Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Muma Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1: I think the first five times I played that song,
Speaker 1: I broke down. Afterwards we had to play it at
Speaker 1: the very end, and now we still play at the
Speaker 1: very end because that's just a remnant of me crying
Speaker 1: after us. But I was also so sweaty that he
Speaker 1: has just kind of went into the sweat and no
Speaker 1: one would notice it was.
Speaker 2: Okay, hello, and welcome to But are you Happy? The
Speaker 2: podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know
Speaker 2: from the people who appear to have it all. Dave
Speaker 2: Bailey is a musician and the lead singer of British
Speaker 2: indie rock band Glass Animals, whose music you've most definitely heard.
Speaker 2: Glass Animals had the number one song in the world
Speaker 2: with heat Waves, which went viral on TikTok and was
Speaker 2: number one in the Triple J Hottest one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty twenty before topping charts all over the world world,
Speaker 2: including in the US. It was the top of the
Speaker 2: Billboard Hot one hundred for five weeks in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and it actually broke the record for the longest charting
Speaker 2: song on the Hot one hundred of all time, longer
Speaker 2: than anything by Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Ed Sheeran.
Speaker 2: Glass Animals were performing in Sydney around the time we
Speaker 2: recorded this, and our producer Tarlie went to the show.
Speaker 2: She asked a few people why they love Glass Animals
Speaker 2: so much and what their music means to them.
Speaker 3: I love them so much because I feel like their
Speaker 3: music has accompanied so many important moments of my life,
Speaker 3: and whenever I listen to that, I think about like
Speaker 3: the triumphs and the sadness, and the friendships and the
Speaker 3: relationships that have sort of bloomed around that music. Daved
Speaker 3: writes some most beautiful, heartfelt lyrics, and the nostalgia just
Speaker 3: takes me back, and like the heartache just brings me forward.
Speaker 2: I've been listening to him for the boss six seven
Speaker 2: years now, just really takes me back and looking forward
Speaker 2: to what they've got to offer over the next couple of.
Speaker 3: Months, transformation over what ten fifteen years, We're looking back
Speaker 3: at what our.
Speaker 4: Favorite songs are, and my favorite songs are kind of
Speaker 4: from the first album.
Speaker 3: So we went to their show in twenty seventeen in London,
Speaker 3: so it was really kind of nostalgic.
Speaker 2: Dave Bailey is a fascinating human being. I caught him
Speaker 2: in a moment in his life where he's really grappling
Speaker 2: with meaning and purpose and whether his pursuit of music
Speaker 2: is ultimately selfish.
Speaker 1: I've been asking myself that questions like is this a
Speaker 1: selfish thing to do? Should I have stuck with what
Speaker 1: I was doing? Was that more selfless? Would that help
Speaker 1: more people? Because ultimately, wanting to be a doctor, I
Speaker 1: wanted to help people.
Speaker 2: Dave was studying medicine when he decided to take a
Speaker 2: break to pursue music, and he was always tossing up
Speaker 2: whether to go back. Then he wrote the biggest song
Speaker 2: in the world. What does that feel like for Dave?
Speaker 2: His career changed and his life changed, but not necessarily
Speaker 2: in the way you'd expect. When he sings heat Waves
Speaker 2: on stage in front of crowds at Glastonbrie or Coachella,
Speaker 2: it means something very different to him than what it
Speaker 2: means to other people in that crowd.
Speaker 1: And then there's a subject matter of the song, like
Speaker 1: hearing it everywhere? Is it kind of haunted by this?
Speaker 1: This thing.
Speaker 2: Here's my chat with Dave Bailey. Dave Bailey, you are
Speaker 2: the lead singer for Glass Animals, and indie rock band
Speaker 2: that a lot of listeners will know from your biggest
Speaker 2: hit single, heat Waves, which you wrote and produced. Heat
Speaker 2: Waves went viral on TikTok it won the Triple J
Speaker 2: Hottest one hundred in twenty twenty. Australia has a bit
Speaker 2: of a claim to being the tastemakers when it comes
Speaker 2: to that, and it stayed at the top of charts
Speaker 2: all over the world for years. In January twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: it was the most played song globally on Spotify. You
Speaker 2: were nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. Nominated for two brit Awards. You've played
Speaker 2: festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury. You've reached what some might
Speaker 2: consider the peak of a career in music. Behind all that,
Speaker 2: I wanted to start by asking how are you right now?
Speaker 1: Right now? Yeah, I'm I've just come off a plane.
Speaker 1: I feel really good. I'm really excited to be here. Mainly,
Speaker 1: I feel like Australia has always had a special place
Speaker 1: in my heart Because a lot of things began here.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is? Why does Australia seem
Speaker 2: to get it quicker than everybody else?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think you've got a really amazing
Speaker 1: creative network here, from musicians to people like yourself, and
Speaker 1: it's just a very positive creative force and backing here.
Speaker 1: That's really Yes, it's a special place and things tend
Speaker 1: to like happen here at first when it wasn't working
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the world. It Yeah, I've actually I've
Speaker 1: got a tattoo of Australia my bum.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I saw an interview about that and they
Speaker 2: couldn't work out do you have Tasmania on the right side?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay, because there was billion times because I think it
Speaker 2: was a mirror to the photo. So they were like,
Speaker 2: we don't want to be rude about your tattoo, but
Speaker 2: Tasmania is not on that side.
Speaker 1: I checked so many unless the tattoo artists did me dirty,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I've checked so many times. I think
Speaker 1: I took that picture in a mirror.
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, yes, yes, okay, good, but.
