Dave Bayley On The Moment He Thought Glass Animals Was Over

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I think the first five times I played that song, I broke down. Afterwards we had to play it at the very end, and now we still play at the very end because that's just a remnant of me crying after us. But I was also so sweaty that he has just kind of went into the sweat and no one would notice it was.

Okay, hello, and welcome to But are you Happy? The podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from the people who appear to have it all. Dave Bailey is a musician and the lead singer of British indie rock band Glass Animals, whose music you've most definitely heard. Glass Animals had the number one song in the world with heat Waves, which went viral on TikTok and was number one in the Triple J Hottest one hundred and twenty twenty before topping charts all over the world world,

I love them so much because I feel like their music has accompanied so many important moments of my life, and whenever I listen to that, I think about like the triumphs and the sadness, and the friendships and the relationships that have sort of bloomed around that music. Daved writes some most beautiful, heartfelt lyrics, and the nostalgia just takes me back, and like the heartache just brings me forward.

I've been listening to him for the boss six seven years now, just really takes me back and looking forward to what they've got to offer over the next couple of.

Months, transformation over what ten fifteen years, We're looking back at what our.

Favorite songs are, and my favorite songs are kind of from the first album.

So we went to their show in twenty seventeen in London, so it was really kind of nostalgic.

Dave Bailey is a fascinating human being. I caught him in a moment in his life where he's really grappling with meaning and purpose and whether his pursuit of music is ultimately selfish.

I've been asking myself that questions like is this a selfish thing to do? Should I have stuck with what I was doing? Was that more selfless? Would that help more people? Because ultimately, wanting to be a doctor, I wanted to help people.

Dave was studying medicine when he decided to take a break to pursue music, and he was always tossing up whether to go back. Then he wrote the biggest song in the world. What does that feel like for Dave? His career changed and his life changed, but not necessarily in the way you'd expect. When he sings heat Waves on stage in front of crowds at Glastonbrie or Coachella, it means something very different to him than what it means to other people in that crowd.

And then there's a subject matter of the song, like hearing it everywhere? Is it kind of haunted by this? This thing.

Here's my chat with Dave Bailey. Dave Bailey, you are the lead singer for Glass Animals, and indie rock band that a lot of listeners will know from your biggest hit single, heat Waves, which you wrote and produced. Heat Waves went viral on TikTok it won the Triple J Hottest one hundred in twenty twenty. Australia has a bit of a claim to being the tastemakers when it comes to that, and it stayed at the top of charts all over the world for years. In January twenty twenty two,

Right now? Yeah, I'm I've just come off a plane. I feel really good. I'm really excited to be here. Mainly, I feel like Australia has always had a special place in my heart Because a lot of things began here.

Why do you think that is? Why does Australia seem to get it quicker than everybody else?

I don't know. I think you've got a really amazing creative network here, from musicians to people like yourself, and it's just a very positive creative force and backing here. That's really Yes, it's a special place and things tend to like happen here at first when it wasn't working anywhere else in the world. It Yeah, I've actually I've got a tattoo of Australia my bum.

Yes, And I saw an interview about that and they couldn't work out do you have Tasmania on the right side?

Yes?

Okay, because there was billion times because I think it was a mirror to the photo. So they were like, we don't want to be rude about your tattoo, but Tasmania is not on that side.

I checked so many unless the tattoo artists did me dirty, I'm pretty sure I've checked so many times. I think I took that picture in a mirror.

Okay, yes, yes, yes, okay, good, but.

I'm I haven't. I can't look at it. It's just one of those places like trying to look at your own.

The story of your career is a fascinating one because while a lot of people might have discovered you in twenty twenty and beyond, you'd released your first EP eight years before that, and you'd achieved success in the music industry. So in twenty fourteen you had a single go platinum. In twenty sixteen, your album How to Be a Human Being was nominated for the Mercury Prize. But then in twenty twenty two you have the biggest song in the world.

