More than a year and a half since Glass Animals were forced to cancel their sold out San Francisco show at The Independent as COVID-19 sent the world into lockdown, the band returned to play Outside Lands on Friday October 29th. Frontman Dave Bayley joined us to talk about their hectic beginning of the pandemic and how their lives have been over the course of the past 19 months.
"We came to the Bay! We were at The Independent. We were loading our stuff into the venue and then we realized there's no one else out in the whole city. It's empty. What is going on? Then the government had just announced a lockdown for you guys and we were like 'oh my god, we better book a flight back as soon as possible.' and we got on the next flight."
The band had recently begun touring in preparation for the release of their album 'Dreamland,' and asked if they had a feeling that things would be cut short Dave said, "I think everybody in the world at that point was getting scared of the virus. I was scared. At one point I went into a Chipotle and taken all of their hand sanitizer into a water bottle. I was that scared. Sorry, Chipotle, I owe you."
With the live music and the world coming to a halt in 2020, did the band consider shelving 'Dreamland' until things got back to normal? "We asked ourselves that question all the time. We were going to release it the next month (April 2020). We pushed it back two weeks, then another two weeks, then another two weeks, then the depths of this virus really sunk in."
On eventually releasing the record Dave noted that it's taken the band on such a rollercoaster. "We honestly thought we were going to put the album out in the middle of the pandemic. Not be able to tour on it & it was just going to tank. I was ready to start writing the next one. I feel vey, very lucky."
In early 2021, "Heat Waves" earned the esteemed top spot on Australia's Triple J's Hottest 100 countdown. The band said if that happened they'd each get the continent tattooed on their butts. Are they holding themselves to that? "Things have just opened up in the UK, but I have it booked in at a tattoo parlor very soon, next week. I'm a bit nervous. I don't have any tattoos, this will be my first one. On my ass."
Glass Animals are set to play day 1 of Audacy Beach Festival this December at Fort Lauderdale Beach and you can grab tickets here.