Speaker 1: I'm I haven't. I can't look at it. It's just
Speaker 1: one of those places like trying to look at your own.
Speaker 2: The story of your career is a fascinating one because
Speaker 2: while a lot of people might have discovered you in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty and beyond, you'd released your first EP eight
Speaker 2: years before that, and you'd achieved success in the music industry.
Speaker 2: So in twenty fourteen you had a single go platinum.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, your album How to Be a Human
Speaker 2: Being was nominated for the Mercury Prize. But then in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two you have the biggest song in the world.
Speaker 2: And I'm fascinated by how those two versions of success feel.
Speaker 2: And are you happier? Are you tangibly happier when you've
Speaker 2: done what you unconsciously probably wanted to do your whole life?
Speaker 1: I guess that's quite a big question, is that what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do my whole life? Is that the
Speaker 1: meaning of success? I don't know. Like success for me
Speaker 1: was always being able to make another album or keep
Speaker 1: making music in the first place. Such a privilege to
Speaker 1: be able to make music at all. For me, it's
Speaker 1: always been a thing that you do as a hobby,
Speaker 1: as the extra curricular. I grew up in that kind
Speaker 1: of household, so to be able to call it like
Speaker 1: a job because it feels really strangely even say it,
Speaker 1: but it is a career, oh gosh.
Speaker 2: And so when heat Waves happened, it's a new level
Speaker 2: of success in that you probably know I can keep
Speaker 2: doing this for a bloody long time, that you've reached
Speaker 2: the peak of commercial success in music. From the outside,
Speaker 2: does that feel different?
Speaker 1: I guess there's a certain amount of like security that
Speaker 1: comes from that. But I think the real kind of
Speaker 1: joy of it comes from the freedom that the success
Speaker 1: of that song allowed, which was I don't think anyone
Speaker 1: expected it. I think we'd kind of made these slightly
Speaker 1: underground records very much on our own, and we're given
Speaker 1: a lot of freedom and making those records, and then
Speaker 1: when something like this popped out of it, people were like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you did, but go ahead and
Speaker 1: keep doing it, and that is an amazing thing. Like
Speaker 1: that is really lucky.
Speaker 2: And do you feel like the success of it was
Speaker 2: because it came from that authentic place where it didn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of different people in it. When it
Speaker 2: comes to your music, you're quite independent in how you
Speaker 2: do it. Do you think there was something about the
Speaker 2: core of that authenticity that made it resonate possibly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been thinking about a lot. I always wonder
Speaker 1: why that one, But I think I think it is that.
Speaker 1: I think the first record was I didn't know anyone
Speaker 1: in music, didn't know anything about music. I was just
Speaker 1: making music alone in a bedroom, like really quietly at night,
Speaker 1: and really shy about it. And you can hear that
Speaker 1: in the first record, and it's not very personal, very abstract.
Speaker 1: Second album, it's kind of stories about other people that
Speaker 1: I'd met. And then this third album was much more personal,
Speaker 1: personal stories but memories, and this song spun out of
Speaker 1: there and it was probably the most personal of that
Speaker 1: collection of songs album three, and it just made me
Speaker 1: realize that it's okay to write like really personal stuff.
Speaker 1: It made me realized that that's actually what resonates the most.
Speaker 1: I was always too shy to do it myself, But
Speaker 1: now that I've seen iterienced it, I see that, like
Speaker 1: a lot of my favorite songs, favorite artists, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge Beach Boys fan, those are really personal songs.
Speaker 2: Coming up after the break, Dave talks about the story
Speaker 2: behind his number one song, heat Waves, and the tension
Speaker 2: that comes from garnering enormous success off the back of
Speaker 2: one of the biggest tragedies in your life. Heat Waves
Speaker 2: is about losing a friend, Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it must be quite surreal to be
Speaker 2: performing a song that gives people a lot of happiness.
Speaker 2: When you're performing it, people are in the moment experiencing joy,
Speaker 2: but the subject matter of the song is not necessarily that.
Speaker 2: How do you go with navigating the tension between having
Speaker 2: a song that's about dark subject matter make people happy.
Speaker 1: It's tough. You have to onto that happiness when you
Speaker 1: see the happiness in people's faces, but it's not always
Speaker 1: happiness that Sometimes you see someone in the front road
Speaker 1: crying and it hits you and you I think the
Speaker 1: first five times I played that song, I broke down afterwards.
Speaker 1: We had to play it at the very end, and
Speaker 1: now we still play at the very end because that's
Speaker 1: just a remnant of me crying afterwards. But I was
Speaker 1: also so sweaty that tears just kind of went into
Speaker 1: the sweat and no one would notice, as it was okay.
Speaker 1: There's an optimistic side to the song, and you have
Speaker 1: to latch onto that. It's like you're trying to remember
Speaker 1: the good things and be positive about a situation that
Speaker 1: is absolutely awful. Yeah, and you just cling onto it
Speaker 1: for dear life until the song's over. That's the trick.
Speaker 2: And when you were writing it, you were also going
Speaker 2: through a really difficult time because one of your band members, Joe,
Speaker 2: had an accident in Dublin. Yeah, how did you cope
Speaker 2: with that? And how scary did it get in terms
Speaker 2: of thinking that music might be over and that glass
Speaker 2: animals might not be a thing anymore.
