NEW YORK (AP) — Glass Animals' latest album was born thanks to a massive storm, a house on a cliff and an existential crisis. What emerged from that? A 10-track collection exploring love.
The indie-pop band's frontman, songwriter and producer Dave Bayley found himself in an Airbnb house high on stilts below Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, alone, sick with fever and wondering about Glass Animals' place in the universe.
Then came a powerful storm: Trees tumbling down the hill, roads flooded and his rented house perched precariously. “My existential crisis went to the next level,” Bayley says, laughing.
But in the dazed calm that followed, Bayley saw people emerge from the storm and embrace — families, couples, friends, neighbors. “I felt like I was sitting in space in this house, looking down on the whole city.” A musical concept was born.
A few furious weeks of writing produced the 10-track “I Love You So F(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)ing Much,” a follow-up to their third album, 2020’s “Dreamland,” which sold over 12 million copies. The new collection comes out July 19 via Republic Records.
There are songs about longing and ones about past relationships. One compares love to being hogtied and thrown into the trunk of a Corolla. “Each try to kind of touch on a different side of love,” Bayley says. “I love trying to build a whole world.”
The anthemic “Creatures in Heaven” is the first single, a memory of a tender, intimate moment. “You held me like my mother made me just for you/You held me so close that I broke in two.”
The album title — which can be read passionately or exasperatedly or a million ways in between — comes from the crazy nature of love. “Everything is always chaotic. You just have to kind of embrace it for what it is and love it,” he says. “That is what pulled me out of that dark spot.”
“Show Pony,” the first song, is a table of contents for the album, a tune about a complex, up-and-down relationship that Bayley grew up witnessing ("All those times he did what he pleased/Boy, those scars must really run deep").
Several songs lean on space imagery — especially “A Tear in Space (Airlock)” — or the need to flee — “On the Run” — or the dangerous push-pull of adoration in “Wonderful Nothing.” There are some gorgeous lines, like: “I think we’re formed/from old Lego/in a bedside drawer/where the stray things go.”
Bayley has become a more confessional writer with each passing Glass Animals album. On “How to Be a Human Being,” he wrote each song from the perspective of someone else. The last tune, “Agnes,” was about a friend of the band who died by suicide. It was Bayley’s most personal song at the time.
He pushed that envelope on the next album with the single “Heat Waves,” a hypnotic, hazy tune that honors a departed friend whose birthday brings grief each passing June. It hit No. 1 on Billboard’s 2022 year-end Hot 100 Songs chart, propelled by love on TikTok.
Bayley put it at the end of the album, “Dreamland,” for a reason: It was so personal that he was scared. “The response from people was so supportive and positive. It kind of gave me the courage to try and push it more, be more personal and more open.”
“Heat Waves” led to new fans — and a Grammy nomination — and people now not only recognize Bayley in the street but come up to him to ask about his songs and lyrics.
“The questions are often very deep, really big. So I’ll just like be in my pajamas walking my dog and I got this question, ’What do you mean by this line in the song, ”Agnes?”″
“I’m like, ‘Whoa, it’s 8:30 in the morning. I just had some cereal and I haven’t showered yet.' But it’s wonderful. It’s kept me on my toes for sure.”
Glass Animals — which also includes Drew MacFarlane on guitar and keys, Edmund Irwin-Singer on bass and keys, and drummer Joe Seaward — will hit the road to support the new album.
The fall tour kicks off Aug. 7 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and hits such cities as New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, Cincinnati, Nashville, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Dallas, Phoenix, Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver and Austin, Texas.
Glass Animals will spend October and November in Europe, playing Paris, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin, Milan, Zurich, Amsterdam, Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow and ending at London’s massive O2 arena on Nov. 7.
The band will mix it up, varying each show's setlist depending on the vibe. Some band’s pre-program everything they do live, but not Glass Animals, who like to react to the crowd, even swapping out songs moments before going on.
“I actually came from a DJ background. I started deejaying clubs in London when I was really young,” Bayley says. “Really good DJs react to the feeling in the room and you pick up the tempo slowly sometimes. Sometimes you start with the fast stuff, you bring it down and then up again.”
In line with Glass Animals' desire to connect with listeners, Bayley says he'd be happy if fans sent them their setlists. "I’d be very happy to play with what people want. That’s what I feel our job is. I want to make people happy."
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press
