Glass Animals – Music Interview
Somethingyousaid.com’s Carol Bowditch had a chat to Dave Bayley from Oxfordshire-based quartet, Glass Animals ahead of their debut visit to Australia.
My Aunty has a cabinet displaying her sparkly collection of glass animals, what Glass Animal would you be if you had to choose just one for the band?
I think we’d be some weird hybrid animal… Ed is definitely a Meerkat, Drew is a Llama – he spits when you piss him off. Joe is a cheeky bear of some kind or maybe a seal. Joe says I’m a lemur for some reason.
I’ve read that you employ “eccentric yet inventive use of musical instruments”. Could you tell us more about this?
We do a lot of strange things with guitars and other instruments to make them sound like synths. Also I think we have a very loose interpretation of what we call ‘instruments.’ On the record, Ed plays Joe’s Leg, we recorded an apple being eaten, plates being dropped off buildings, Joe hit some pots… All sorts of crazy things ended up being used as instruments.
I really like the video for ‘Gooey‘. Do you enjoy the making of videos as much as you like creating the music?
Thanks! Yeah I love coming up with video ideas and working with directors to make something cool. It’s great to step back from making music for a bit and work on something else. But music will always be my fave.
Have you been to Australia before? What are your expectations?
Never. Ed has though, he was a child star in the opera world. He travelled all over the place singing to people when he was like six. I expect to see at least one koala. I’ve also heard that all Aussies are really nice and know how to have a good party so I think these gigs will be the funnest yet.
A Triple j presenter said that your track Psylla was “fucking BRILLIANT”. What do you think of people so far away [in Australia] digging your music?
It’s pretty surprising – when we released Psylla we thought it would be quite a low key thing. We had no expectations for it. It was just a track that summed up where we were at musically at that particular point in time and something we thought was interesting. It’s nice to know that people like these little lumps of noise that we love making.
What do you have in store for the remainder of 2014?
Lots. We’re keeping busy. We’ve headed to SXSW where we’re doing about 9 shows in 6 days. We’ve got a studio there so we could work on some collabs with some of our friends from around the world who were also heading there. Then we’re supporting Metronomy, and then AUSTRALIA! Festivals, album release, releasing some collab tracks, doing some remixes, it’s gonna be hectic, but it’s gonna be good.
The ‘Gooey’ EP will be released physically on 12” vinyl and digitally on April 7th. You can check out Glass Animals live on their Australian tour, see dates below. If you’re not in Aus, then just keep up to date with the band on their Facebook Page:
Wednesday 2 April- Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne
Thursday 3 April – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Friday 4 April – The Hi Fi, Brisbane
Interview by Carol Bowditch.