Speaker 1: It was very scary. I did think it was over
Speaker 1: for a while. As soon as it happened, I went
Speaker 1: like straight out. So I didn't realize quite how awful
Speaker 1: the accident was until I got there because his dad
Speaker 1: called me. I remember the phone call like vividly, and
Speaker 1: I it was like book the flight for like six
Speaker 1: am the next morning. Got there. His dad had played
Speaker 1: it down so much on the phone, so I didn't
Speaker 1: sink until that exact moment when I saw his face
Speaker 1: and wow, I mean this is going to sound a
Speaker 1: bit graphic, but like this he'd been hit by a
Speaker 1: truck basically, so like seeing the state of his head
Speaker 1: was so so shocking, and that was when I was like,
Speaker 1: I obviously jumped first, like is he going to be okay,
Speaker 1: and then a few days later it starts to think, like, gosh,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff is going to fall apart around it.
Speaker 1: It was sad, and we didn't know for about a week.
Speaker 2: God, and you were studying medicine before you went in
Speaker 2: to music, so you actually kind of knew how scary
Speaker 2: a brain injury could be. What were your fears everything.
Speaker 1: I think my fear was that what really was most
Speaker 1: likely to happen would happen. I think there was a
Speaker 1: very very good ninety five percent chance that a very
Speaker 1: large amount of brain damage would have happened. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: he survived. It was that level of accident, And that's
Speaker 1: your fear that your friend has gone and I've lost
Speaker 1: a couple of friends, and then losing another one, especially
Speaker 1: best friend, like that was just going to be There
Speaker 1: was going to be a lot.
Speaker 2: Do you think moments like that as horrifying as they are,
Speaker 2: do you think they put things in to perspective that,
Speaker 2: for example, there's almost something poetic about something so horrific happening.
Speaker 2: Then you achieve all this success, and you probably have
Speaker 2: a really good sense of what's important and what's not
Speaker 2: important because you had been.
Speaker 1: Through that hugely. Yeah, I think it just made me
Speaker 1: feel absurdly lucky to be able to make music at
Speaker 1: all and do anything at all with Joe. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: incredibly It's a very lucky, very lucky position.
Speaker 2: And is he okay now?
Speaker 1: He's amazing Now? Basically he had one surgery that just
Speaker 1: changed the whole trajectory of his recovery. And shout out
Speaker 1: to this amazing surgeon who came to the last show
Speaker 1: we did. It was an island show, lived in Ireland,
Speaker 1: and the surgeon came to the show and it was
Speaker 1: just like everyone was looking around at each other crying.
Speaker 1: Joe's dad was there with the surgeon. They were like embracing, weeping.
Speaker 1: And then I looked up and I was embracing, and
Speaker 1: we've been I looked over at show. I was like okay,
Speaker 1: and he was like, yeah, what's wrong. It's like.
Speaker 2: When you met your bandmates, you were at school and
Speaker 2: you were stunnying medicine. Yeah, so then you dropped out
Speaker 2: of medicine to pursue music. Did you ever feel like
Speaker 2: you'd made a mistake?
Speaker 1: Many times? My mum certainly did. She asked for about
Speaker 1: five six years after that, she was asking me if
Speaker 1: I was going to go back. When I was going back,
Speaker 1: she asked my friends when I was going to go back.
Speaker 1: She begged my friends to tell me to go back.
Speaker 1: There are times that was one of them. We didn't
Speaker 1: know if Joe would make a full, full recovery, and
Speaker 1: I didn't think that we'd go on as a band
Speaker 1: without him. So there was a moment there where I
Speaker 1: was I didn't think it was a mistake dropping out,
Speaker 1: but I did think that there are moments like that
Speaker 1: where I thought it was over where, even after the
Speaker 1: first album came out. Actually, so that's pre Joe's accident.
Speaker 1: I was kind of it went well, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: hugely successful at the beginning. It took a minute, It
Speaker 1: took a long time actually, and then it took like
Speaker 1: two years. Yeah, so as soon as it came out,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, that was a really fun I'm
Speaker 1: probably gonna end up going back.
Speaker 2: The choice between staying at UNI and studying and doing music.
Speaker 2: Was that a choice you made based on what made
Speaker 2: you happy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot about happiness in there. That was
Speaker 1: a big turning point in my life. A lot happened
Speaker 1: in my life at that point, that's kind of where
Speaker 1: that heat Wave song came in. My best friend had
Speaker 1: ended his life at that point, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I've just got to take a break and rethink things
Speaker 1: I need to focus on that. I actually couldn't because
Speaker 1: it was like exam period. So I did the exams
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm taking a year out. I
Speaker 1: have to absorb everything that's happened and makes sense of
Speaker 1: all this. And he was always the person who encouraged
Speaker 1: me to do music. Wow, And I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna keep rolling with it, see what happens. And
Speaker 1: he was right, yeah, how old were you? I was
Speaker 1: twenty at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you choose to do music.
Speaker 1: But I went to the head of the university. It
Speaker 1: was like, can I take a year to go do
Speaker 1: this music? And she laughed at me. She was like, ah,
Speaker 1: like she's had it before, I think many times. And
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm sorry. A lot has happened
Speaker 1: and I just want to sort my head out and
Speaker 1: music is how I do that.
Speaker 2: Once you made that decision and you're doing music, you
Speaker 2: were DJing for a bit.
Speaker 1: I was teaching for a bit to kind of pay
Speaker 1: my way through school.
Speaker 2: As well, and what's that like As a creative person.
Speaker 2: Did you ever have a moment of worrying that you
Speaker 2: were turning the thing you loved most in the world
Speaker 2: into a job and that you might then start to
Speaker 2: hate it.