I guess that's quite a big question, is that what I wanted to do my whole life? Is that the meaning of success? I don't know. Like success for me was always being able to make another album or keep making music in the first place. Such a privilege to be able to make music at all. For me, it's always been a thing that you do as a hobby,

And so when heat Waves happened, it's a new level of success in that you probably know I can keep doing this for a bloody long time, that you've reached the peak of commercial success in music. From the outside, does that feel different?

I guess there's a certain amount of like security that comes from that. But I think the real kind of joy of it comes from the freedom that the success of that song allowed, which was I don't think anyone expected it. I think we'd kind of made these slightly underground records very much on our own, and we're given a lot of freedom and making those records, and then when something like this popped out of it, people were like, I don't know what you did, but go ahead and

And do you feel like the success of it was because it came from that authentic place where it didn't have a lot of different people in it. When it comes to your music, you're quite independent in how you do it. Do you think there was something about the core of that authenticity that made it resonate possibly.

Yeah, I've been thinking about a lot. I always wonder why that one, But I think I think it is that. I think the first record was I didn't know anyone in music, didn't know anything about music. I was just making music alone in a bedroom, like really quietly at night, and really shy about it. And you can hear that in the first record, and it's not very personal, very abstract. Second album, it's kind of stories about other people that

Coming up after the break, Dave talks about the story behind his number one song, heat Waves, and the tension that comes from garnering enormous success off the back of one of the biggest tragedies in your life. Heat Waves is about losing a friend, Is that right?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, And it must be quite surreal to be performing a song that gives people a lot of happiness. When you're performing it, people are in the moment experiencing joy, but the subject matter of the song is not necessarily that. How do you go with navigating the tension between having a song that's about dark subject matter make people happy.

It's tough. You have to onto that happiness when you see the happiness in people's faces, but it's not always happiness that Sometimes you see someone in the front road crying and it hits you and you I think the first five times I played that song, I broke down afterwards. We had to play it at the very end, and now we still play at the very end because that's

And when you were writing it, you were also going through a really difficult time because one of your band members, Joe, had an accident in Dublin. Yeah, how did you cope with that? And how scary did it get in terms of thinking that music might be over and that glass animals might not be a thing anymore.

It was very scary. I did think it was over for a while. As soon as it happened, I went like straight out. So I didn't realize quite how awful the accident was until I got there because his dad called me. I remember the phone call like vividly, and I it was like book the flight for like six

God, and you were studying medicine before you went in to music, so you actually kind of knew how scary a brain injury could be. What were your fears everything.

I think my fear was that what really was most likely to happen would happen. I think there was a very very good ninety five percent chance that a very large amount of brain damage would have happened. Yeah, if he survived. It was that level of accident, And that's your fear that your friend has gone and I've lost a couple of friends, and then losing another one, especially best friend, like that was just going to be There was going to be a lot.

Do you think moments like that as horrifying as they are, do you think they put things in to perspective that, for example, there's almost something poetic about something so horrific happening. Then you achieve all this success, and you probably have a really good sense of what's important and what's not important because you had been.

Through that hugely. Yeah, I think it just made me feel absurdly lucky to be able to make music at all and do anything at all with Joe. Yeah, it's incredibly It's a very lucky, very lucky position.

And is he okay now?

He's amazing Now? Basically he had one surgery that just changed the whole trajectory of his recovery. And shout out to this amazing surgeon who came to the last show we did. It was an island show, lived in Ireland, and the surgeon came to the show and it was just like everyone was looking around at each other crying. Joe's dad was there with the surgeon. They were like embracing, weeping. And then I looked up and I was embracing, and we've been I looked over at show. I was like okay,

When you met your bandmates, you were at school and you were stunnying medicine. Yeah, so then you dropped out of medicine to pursue music. Did you ever feel like you'd made a mistake?

Many times? My mum certainly did. She asked for about five six years after that, she was asking me if I was going to go back. When I was going back, she asked my friends when I was going to go back. She begged my friends to tell me to go back. There are times that was one of them. We didn't know if Joe would make a full, full recovery, and I didn't think that we'd go on as a band

The choice between staying at UNI and studying and doing music. Was that a choice you made based on what made you happy?

