Bastille's Dan says using Zoom to write songs was "wild, but I'm grateful for it"

Virgin Radio

4 Feb 2022, 13:39

Bastille are back with a new album, 'Give Me The Future', and frontman Dan Smith has been keeping busy.

Like many people, the band were locked down over the pandemic and it was a big difference: "‘As a band, we toured pretty much non-stop since we started, so not having that for the last couple of years has been quite a big change in what we do with our time," he explained.

Making a new album when there's nobody to play it to was unusual: "Historically, we would always be working on music and playing it live and seeing a visceral reaction, so one of the most surreal things about releasing music over the last year or so has been putting it out and not getting a tangible reaction."

The band released singles ahead of the album, including the sweeping 'No Bad Days', and it gave film fanatic Dan a chance to achieve a bucket-list dream of co-directing the video for it.

Dan's face lights up on the Zoom call as he explains: "Oh it was brilliant!  It was hard. It was definitely not an easy experience."

He recalls: "Reassuringly, the night before we shot the video, a video director friend was round for dinner. I was like ‘to be honest I’m finding it really f******stressful and difficult. Is that just me?’ and she was like, ‘mate, that's just directing!’ and it made me feel so much better."

It didn’t all go to plan though: "We loaded everything in at 7am, and the set was meant to be built by 11am, so we can start shooting from 11am to 7pm. The set wasn't built till 3pm!"

Despite the difficulties, he's still keen: "I definitely want to do more!"

'Give Me The Future revolves a lot around technology, and Dan is reflective about what an impact it has on the record: "‘The idea of jumping on Zoom for an evening and collaborating with someone to write three songs which then make it onto an album would never have even occurred to me as a possibility a couple of years ago. That's a real part of this album. It’s wild, and I'm kind of grateful for it."

The pandemic also made Dan stop and think about what was most important to him: "I'm really bad at enjoying the moment and taking stock of what we’ve been up to,’ he admits.

"We've never been a group of people who do that. For me, it's easier just to think about the next thing and to get excited about what we're doing next."

Their new album is out now and a tour is coming soon, and he's very excited to get out on the road and for the music to be out there.

'Give Me The Future' is out now.