Speaker 1: That's a very good question, and I think about that
Speaker 1: a lot. I think that at the time, it almost
Speaker 1: felt like a necessity, and music was like a kind
Speaker 1: of therapy. I was quite a shy person. I wasn't
Speaker 1: really like a I didn't even think about like performing
Speaker 1: at all. I didn't really want to perform. I wasn't
Speaker 1: that person at school. Wasn't like an actor, wasn't in
Speaker 1: the debate team or anything. I was like the shy
Speaker 1: kid in the chess club, and music was just the
Speaker 1: way to put things down and get things out a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 2: How do you stay almost pure to the creative process
Speaker 2: when you also have in your head this creative process
Speaker 2: has to make an album, and that album has to
Speaker 2: pay my bills. How do you make sure those don't
Speaker 2: get mixed up?
Speaker 1: It's very, very, very hard. I've struggled with that a lot.
Speaker 1: That's probably one of the things I've struggled with most
Speaker 1: over the last couple of years. But you have to
Speaker 1: absolutely make sure you're carving out the time to do
Speaker 1: that thing that makes you feel grounded, and that for
Speaker 1: me is making music or spending time with like old friends,
Speaker 1: and just making sure your concrete platform is solid and
Speaker 1: you're going back and returning to those things. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people lose that. I lost it for
Speaker 1: a long time.
Speaker 2: When did you lose it?
Speaker 1: Post pandemic, post heat waves? There was just a lot
Speaker 1: floating around, a lot of opportunities floating around, and I
Speaker 1: took all of them because I was like, who am
Speaker 1: I going to turn any of this stuff down? Like
Speaker 1: it's amazing doing writing sessions every day, I was producing,
Speaker 1: I was working on music for films. I was just
Speaker 1: balancing around trying to be an extrovert when I really
Speaker 1: really am not an extrovert. And you just have to
Speaker 1: make sure you set aside that time to do the
Speaker 1: music is like that thing that keeps me sane. You
Speaker 1: just have to make sure you're doing it every day,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's very, very very hard.
Speaker 2: That period I find really interesting because you were given
Speaker 2: all sorts of opportunities to be in rooms with people
Speaker 2: that there are people who would kill to be in
Speaker 2: rooms with certain writers, certain artice. How did you decide
Speaker 2: that it wasn't for you and start deciding what to
Speaker 2: say yes and no to.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not that it wasn't for me. It's just
Speaker 1: a balance. You just have to make sure you're doing
Speaker 1: the other the core as well. I don't think I
Speaker 1: was very happy. I was in a weird place after that,
Speaker 1: to be completely honest, and started going to therapy. I
Speaker 1: started like trying to work out what was wrong. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of where this latest album came from, was
Speaker 1: trying to work out what was wrong here. I don't
Speaker 1: think I was very happy in that sense of like
Speaker 1: a lot of things in my life that were going well.
Speaker 1: I was so happy about success. I'm so happy about
Speaker 1: like you have friends that I have, and like my
Speaker 1: relationship with my parents was great. All that was good,
Speaker 1: but there was something deeply that was just like so wrong.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it was odd. I was kind
Speaker 1: of torn into bits, felt very detached from reality.
Speaker 2: So you had had from the outside the most success
Speaker 2: you'd ever had. From the outside. If somebody was looking
Speaker 2: at your Instagram, the photos are incredible. The life you're living,
Speaker 2: it's the absolute dream. But you weren't feeling it.
Speaker 1: No, But I mean the Internet presence is the curated,
Speaker 1: happy version of everything, and maybe that's part of what
Speaker 1: made me feel like I had to do all those
Speaker 1: things and be at everything and say yes to everything.
Speaker 1: Like look on as soon as you look at the Internet,
Speaker 1: you see like, Oh, this person's writing with this person,
Speaker 1: this person's done this, this person so this, and you're
Speaker 1: just comparing yourself over and over again. You're like, God,
Speaker 1: I need to say yes to everything and do it,
Speaker 1: oh and be everywhere. And I just completely left that, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever spend any time like alone
Speaker 1: writing for who knows how long years, probably two years.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing that you love doing.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the one thing that makes me feel like
Speaker 1: me it's what pulled me out that whole. However, many
Speaker 1: years ago when I started writing, and then I've kind
Speaker 1: of realized that I'd forgotten about it again.
Speaker 2: You became quite quickly in some senses and quite slowly
Speaker 2: in other senses. You became a recognizable faith. And so
Speaker 2: I imagine you're walking down the street and people are like, Hey,
Speaker 2: that's Dave. When you meet people, do you feel pressure
Speaker 2: to be a version of them that they'll really appreciate
Speaker 2: because of who you are, and you know, it's a
Speaker 2: huge moment in their lives, and how do you manage
Speaker 2: that with just being who you are in the moment.
Speaker 1: I was in that position before. I'd bump into, like
Speaker 1: someone I really admired on the street, and I'd like,
Speaker 1: sometimes you end up leaving those situations really upset, like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that person was really mean and that's broken my heart.
Speaker 1: I can't listen to that music anymore. I never want
Speaker 1: to do that to anybody. So there was a bit
Speaker 1: of pressure there. Like I was really influenced by those
Speaker 1: kinds of people when I was a kid, just because
Speaker 1: those people who'd written those songs that were so wise
Speaker 1: in such a big part of my life, and they'd
Speaker 1: say something to me in real life, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: WHOA like? And so yeah, I just try to keep
Speaker 1: that in the back of my mind the whole time
Speaker 1: I bump into people.
Speaker 2: For you, it's just kind of another interaction for them.
Speaker 2: It's something they're going to think about forever.
Speaker 1: But no, I think about it a lot too. I do.