Yeah, there's a lot about happiness in there. That was a big turning point in my life. A lot happened in my life at that point, that's kind of where that heat Wave song came in. My best friend had ended his life at that point, and I was like, I've just got to take a break and rethink things I need to focus on that. I actually couldn't because it was like exam period. So I did the exams and I was like, I'm taking a year out. I have to absorb everything that's happened and makes sense of

Yeah, and so you choose to do music.

But I went to the head of the university. It was like, can I take a year to go do this music? And she laughed at me. She was like, ah, like she's had it before, I think many times. And I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. A lot has happened and I just want to sort my head out and music is how I do that.

Once you made that decision and you're doing music, you were DJing for a bit.

I was teaching for a bit to kind of pay my way through school.

As well, and what's that like As a creative person. Did you ever have a moment of worrying that you were turning the thing you loved most in the world into a job and that you might then start to hate it.

That's a very good question, and I think about that a lot. I think that at the time, it almost felt like a necessity, and music was like a kind of therapy. I was quite a shy person. I wasn't really like a I didn't even think about like performing at all. I didn't really want to perform. I wasn't that person at school. Wasn't like an actor, wasn't in

How do you stay almost pure to the creative process when you also have in your head this creative process has to make an album, and that album has to pay my bills. How do you make sure those don't get mixed up?

It's very, very, very hard. I've struggled with that a lot. That's probably one of the things I've struggled with most over the last couple of years. But you have to absolutely make sure you're carving out the time to do that thing that makes you feel grounded, and that for me is making music or spending time with like old friends, and just making sure your concrete platform is solid and you're going back and returning to those things. I think

When did you lose it?

Post pandemic, post heat waves? There was just a lot floating around, a lot of opportunities floating around, and I took all of them because I was like, who am I going to turn any of this stuff down? Like it's amazing doing writing sessions every day, I was producing, I was working on music for films. I was just balancing around trying to be an extrovert when I really really am not an extrovert. And you just have to make sure you set aside that time to do the

That period I find really interesting because you were given all sorts of opportunities to be in rooms with people that there are people who would kill to be in rooms with certain writers, certain artice. How did you decide that it wasn't for you and start deciding what to say yes and no to.

Well, it's not that it wasn't for me. It's just a balance. You just have to make sure you're doing the other the core as well. I don't think I was very happy. I was in a weird place after that, to be completely honest, and started going to therapy. I started like trying to work out what was wrong. And that's kind of where this latest album came from, was trying to work out what was wrong here. I don't think I was very happy in that sense of like a lot of things in my life that were going well.

So you had had from the outside the most success you'd ever had. From the outside. If somebody was looking at your Instagram, the photos are incredible. The life you're living, it's the absolute dream. But you weren't feeling it.

No, But I mean the Internet presence is the curated, happy version of everything, and maybe that's part of what made me feel like I had to do all those things and be at everything and say yes to everything. Like look on as soon as you look at the Internet, you see like, Oh, this person's writing with this person, this person's done this, this person so this, and you're just comparing yourself over and over again. You're like, God, I need to say yes to everything and do it,

And that's the thing that you love doing.

Well, that's the one thing that makes me feel like me it's what pulled me out that whole. However, many years ago when I started writing, and then I've kind of realized that I'd forgotten about it again.

You became quite quickly in some senses and quite slowly in other senses. You became a recognizable faith. And so I imagine you're walking down the street and people are like, Hey, that's Dave. When you meet people, do you feel pressure to be a version of them that they'll really appreciate because of who you are, and you know, it's a huge moment in their lives, and how do you manage that with just being who you are in the moment.

I was in that position before. I'd bump into, like someone I really admired on the street, and I'd like, sometimes you end up leaving those situations really upset, like, Oh, that person was really mean and that's broken my heart. I can't listen to that music anymore. I never want to do that to anybody. So there was a bit

For you, it's just kind of another interaction for them. It's something they're going to think about forever.

