Song Exploder - Glass Animals - Heat Waves

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Glass Animals is a band from Oxford, England. They’ve released three albums since forming back in 2010. One of their biggest hits is the song "Heat Waves," which came out in June 2020. It was certified Gold in several countries, and Platinum in Australia, where it hit #1. Dave Bayley is the singer, songwriter, and producer of the band. He won the UK’s Music Producers Guild award for "Self-Producing Artist of the Year," and he’s produced songs for other artists, as well. In this episode, Dave tells the story of making "Heat Waves," over several months. First, on his own, and then later with his bandmates, Joe Seaward, Ed Irwin-Singer, and Drew MacFarlane. For more, visit songexploder.net/glass-animals.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirway. Glass Animals is a band from Oxford, England. They've released three albums since forming back in 2010. One of their biggest hits is the song Heatwaves, which came out in June 2020. It was certified gold in a bunch of countries, and platinum in Australia, where it hit number one. Dave Bailey is the singer, songwriter, and producer of the band. He won the UK's Music Producer Guild Award for self-producing artist of the year,

and he's produced songs for other artists, too. In this episode, Dave tells the story of making heat waves over several months, first on his own and then later with his bandmates, Joe Seward, Ed Irwin Singer, and Drew McFarlane. Here's Glass Animals on Song Exploder. I'm Dave from Glass Animals. May 2018 is when I first... started something and I didn't feel like there was any pressure to make another Glass Animal's record. We weren't in a rush. So I was going into the studio every day, long hours, just getting

crazy synths out, just finding sounds. I have this like exploratory phase before actually making an album for the band, which is just me eating lots of cereal and doing nerdy things, twisting knobs. I was in this studio complex in North London called the church. There were some bigger artists in all the other rooms and I was in this little basement room and I was ready to go home and had a long, very unsuccessful day in the studio. I always use this fishing analogy of Arlo Guthrie's where he always said that writing songs is like fishing. You change your bait, put some fresh bait on, you can move your boat to a new spot, you can get some new line, you can try all these tricks but, you know, mainly you just catch like tires and weeds and like weird fish that you can't eat.

And I'd had a whole day of that, just catching weird fish. But I was like, fine, one more. I always have a guitar plugged in and a microphone. I think I just hit record, picked up the guitar, and that's when I started like fumbling around. I've been reading some gimmicky book about songwriting, and it was about like how you can kind of get these longer chord phrases that tell a story. And I was like, oh, let's try something like that. So I was trying to get this longer chord phrase.

and she started noodling around trying to find eight chords that fit together and had some kind of arc that took you on a bit of a journey. It was about nine minutes of fumbling, and then I played that chord pattern. I said, oh, that's cool, so I'd play it over and over again. They had this very reflective quality, but then it resolves quite well that chord pattern, and it feels like, I don't know, maybe like coming to terms with something, or acceptance, and I think that's probably where the lyric

came from. Last night and I think about is you. I think one of the first things that came out of my mouth was that vocal line. It was later night and I was thinking about all those people that I missed. Last night and I think about is you. Don't stop, baby, you come on too.

Don't want me to think about you. You know that I never gonna lose. You know what you want you. I do all sorts of things to my vocal when I'm recording these raw ideas, because I think, like many people, I really hate the sound of my own voice. So sometimes I pitch it down an octave, sometimes I pitch it up an octave, and I don't know, I just have all these tricks to kind of disassociate yourself from you. And this was kind of around the time that I started using autotune to do that for me.

I feel like a lot of music is about not overthinking things. and when it's your own voice, it's so easy to overthink it. It's like, I don't know, I think sometimes I'm on Zoom and I can see people looking at their own picture and kind of losing sense of the conversation. And I don't know, it's kind of the same thing. It stops you doing that. It just allows you to not think about the rules

and how it should sound and try not to make everything too perfect. At that point, I kind of tried to firm up a sense. When I have the guitar live and recording, it's not often particularly interesting sound. So I just recorded the guitar, pitched it down an octave, pitched it up an octave, and that just left enough space for the vocal to sit in between, because a lot of writing a song is about leaving space for the vocal to breathe. You just need a better life than this.

You need something I can never give. Fake water all across the road It's gone up and night is calm But the guitar was a bit plucky and tinkly So I thought need some warmth Which a really deep, rich sounding synthesizer I remember putting the drums on after those synths Well at that point I just looped everything I had

And loads of different verse ideas came out Loads of different hooks came out And also because the chords were moving so much You could use quite rhythmic vocal patterns that weren't necessarily crazy melodies to keep things moving. You know, the chords did a lot of the moving for you. So I put the autotune in key,

picked up the microphone, and then I just went for it. And I think after about two minutes, I was like, well, I've got loads to go with here. I tend to feel very comfortable writing late at night. I think there's a part of your brain that really, the sensible bit that keeps you alive starts to shut down. You just get to that point in the night and that part, the sensible bit's gone,

and like these weird bits your brains start coming out. At that point, I think it's probably time to head home. I'm knackard. The song ended. I heard someone behind me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I thought I was alone in here. I turned around and there's just someone sitting there at the piano with a glass of wine.