Speaker 1: I actually do those really important interactions, and they make
Speaker 1: me really happy and it's absolutely lovely to bump into
Speaker 1: people and have a conversation about music or something. The
Speaker 1: thing unless I get a bit more like wary of
Speaker 1: is photographs and things like that. It's just I'm very
Speaker 1: happy to stop and talk to someone. That's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something almost performative about the photograph. I can
Speaker 2: kind of see that if you're just going about your
Speaker 2: life that you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, sure, i'll have
Speaker 2: a chat. But then somebody taking a photo You're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: For I know, it does happen sometimes you step, you
Speaker 1: go onto the internet and look at like you're tagged
Speaker 1: stuff and you're like, that is really creepy. Someone just
Speaker 1: took a photo of me when I was like doing
Speaker 1: my shopping. Wow, so weird.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: So you're just like aware there is this kind of
Speaker 1: constant feeling like you're slightly being what And I think,
Speaker 1: you know what. I just have to kind of get
Speaker 1: used to that, and that's fine. It's part of this
Speaker 1: career that I didn't really think about at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate I have to get used to that's
Speaker 1: what it is. But it happened in a very strange circumstance,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why I'm struggling to wrap my head around.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people that happens quite gradually.
Speaker 1: And we release that album in the pandemic, and we're
Speaker 1: sitting in my pants eating cereal watching it all happen,
Speaker 1: and it didn't really feel real. When the world finally
Speaker 1: opened up again, it was just so different, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, like it's two years since from when that
Speaker 1: record came out to when we were really allowed to
Speaker 1: be in public again.
Speaker 2: That probably is quite a bizarre way to have that
Speaker 2: moment because you don't get to see the incremental That's
Speaker 2: like seeing a crowd and then seeing a bigger crowd
Speaker 2: and then noticing that they're singing the words to your song,
Speaker 2: and then having some of the biggest crowds in the
Speaker 2: world singing the lyrics to your song. Do you think
Speaker 2: that that contributed to the fact that it didn't feel real?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. So it was such a sudden
Speaker 1: shift for me personally. I think in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world it was probably gradual, but I wasn't witnessing it,
Speaker 1: and it was like reading the emails with the statistics
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden boom out in the
Speaker 1: real world. You can see it or it hits you
Speaker 1: like a wave. Yeah, it's quite long, it's quite mad.
Speaker 1: It's a great wave. But it knocked me off my
Speaker 1: feet for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always think that being in a band would be
Speaker 2: the funnest way to be famous because you get to
Speaker 2: do it with your friends, and so you get to
Speaker 2: share in the joy and the success. Do you also
Speaker 2: have difficulties in Obviously you've got to kind of navigate
Speaker 2: decision making, what you say yes to, what you plan
Speaker 2: around with other people. Is that a challenge?
Speaker 1: It's a massive challenge. Yeah, you really care about these people.
Speaker 1: In a lot of careers, there's this very defined hierarchy
Speaker 1: and this kind of top down approach, and there's a
Speaker 1: reason it exists. There four people, it's very easy to
Speaker 1: be divided too, and two and the democracy doesn't work
Speaker 1: so well for decision making, as I've witnessed, from choosing
Speaker 1: a press photo to the kick drum sound in a song.
Speaker 1: Everything is tough. This is one of the things my
Speaker 1: hero is. Actually I love a very specific band that
Speaker 1: I grew up with changed my life. Dove into their
Speaker 1: records when I was about thirteen. I was moving from
Speaker 1: America to England, and I was listening to these records
Speaker 1: because it was a big move and it reminded me
Speaker 1: of home. So I was listening to these records and
Speaker 1: I remember hearing an interview where the lead songwriter was like,
Speaker 1: don't start a band with your friends, because there's no
Speaker 1: better way to end a friendship. And then I went
Speaker 1: and did it. Yeah, yeah, and there element where like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was right. It's very very hard. You have to
Speaker 1: put a lot of effort into that side of things.
Speaker 1: You have to remember that you have to say friends. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you lose that side and you just become like
Speaker 1: business colleagues, it's probably a bit broken.
Speaker 2: The only way I can relate to it is I
Speaker 2: work with my sister quite a bit, and we're lucky
Speaker 2: in that with a sibling you can just be a
Speaker 2: total bitch. I can say that's a terrible idea, and
Speaker 2: she says, well, you're terrible, and we can have it
Speaker 2: out and then two minutes later we're fine, and you
Speaker 2: like that with the band. Now, have the boundaries eroded
Speaker 2: because of how close you've had to become.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've known each other for so long since those
Speaker 1: really formative years of like twelve thirty or fourteen, like
Speaker 1: we go away with like a brotherhood situation, so it
Speaker 1: can be quiet. I imagine it's quite weird to witness,
Speaker 1: but to be honest, I'm not the argumentative one. It's
Speaker 1: and I love watching the others there too, particularly sometimes
Speaker 1: rob each other out the wrong way. It's very funny.
Speaker 1: I'm the sneaky brother. He's just watches with popcorn from
Speaker 1: the side.
Speaker 2: They're like, yes, you have it, yeah, yeah, And if.
Speaker 1: They're not fighting enough, I'll be like yeah. But then
Speaker 1: he said this start some shit.
Speaker 2: Has there been a particular moment that you can think
Speaker 2: of where the world told you you'd be happy and
Speaker 2: you weren't. So you had everything from the outside, but
Speaker 2: deep down it wasn't feeling joyous.