But no, I think about it a lot too. I do. I actually do those really important interactions, and they make me really happy and it's absolutely lovely to bump into people and have a conversation about music or something. The thing unless I get a bit more like wary of is photographs and things like that. It's just I'm very happy to stop and talk to someone. That's fine.

Yeah, there's something almost performative about the photograph. I can kind of see that if you're just going about your life that you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, i'll have a chat. But then somebody taking a photo You're like, oh, I wasn't ready.

For I know, it does happen sometimes you step, you go onto the internet and look at like you're tagged stuff and you're like, that is really creepy. Someone just took a photo of me when I was like doing my shopping. Wow, so weird.

Wow.

So you're just like aware there is this kind of constant feeling like you're slightly being what And I think, you know what. I just have to kind of get used to that, and that's fine. It's part of this career that I didn't really think about at the beginning, and I appreciate I have to get used to that's what it is. But it happened in a very strange circumstance, and maybe that's why I'm struggling to wrap my head around. I think for a lot of people that happens quite gradually.

That probably is quite a bizarre way to have that moment because you don't get to see the incremental That's like seeing a crowd and then seeing a bigger crowd and then noticing that they're singing the words to your song, and then having some of the biggest crowds in the world singing the lyrics to your song. Do you think that that contributed to the fact that it didn't feel real?

Yeah, I think so. So it was such a sudden shift for me personally. I think in the rest of the world it was probably gradual, but I wasn't witnessing it, and it was like reading the emails with the statistics and then all of a sudden boom out in the real world. You can see it or it hits you like a wave. Yeah, it's quite long, it's quite mad. It's a great wave. But it knocked me off my feet for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

I always think that being in a band would be the funnest way to be famous because you get to do it with your friends, and so you get to share in the joy and the success. Do you also have difficulties in Obviously you've got to kind of navigate decision making, what you say yes to, what you plan around with other people. Is that a challenge?

It's a massive challenge. Yeah, you really care about these people. In a lot of careers, there's this very defined hierarchy and this kind of top down approach, and there's a reason it exists. There four people, it's very easy to be divided too, and two and the democracy doesn't work so well for decision making, as I've witnessed, from choosing a press photo to the kick drum sound in a song. Everything is tough. This is one of the things my hero is. Actually I love a very specific band that

The only way I can relate to it is I work with my sister quite a bit, and we're lucky in that with a sibling you can just be a total bitch. I can say that's a terrible idea, and she says, well, you're terrible, and we can have it out and then two minutes later we're fine, and you like that with the band. Now, have the boundaries eroded because of how close you've had to become.

Yeah, we've known each other for so long since those really formative years of like twelve thirty or fourteen, like we go away with like a brotherhood situation, so it can be quiet. I imagine it's quite weird to witness, but to be honest, I'm not the argumentative one. It's and I love watching the others there too, particularly sometimes rob each other out the wrong way. It's very funny. I'm the sneaky brother. He's just watches with popcorn from the side.

They're like, yes, you have it, yeah, yeah, And if.

They're not fighting enough, I'll be like yeah. But then he said this start some shit.

Has there been a particular moment that you can think of where the world told you you'd be happy and you weren't. So you had everything from the outside, but deep down it wasn't feeling joyous.

Let's go for touring, for instance. I think people see the curated version of the tour on the internet and they think, Wow, what fun party. I'm not going to say it's a bad thing, because I love it, but

I reckon that would be as an introvert, I reckon that would be my worst nightmare.

Yeah. Everywhere you look there are people.

Yeah, and you can't have a moment to yourself.

There's no alone time. Yeah, Like it's very fun. A lot of my best memories are being on tour, but there are moments where you're like, god, I wish I had a nine to five. Yeah, like really big moments is the greatest thing. And all of my best memories come from touring. A lot of people kind of come into touring for a year and they're just like no, And then there are things like performances on Yeah, a lot of the performance itself, but doing like a TV show,

When you have a huge success, do you worry about trying to recreate it? Is it four years between albums? In those four years, were you anxious about trying to recreate that lightning moment where it exploded? And is that a lot of pressure?

