Glass Animals are an English indie rock band from Oxford consisting of members Dave Bayley (lead vocals, guitar, tambourine), Drew MacFarlane (guitar, keys, backing vocals), Edmund Irwin-Singer (bass, keys, backing vocals), and Joe Seaward (drums). The group released their debut album ZABA in June 2014 as the first release on producer Paul Epworth's label Wolf Tone, and their second album How To Be A Human Being on August 26, 2016, to critical acclaim. The band has toured internationally and featured on line ups at festivals such as Glastonbury, Coachella, Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Reading/Leeds, Falls Festival, Southbound and Bestival.
Background
2012â€"15: Zaba and various EPs
Bandmates Bayley, Seaward, MacFarlane and Irwin-Singer were all friends in school but did not start playing together until all four attended St Edward's School, Oxford. The band released their debut EP, Leaflings, on May 28, 2012, while they were still at university, which included the single "Cocoa Hooves". It was released on independent label Kaya Kaya Records, a subsidiary and imprint of XL Recordings (part of the Beggars Group of labels). Lead singer and guitarist Dave Bayley had originally planned on going to medical school at London King's College after graduating, but his plans changed once Adele's producer Paul Epworth saw the Glass Animals performing in London and signed them to his label Wolf Tone.
In 2013, the band put out another single, titled "Black Mambo". It appeared on on Glass Animals' second, self-titled EP, which was released on November 12, 2013. "We didn’t really know anything about the music industry or the music world. We were just trying to figure out who we were, what sounded good to us," said lead singer Dave Bayley. The EP featured a collaboration with Jean Deaux, a soulful hip-hop teenager from Chicago, titled "Woozy".
The following year saw the band releasing three more singles: "Pools", "Gooey", and "Hazey", along with a small remix EP of Gooey that featured the song "Holiest", a collaboration with Argentine indie pop singer-songwriter and producer Tei Shi.
All five singles released over the previous three years were featured on the band's debut album, Zaba (stylized as ZABA), which was released on June 6, 2014. The album received generally positive reviews and brought the band to over 7 million listeners on Spotify the following year, and the songs "Gooey", "Black Mambo", and "Toes" were the most popular from the album on Apple Music. Two deluxe versions of Zaba was released in August 2015. The Amazon version had exclusive stripped versions of the singles "Gooey", "Black Mambo", "Hazey", and "Cocoa Hooves", while the iTunes version included bonus tracks "Psylla" and "Exxus" (previously released on the band's second EP, Glass Animals) along with remixes of "Black Mambo" and "Gooey".
The band performed the single "Gooey" on Late Night with Seth Meyers in 2014, and again on The Late Show with David Letterman on February 24, 2015, and toured extensively after Zaba, visiting both hemispheres and played over 130 shows in 2015 alone. Their October 2015 US tour included two sold out shows at The Wiltern in LA and sold out shows across America including T5 in NYC, The Riverside in Milwaukee, and The Midland in Kansas City.
A collaboration with American hip hop recording artist Joey Bada$$, titled "Lose Control", was released on October 6, 2015. The idea for the song was apparently sparked during a randomly shared studio session.
2016â€"17: How to Be a Human Being
On May 16, 2016, the band released the lead single, "Life Itself", from their sophomore album How to Be a Human Being. It featured a more a more boisterous, percussion-driven sound than their previous singles and peaked at number 14 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart and spent 26 weeks on Sirius XM's Alt-18 chart, peaking at number 1. Dave Bayley stated in an interview that the song was about "a sci-fi obsessed dude who spends most of his time alone inventing strange things and writing stories about ray guns or looking for aliens on Google maps." The band also created a website based on the character from "Life Itself".
On July 25, a second single from the album, "Youth", was released. The song was supposedly based off of a devastating story that a stranger once told the band about her son. Dave Bayley said in an interview that the strange combination of happiness, sadness, and nostalgia in the song "kind of made me feel like my heart was being ripped apart but [was] also optimistic in a weird way... that combination of emotions is what this song is getting at." The band also revealed that the upcoming album would follow in the footsteps of singles "Life Itself" and "Youth"â€"each song would tell the story of a different character.
Four days before the release of the album, on August 22, the band released a third single, "Season 2 Episode 3", about a girl who "spends her entire time watching TV, lounging around, not doing anything, being high, eating mayonnaise from a jar." It featured a prominent sample of the beat from "I Live Above the Hobby Shop" by Chicago synthesizer McFabulous. The song was used in Apple's "Shot on iPhone by Linda H." advertisement.
The full album, titled How to Be a Human Being, was released on August 26, 2016 by Wolf Tone and Caroline International in Europe, and Harvest Records in the United States. The album received critical acclaim for its "sense of wonder" and "immediate impression", though it was also met with some mixed reactions, for critics felt that it was somewhat premature. On January 4, 2017, Glass Animals performed their song "Pork Soda" from the album on the Late Late Show hosted by James Corden.
After their performance on the Late Late Show, Glass Animals visited Laneway Festival's in six different cities (Singapore, Sydney, and Auckland, among others). During their time in Australia, their three singles from How To Be A Human Being -- Youth, Life Itself, and Season 2 Episode 3, respectively -- came in at 38, 63 and 98 on Triple J's Hottest 100.
Band members
- Dave Bayley â€" Lead vocals/Guitar/Tambourine
- Drew MacFarlane â€" Guitar/Keys/backing vocals
- Edmund Irwin-Singer â€" Bass/Keys/backing vocals
- Joe Seaward â€" Drums
Discography
Studio albums
Extended plays
Singles
References
External links
- Official home page
- Facebook page
- Billboard: Glass Animals Choose Music Over Med School
- Pitch: Glass Animals' Frontman Dave Bayley Talks Disney Princess, 2015 Goals Ahead of Saturday's Sold-out Midlands Show