Speaker 1: Let's go for touring, for instance. I think people see
Speaker 1: the curated version of the tour on the internet and
Speaker 1: they think, Wow, what fun party. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say it's a bad thing, because I love it, but
Speaker 1: it's a grind. You're stuck in a metal tube with
Speaker 1: twelve people who smell for three months, and you're waking
Speaker 1: up as I am to do your radio stuff, and
Speaker 1: then you're going and seeing the label, and then you're
Speaker 1: going to do sound check, and then you're doing a
Speaker 1: meet and greet, and then you're doing the show, and
Speaker 1: then you then like your mom's there, and it can
Speaker 1: be a grind. I'm not complaining about it, because I
Speaker 1: do absolutely love it. But I've had like my brother
Speaker 1: on tour before, I've had the friends on tour before,
Speaker 1: and a week is fun. My brother stayed for like
Speaker 1: two weeks and by the end of the two weeks
Speaker 1: he was like, I am done. I'm spent.
Speaker 2: I reckon that would be as an introvert, I reckon
Speaker 2: that would be my worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Everywhere you look there are people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can't have a moment to yourself.
Speaker 1: There's no alone time. Yeah, Like it's very fun. A
Speaker 1: lot of my best memories are being on tour, but
Speaker 1: there are moments where you're like, god, I wish I
Speaker 1: had a nine to five. Yeah, like really big moments
Speaker 1: is the greatest thing. And all of my best memories
Speaker 1: come from touring. A lot of people kind of come
Speaker 1: into touring for a year and they're just like no,
Speaker 1: And then there are things like performances on Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of the performance itself, but doing like a TV show,
Speaker 1: So it's so nerve wracking. It's really nerve for me
Speaker 1: at least. I'm sure some people absolutely love it, but
Speaker 1: for someone who's had no experience doing any kind of
Speaker 1: performance ever, and yeah, it's it's a lot.
Speaker 2: When you have a huge success, do you worry about
Speaker 2: trying to recreate it? Is it four years between albums?
Speaker 2: In those four years, were you anxious about trying to
Speaker 2: recreate that lightning moment where it exploded? And is that
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure?
Speaker 1: I was putting a lot of pressure on myself initially,
Speaker 1: and maybe that was kind of like deferring that by
Speaker 1: doing all the other stuff, doing the writing, doing the
Speaker 1: working on films, going to events, stuff like that. Maybe
Speaker 1: I was just kind of pushing it away, working on
Speaker 1: how the hell am I going to do this? I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm gonna you know, maybe the that
Speaker 1: was it, But ultimately it kind of came to the
Speaker 1: realization that you basically just have to forget about all
Speaker 1: of that success. Nothing good is going to come from that,
Speaker 1: so you just have to go back to where that
Speaker 1: came from, which is spending time alone writing. And I
Speaker 1: found that again and stopped worrying about recreating anything, because
Speaker 1: that's not why I got into it in the first place.
Speaker 2: That's a very healthy attitude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I got there eventually. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: think I had that attitude initially. It took me a minute.
Speaker 2: I can imagine that you got some financial success by
Speaker 2: something blowing up. Do you think money buys happiness?
Speaker 1: No, I can tell you it doesn't. There's a comfort
Speaker 1: level and that really applies to touring in a big
Speaker 1: way because we have a busy yep, we have a
Speaker 1: bus and we can eat better food and things like that.
Speaker 1: That is actually a really really big thing. You can
Speaker 1: kind of afford to eat more healthily. You're not just
Speaker 1: eating it like a petrol stops having snack bars and chocolate.
Speaker 1: That is a real thing. But for me, it's never
Speaker 1: really been about that. I've been asking myself what it's
Speaker 1: about a lot lately, and that's a huge question. And
Speaker 1: I've heard some terrible answers to that question.
Speaker 2: But what told me about it answer?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to drop people in it. But one
Speaker 1: of the biggest musicians in the world, the Big Dog,
Speaker 1: told me that. I don't know if I agree with
Speaker 1: his answer at all, but they told me that something
Speaker 1: inside of you is telling you your special when someone
Speaker 1: once told you you would dirt and I was like,
Speaker 1: that is not a good reason. It's basically revenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, I didn't say it at that. I
Speaker 1: was like, I just don't think.
Speaker 2: You know what, though, I have a theory that that
Speaker 2: mentality is about fame, not about music. I think people
Speaker 2: who want fame are and it's coming from a point
Speaker 2: of wanting to prove something. But I agree that there's
Speaker 2: something different if you're just pursuing something creatively that happens
Speaker 2: to come with the fame side of things. Do you
Speaker 2: have a sense that with music, comparing it to when
Speaker 2: you were studying medicine? Do you worry that is music
Speaker 2: helping people? Am I being a good person by doing music?
Speaker 2: Do you beat yourself up with that?
Speaker 1: Exactly? That's why I've been asking myself that question. It's like,
Speaker 1: is this a selfish thing to do? Should I have
Speaker 1: stuck with what I was doing? Was that more selfless?
Speaker 1: Would that help more people? Because ultimately wanting to be
Speaker 1: a doctor, I wanted to help people. And maybe this
Speaker 1: comes back to when I first started doing music and
Speaker 1: that big turning point going from medicine to music was
Speaker 1: my best friend at that point was not happy and
Speaker 1: that led to the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something that since that moment, I've
Speaker 1: been kind of trying to find a way to. Like
Speaker 1: what I've come down to is that maybe it's trying
Speaker 1: to like spread happiness or make like make people know
Speaker 1: it's okay to feel like that, it's not a dead end,
Speaker 1: it's not the end of the world. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of that's where I'm at with the answer at the minute,
Speaker 1: Like it's okay to be sad sometimes, and that is
Speaker 1: what I really relate to in a lot of music,
Speaker 1: is that you hear a sad song, You're like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: it's okay, Like that person's okay, It's all right.