I was putting a lot of pressure on myself initially, and maybe that was kind of like deferring that by doing all the other stuff, doing the writing, doing the working on films, going to events, stuff like that. Maybe I was just kind of pushing it away, working on how the hell am I going to do this? I don't know if I'm gonna you know, maybe the that was it, But ultimately it kind of came to the realization that you basically just have to forget about all

That's a very healthy attitude.

Yeah, I mean I got there eventually. Well, I didn't think I had that attitude initially. It took me a minute.

I can imagine that you got some financial success by something blowing up. Do you think money buys happiness?

No, I can tell you it doesn't. There's a comfort level and that really applies to touring in a big way because we have a busy yep, we have a bus and we can eat better food and things like that. That is actually a really really big thing. You can kind of afford to eat more healthily. You're not just eating it like a petrol stops having snack bars and chocolate. That is a real thing. But for me, it's never really been about that. I've been asking myself what it's

But what told me about it answer?

I'm not going to drop people in it. But one of the biggest musicians in the world, the Big Dog, told me that. I don't know if I agree with his answer at all, but they told me that something inside of you is telling you your special when someone once told you you would dirt and I was like, that is not a good reason. It's basically revenge. Yeah, I was like, I didn't say it at that. I was like, I just don't think.

You know what, though, I have a theory that that mentality is about fame, not about music. I think people who want fame are and it's coming from a point of wanting to prove something. But I agree that there's something different if you're just pursuing something creatively that happens to come with the fame side of things. Do you have a sense that with music, comparing it to when you were studying medicine? Do you worry that is music helping people? Am I being a good person by doing music?

Exactly? That's why I've been asking myself that question. It's like, is this a selfish thing to do? Should I have stuck with what I was doing? Was that more selfless? Would that help more people? Because ultimately wanting to be a doctor, I wanted to help people. And maybe this comes back to when I first started doing music and that big turning point going from medicine to music was my best friend at that point was not happy and that led to the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Up next, Dave talks about grappling with a question of whether a career in music is ultimately selfish and whether what he does actually helps people. I think that thing that you're grappling with around is pursuing the thing I'm passionate about, the thing I'm clearly drawn to in a really profound way, is that selfish. I think that's quite

I mean, that's kind. But maybe I've came up with the answer and then realized maybe I've twisted the truth to make myself feel better about having not been like something that really saves people. But yeah, I don't know. I'm still still working out the answer to that. It's a tough one, but.

I think that idea of it's okay to feel sad, and it's almost more nuanced than that. It's like, it's okay to feel the full range of human emotions and exactly probably the way in their day to day life that a lot of people connect with that is music. It's the quickest, most mindful way to feel something that isn't the distraction of what's in your face moment to moment. But I do find it really interesting that a person in your position battles with that, even though you're giving

Probably right, yeah, But I don't know. I've come to a very pessimistic thing at the moment, where like something bad again, but like happiness is quite like like short, these little like blips we're like, whoa habit? Where does it come? But comes from like it's like a fucking sorry. Yes, it's like a beam of light coming down from the sky and like boom, you're happy and you're like, I don't even know why. Cool. You can't just maintain this constant level of happiness and you can't keep trying to

And I think telling yourself that you have to be happy ironically makes us less happy and makes feel really guilty and shameful, which is.

Big time and awful. Such a huge push for it at the moment, I feel with the way the internet works, it's like everyone's showing the happiness. It's quite an intense thing to you know. I try to limit my amount of time on the internet for that reason, because you're like, look at all these happy, happy people happy all the time. They've posted five times, so they're all so happy. I feel like I've kind of stopped trying to like chase being happy myself. It just kind of happens. Sometimes it's

Or if it's like happy enough, If you're feeling happy.

