up for themselves, and going a bit crazy.

You're playng Reading & Leeds. How are you feeling about the festival season?
It’s going to be really cool. I used to go to Reading when I was younger, so that’s going to be great. I remember it being very messy. I saw The Prodigy there once, and that was carnage. The person next to me had an epileptic fit, and the ambulance came to try and help her but people tried to tip it over. People started setting flares off near her head and shining them around - which didn't make it any better. It was terrifying.

What’s been your favourite experience as a punter yourself?
I saw Radiohead at Victoria Park, and that was amazing. I saw a very weird Radiohead show - remember when they did that really small show at 93 Feet East? They did a really tiny show for 200 people when they released In Rainbows, and I just happened to be on their website the day they announced it. I went at 10 in the morning and queued up for 10 hours, and got into this little show. It was ridiculous. I didn't mind waiting, I just sat there reading books, and got into this Radiohead show with two of my friends. That was pretty crazy.

Are there any small festivals you reckon people should know about?
There was one called Knee Deep festival, in Cornwall. It was really small. Maybe 1500 people. It was basically run by this kid, who's now 18, and his mum who's on the catering, and she just cooks hundreds upon hundreds of pasties in the run up to the festival, and sells them there. It's a small little line up but really cool small bands play it. Definitely go to that one. There's another one called In he Woods Festival, that I think might actually be having a year off this year. But a guy called Charlie, who's Alt-j's producer, runs it. Really cool little festival.

What’s the weirdest crowd you’ve played to, and from what city?
We played this show in Salt Lake City Utah, and we pulled up in our bus. We said 'This can't be the venue' because it was basically this guy's tiny little house. And he showed us through, and his garage was the venue. There were two little speakers hanging up, one of which didn’t work, there was no stage, and one little desk lamp pointing over where the band was meant to be set up. There was also a bar, that just said 'Water: $1' - because apparently nobody drinks. We thought it was going to be shit. The dude sold 375 tickets to this garage that would maybe hold 50 people. But people turned up, and they squeezed into this tiny garage. There was a stage invasion - not that there was a stage. People were looking in through the windows of the garage, sitting on the roof. It was really, really fun. 

Any more weird gigs?
There have been loads. Warsaw, Idaho. I reckon Kansas City was really weird. I don't know how this has happened, but we have a pretty awesome following in Kansas city, and it's where we play all of our headline shows.so we did out first ever American tour, and we booked a really tiny venue there, 200 capacity, and it sold out in several minutes. They just kept putting shows on for us. So we ended up doing three shows in the space of about 24 hours, it was crazy. And then the last show we played there was ridiculous, it was around 3500 people or something. It's a very strange place in America, where maybe nothing much happens out there. But it's actually a very cool city. I like it.

What happened in Warsaw?
Warsaw. That was special. Warsaw's a very cool city; we were playing in the ghetto of the city, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. It felt really apocalyptic. It had a really sour atmosphere, the whole place. The venue itself was this concrete bunker. There was also this weird lady. She was really nice, but really bizarre. She didn't speak any English, and she'd made us so much cake. At this venue, apparently they were looking for volunteers, so they put up a sign saying 'Volunteers to serve this band coming through'. She was a fan so she made us so much cake. And, bless her, it wasn't the nicest. She cut us enormous slices of cake that was the size of a leg, and we all had to sit there and eat it before the show. We all felt really sick. We waddled on stage, there weren't many people in the room, maybe 100 people, and they went freaking nuts, they were moshing and jumping. It was a really cool show.

Did the weird lady enjoy the gig?
Yes! She wanted me to sign her hoodie, so instead of signing it, I just drew eyes on the front of the hood, and I put some little white triangles on the front of the hood so they looked like teeth. When she pulled it over it made her look like a monster. She was at the back the whole time, just jumping up and down.

Do you always come across strange people on tour?
All the time. I'll tell you my favourite one. We were walking down the street in San Francisco, and we hear this pattering of footsteps behind us. We turn around and there's this homeless guy, standing right up close to Drew, and he says in this high pitched voice 'Hey sexy, how you doing? Oh I love you'. At which point Drew realised that he wasn't wearing trousers or underwear, he was just wearing a very short shirt and had a kind of...semi erect penis. Drew looked at him, didn't know what to say, and took off in the other direction. The guy chased him down the street going 'Hey sexy, I miss you, I miss you honey'. That was great. We didn’t help Drew. We just let him struggle.

We also had this tour manager called Hook, who’s one of my favourite ever people. He'd been very responsible and well behaved, so I'd give him an A+ reference every day. But, there was this one time when he got a bit too drunk, and he passed out in the middle of the bus, right in between all the bunks. While he was passed out there, he had all of our show money, and it fell out of his pocket, these rolls of cash. This girl that was sitting nearby, walks over him in stilettos, and threw up on his face. And then she left. But Hook in general is such a character. Hook, if you ever see this, you're the man.

Glass Animals debut album Zaba is out now. The group will play Blissfields and Reading & Leeds Festival over the summer. For tickets and more information, click here.

More about: Glass Animals