Speaker 2: Up next, Dave talks about grappling with a question of
Speaker 2: whether a career in music is ultimately selfish and whether
Speaker 2: what he does actually helps people. I think that thing
Speaker 2: that you're grappling with around is pursuing the thing I'm
Speaker 2: passionate about, the thing I'm clearly drawn to in a
Speaker 2: really profound way, is that selfish. I think that's quite
Speaker 2: relatable for a lot of people. No matter what they do,
Speaker 2: because it's the choice between the thing that brings you
Speaker 2: joy and satisfaction and the thing you almost feel like
Speaker 2: you should be doing because that's what society tells you
Speaker 2: you should be doing. But from the outside, can I
Speaker 2: just say that, as naf as it is, music really
Speaker 2: does help people. It really does, and yours in particular.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind. But maybe I've came up with
Speaker 1: the answer and then realized maybe I've twisted the truth
Speaker 1: to make myself feel better about having not been like
Speaker 1: something that really saves people. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm still still working out the answer to that. It's
Speaker 1: a tough one, but.
Speaker 2: I think that idea of it's okay to feel sad,
Speaker 2: and it's almost more nuanced than that. It's like, it's
Speaker 2: okay to feel the full range of human emotions and
Speaker 2: exactly probably the way in their day to day life
Speaker 2: that a lot of people connect with that is music.
Speaker 2: It's the quickest, most mindful way to feel something that
Speaker 2: isn't the distraction of what's in your face moment to moment.
Speaker 2: But I do find it really interesting that a person
Speaker 2: in your position battles with that, even though you're giving
Speaker 2: a gift to other people. It's like, oh, but am
Speaker 2: I being selfish? Should I pursue this other route? It's
Speaker 2: a big battle, yeah, and I think I think there's
Speaker 2: probably a lot of people who don't ask themselves that question.
Speaker 1: Probably right, yeah, But I don't know. I've come to
Speaker 1: a very pessimistic thing at the moment, where like something
Speaker 1: bad again, but like happiness is quite like like short,
Speaker 1: these little like blips we're like, whoa habit? Where does
Speaker 1: it come? But comes from like it's like a fucking sorry. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's like a beam of light coming down from the
Speaker 1: sky and like boom, you're happy and you're like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know why. Cool. You can't just maintain this
Speaker 1: constant level of happiness and you can't keep trying to
Speaker 1: like do that for other people. You it's just an impossibility.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of trying to work out the answer now,
Speaker 1: which is probably too big a thing for right now.
Speaker 1: But like when you're okay with dealing with the other
Speaker 1: emotions and like being like, oh, I'm really pissed off
Speaker 1: right now, it kind of automatically is like and that's
Speaker 1: all right. You can't Yeah, you don't have to be
Speaker 1: happy right now, it's all right.
Speaker 2: And I think telling yourself that you have to be
Speaker 2: happy ironically makes us less happy and makes feel really
Speaker 2: guilty and shameful, which is.
Speaker 1: Big time and awful. Such a huge push for it
Speaker 1: at the moment, I feel with the way the internet works,
Speaker 1: it's like everyone's showing the happiness. It's quite an intense
Speaker 1: thing to you know. I try to limit my amount
Speaker 1: of time on the internet for that reason, because you're like,
Speaker 1: look at all these happy, happy people happy all the time.
Speaker 1: They've posted five times, so they're all so happy. I
Speaker 1: feel like I've kind of stopped trying to like chase
Speaker 1: being happy myself. It just kind of happens. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: flipping great. I love it, but stop trying to like
Speaker 1: be it all the time. It's just a kind of impossibility.
Speaker 1: It's maybe a lot easier to appreciate those happy moments
Speaker 1: instead of constantly constantly doubting them and wondering when it's
Speaker 1: going to go away.
Speaker 2: Or if it's like happy enough, If you're feeling happy.
Speaker 1: Enough, this is pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. From what you've seen of I
Speaker 2: guess the most successful version of musicians, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: you've rubbed shoulders with all sorts of people. I was
Speaker 2: going to bring up going to the Grammys, but you
Speaker 2: had COVID and you didn't go to the Grammys when
Speaker 2: you were nominated for Perst New Artist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, guys, that's the saddest thing. I mean, you
Speaker 1: say it's sad, but I, like I'd say it wasn't
Speaker 1: just sad. I was like, oh, I really wanted to
Speaker 1: go to the Grammys. Not necessarily for myself. I felt
Speaker 1: like it was going to like because all these amazing
Speaker 1: people who had been listening to our music for a
Speaker 1: long time, and it was like going for them in
Speaker 1: a way, and going for like my mum and the
Speaker 1: people who'd supported me through all this chaos, and choosing
Speaker 1: to ditch a perfectly good career for one that seemed
Speaker 1: absolutely unbelievable. But there was a bit element of relief
Speaker 1: as well, because it's a stressful thing. I get quite
Speaker 1: a bit like, whoa, this is a very surreal situation.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, yes, I get to go on a
Speaker 1: red carpet. It's a strange thing going on a red carpet.
Speaker 2: You've done the brit Awards, Yeah, do you enjoy it?
Speaker 2: What's the vibe, meeting celebrities.
Speaker 1: I find those kind of things quite strange. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is too honest. I don't want to. I try to
Speaker 1: enjoy them a lot, and I do enjoy them because
Speaker 1: I get to meet some lovely people and people. I
Speaker 1: speak to people about music and things that they're doing
Speaker 1: that I am so passionate about. And I learned a
Speaker 1: huge amount from people in those situations. I really really do.