Enough, this is pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. From what you've seen of I guess the most successful version of musicians, and I'm sure you've rubbed shoulders with all sorts of people. I was going to bring up going to the Grammys, but you had COVID and you didn't go to the Grammys when you were nominated for Perst New Artist.

Yeah. Yeah, guys, that's the saddest thing. I mean, you say it's sad, but I, like I'd say it wasn't just sad. I was like, oh, I really wanted to

You've done the brit Awards, Yeah, do you enjoy it? What's the vibe, meeting celebrities.

I find those kind of things quite strange. Maybe this is too honest. I don't want to. I try to enjoy them a lot, and I do enjoy them because I get to meet some lovely people and people. I speak to people about music and things that they're doing that I am so passionate about. And I learned a huge amount from people in those situations. I really really do. But there's a very strange element where you are wearing a wild outfit walking down a carpet and there's a fence. Yeah,

There's certain things about your private life that you seem to have kind of good boundaries in terms of what you talk about what you don't talk about, And given that a lot of your music people know is autobiographical, that must be a bit of an intentional decision. Is there a reason that you don't share a lot about relationships or anything like that.

Yeah, I mean, in a way, i'd say I share quite a lot about relationships. If you listen to the music, it's kind of it's all the secrets, some of the secrets, Like there's got more songs in me, probably more things to talk about, hope. No, I do actually seem to have found like a rhythm at the minute. And yeah, I just think if I have like family and friends and relationships, they haven't chosen to I've kind of chosen to go down this road, and I appreciate what comes

I think that must be an interesting line to walk between what is your story to tell and what's not your story?

Maybe that's.

So you've got a new album, uh huh coming out in July, tell us about it.

There's a lot of like exploration about happiness. Isn't it funnily enough? But it's I had an existential crisis, and I guess we spoke about that a little bit. Coming from this like sense of detachment and the success of the last album kind of happening while I wasn't really allowed to be part of it almost. It was happening during COVID and I was watching it all happen and then was kind of thrust out into it. And I was so detached from that success in a weird way

Yeah, And that's an interesting metaphor the house on the cliff, and it's a bit of a blessing in disguise. But it forced you to stay there and get this out.

Yeah. I mean in the face of death, you write very very quickly. And I wrote the whole album there in that little house. Yeah.

Yeah.

How long did it take to go?

About two and a bit weeks. Yeah. The thing is I wanted to do a space album, and I never really worked out how to do it. Almost felt very cold, like space is gold and quite heartless and stuff. And then I finally found when I was in that house. I kind of it was in that existential crisis that felt very much like space is vacuum, and kind of reached out and grabbed that thing. And that's how I

Basically, Dave Bailey, your band Glass Animals had the biggest song in the world, and you've played at some of the world's biggest festivals on some of the biggest stages. But if you look at your life right now, are you.

Happy right now in this moment? I'm happy. Yeah, I would say I am happy. I have to think it's a very big question. But I think if I was to do the simple answer, I say, yeah, I'm very happy. Thank you. Does anyone ever ask you if you're happy?

Sometimes people do, and I'm like, oh, we don't want.

To get That's why I started this whole podcast, happiness in general.

Ask other people. My chat with Dave was one of my favorite conversations I've ever had on this podcast. I think it's really common for people who have creative pursuits, whether that's music or acting or art or media or podcasting, to really wonder about the purpose of it. Is this helping anyone? Is this indulgent? Why do I get to do this and other people are doing jobs at the same time that save lives? But music, I think is

She's a bachelorette, you know, and all of these comments and tabloids and etc. To then being in an ABNB by yourself organizing a funeral for your sister that you've just lost. It's just I don't not want to place myself there ever again.

In the meantime, if you want to listen to last week's episode, I spoke to actor and Gowery Rice and her mum Kate about what success looks like at such a young age and how a parent navigates their child's career in Hollywood, and Gowery spoke about her previous roles and how she deals with criticism, while Kate spoke about her experience being in the acting industry and what she worries about regarding ang Gowery. If you enjoyed the podcast,