I was like, what is this? Who is that? Who are you? And I just said, it's John. And I was like, who is John? I don't know, John. They were wearing a really nice suit. And I was like, this is so strange.

I said, hi, John. And they turned around. And it was Johnny Depp. I couldn't believe, I was like... So weirdly, Johnny Depp was the first person to hear this song. Someone who was working in one of the studios above me came in and was like, oh, Dave, I'm sorry. John got lost.

And he'd gotten lost. He was working with someone in a different studio. Anyway, that was pretty weird. And then they invited me upstairs. to go hang out. So that was it. That was the end of day one. I just didn't touch it for like six months. And then I was going on another LA trip and was going to be pitching songs for a particular pop artist. One of my favorite pop artists as well. I was so excited and nervous. And I was digging through just old stuff. And I think I remembered this and showed it to this

pop artist. So no success. I mean, it would have been a great thing to have one of my favorite pop artist sing a song, but at the same time it was a really personal piece of music. And I think part of me would have actually been a bit sad if I'd given it away. Sometimes all I think about is you, late nights in the middle of June, heat waves been faking me out, can't make you happier now. Sometimes all I think about is you late nights in the middle of June. It means something very specific to me, but I like it when a chorus lyric can be interpreted in lots of different ways. To me, it's actually very, very personal.

I lost someone, I lost my best friend some time ago now. I'm getting a bit welly up here, but this particular person had their birthday in June. And every time their birthday comes up, it just, like, it ruins me. I guess this whole song is about missing somebody, and people are just kind of vulnerable to that. You can't do anything about it. You can't help and save everybody, and it's okay to let yourself miss someone and feel this pain. So after it been denied by this particular pop artist, I think I was like, cool, this is good.

I have ammunition to show to the band. And I think we were going to the studio in November, December, and I was like, cool, this is another one. I can show the guys, and maybe they'll like it. There's Ed, Joe and Drew. These guys are amazing players and musicians in a way that I am not. Joe is always very keen on acoustic drums. I think they just add life. That feel of a good drummer is really hard to replicate with electronic drums.

So Joe always has a pass with acoustic drums. July of that year, Joe had a really terrible accident. injured very badly and couldn't walk a talk for a long time. But Joe is very stubborn. And he was riding a bike when he had his accident. The first thing he wanted to do was get on his bike again. And the second thing he wanted to do was get back on a drum kit. And he just wouldn't let anything stand in his way. And he's playing with the groove that he always had. Sometimes it takes a lot of time getting drums to sit together. But I love layering like snare sounds and kick sounds. And it can be quite a fine process.

Sometimes I'll cut all the low end out of one, cut all the high end out of another to get them to blend together and then run that through tape machine. It's a long and very tedious process that everybody hates watching me do. And I'm sorry to everyone who's ever seen it. And then Drew and I were doing

a lot of orchestral arrangements for everything and he was keen to put these big stabs in. Big orchestral kind of moody, like boom. and then bing of a slightly cheesy jazzy guitar on the off beats. In those jazzy kind of seventh chords, it adds a little bit of optimism. Because ultimately, I think this song is meant to be optimistic. It is really sad at its core, but it's kind of about accepting that sadness and vulnerability is okay. Road shimmer, wiggling the vision, heat waves and swimming in a mirror.

The lyrics are all about mirages and reflection. Usually I put something on TV so we never think about you and me, but today I see our reflections clearly in Hollywood laying on the screen. I just had this picture of two people sitting on a sofa and looking into the TV screen and seeing the reflection of the two of you and realizing that you can't help them. And it kind of breaks your heart, yeah. I think this song was really intimate and really personal. So I liked the idea of the verse being really simple, just one single vocal.

And then the chorus is I wanted to beef it up, big time. Sometimes all I think about is you. Late nights in the middle of June. He ways been faking me out. Can't make you happier now. Sometimes all I think about is you. Late nights in the middle of you. I always been faking me out, can't make you happy oh now.

I absolutely love 808 bass. I used to DJ till quite late at night and then not be able to sleep. I'd come home and start making music while all my housemates were asleep. And I just, I needed to feel that bass outside the club. So yeah, I've always been obsessed with 808s. So that intro is the first demo. The first everything that was ever recorded for this is that. I thought that was a nice way to round it off

because I kind of like to think that albums, they're kind of like a snapshot of who you are in that certain period of time and where your heads are. Sometimes it's just useful to help you get to the next step if you think about the idea of the song and the concept. It can just be a helpful trick, but really, I think in this case, it felt like a nice nod back

to something really, really personal and starting just alone at night in a room until Johnny Depp showed up. And now here's Heatwaves by Glass Animals in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream heatwaves, and you can watch the music video for it. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th,

fourth. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists. including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was made by me with editing help from T-O-Cloat. Keene Lieberson and Casey Deal, with artwork by Carlos Lerma and music clearance by Kathleen Smith.

Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. You can also follow the show on Twitter and Instagram at SongExploder. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.