Speaker 1: But there's a very strange element where you are wearing
Speaker 1: a wild outfit walking down a carpet and there's a fence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite odd. Yeah, and I'm slightly aware of that too.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I've never been the person who like saw
Speaker 1: those events and be like, I so wish I was
Speaker 1: there anything to be there. But it's really nice.
Speaker 2: There's certain things about your private life that you seem
Speaker 2: to have kind of good boundaries in terms of what
Speaker 2: you talk about what you don't talk about, And given
Speaker 2: that a lot of your music people know is autobiographical,
Speaker 2: that must be a bit of an intentional decision. Is
Speaker 2: there a reason that you don't share a lot about
Speaker 2: relationships or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in a way, i'd say I share
Speaker 1: quite a lot about relationships. If you listen to the music,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's all the secrets, some of the secrets,
Speaker 1: Like there's got more songs in me, probably more things
Speaker 1: to talk about, hope. No, I do actually seem to
Speaker 1: have found like a rhythm at the minute. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think if I have like family and friends
Speaker 1: and relationships, they haven't chosen to I've kind of chosen
Speaker 1: to go down this road, and I appreciate what comes
Speaker 1: with it. Maybe I didn't know at first what came
Speaker 1: with it, but I do appreciate the things that come
Speaker 1: with it, and I'm trying to embrace them. They didn't
Speaker 1: choose that.
Speaker 2: I think that must be an interesting line to walk
Speaker 2: between what is your story to tell and what's not
Speaker 2: your story?
Speaker 1: Maybe that's.
Speaker 2: So you've got a new album, uh huh coming out
Speaker 2: in July, tell us about it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like exploration about happiness. Isn't it
Speaker 1: funnily enough? But it's I had an existential crisis, and
Speaker 1: I guess we spoke about that a little bit. Coming
Speaker 1: from this like sense of detachment and the success of
Speaker 1: the last album kind of happening while I wasn't really
Speaker 1: allowed to be part of it almost. It was happening
Speaker 1: during COVID and I was watching it all happen and
Speaker 1: then was kind of thrust out into it. And I
Speaker 1: was so detached from that success in a weird way
Speaker 1: that it spun me out big time. And then it
Speaker 1: kind of all came to a head. I got this
Speaker 1: like job writing for other people in La, went to
Speaker 1: La to do this. I've got this airbnb, sweet deal,
Speaker 1: really cheap, So why is it so cheap? Got there
Speaker 1: and moved into the airbnb and realized why it was so.
Speaker 1: She was just falling off a cliff. Oh wow, and
Speaker 1: had these like stilts that was so like ten times
Speaker 1: as follows the house holding this thing up on this cliff.
Speaker 1: And I was like, cool, I can go on with this.
Speaker 1: But then this huge storm came massive, so one of
Speaker 1: the biggest storms that's happened in La in like a century.
Speaker 1: They said, it's called the Atmospheric River. It's raining, their
Speaker 1: trees falling down the mountain. There's like landslide warnings everywhere
Speaker 1: by phone. You know when your phone goes like marriage
Speaker 1: like landslide warning. Everyone, stay indoors, do not try to
Speaker 1: go outside. All this stuff. So I was like stranded
Speaker 1: in this house during this storm, and I moved the
Speaker 1: bed if like the bed was kind of on the
Speaker 1: stilts end of the house and there's one bit connected
Speaker 1: to the rock. I picked up the mattress and I
Speaker 1: dragged it across the house, put it by the mountain,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm going to die. This is
Speaker 1: the end. And it kind of all came to a head.
Speaker 1: I was finally forced to like spend time alone for
Speaker 1: the first time in years, and was kind of forced
Speaker 1: to confront all this and I kind of asked myself, like,
Speaker 1: what does all this mean? Am I happy? Is this happiness?
Speaker 1: Chasing all this stuff? And I kind of reached out
Speaker 1: and tried to grab something and I grabbed Like what
Speaker 1: I landed on was like that human connection is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. So that's what this is about. It's
Speaker 1: about like trying to pull myself back onto this like
Speaker 1: rock that is human connection from that existential crisis. Wow,
Speaker 1: kind of trying to claw my way back to what
Speaker 1: the meaning of life is and what does make you happy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's an interesting metaphor the house on the cliff,
Speaker 2: and it's a bit of a blessing in disguise. But
Speaker 2: it forced you to stay there and get this out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean in the face of death, you write
Speaker 1: very very quickly. And I wrote the whole album there
Speaker 1: in that little house. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How long did it take to go?
Speaker 1: About two and a bit weeks. Yeah. The thing is
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a space album, and I never
Speaker 1: really worked out how to do it. Almost felt very cold,
Speaker 1: like space is gold and quite heartless and stuff. And
Speaker 1: then I finally found when I was in that house.
Speaker 1: I kind of it was in that existential crisis that
Speaker 1: felt very much like space is vacuum, and kind of
Speaker 1: reached out and grabbed that thing. And that's how I
Speaker 1: finally made that connect. Like you can write these really
Speaker 1: personal stories about hum connection but framed by the excidential
Speaker 1: reframe by these like space sounds, but the core these
Speaker 1: really human love stories.
Speaker 2: Basically, Dave Bailey, your band Glass Animals had the biggest
Speaker 2: song in the world, and you've played at some of
Speaker 2: the world's biggest festivals on some of the biggest stages.
Speaker 2: But if you look at your life right now, are you.
Speaker 1: Happy right now in this moment? I'm happy. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say I am happy. I have to think it's
Speaker 1: a very big question. But I think if I was
Speaker 1: to do the simple answer, I say, yeah, I'm very happy.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Does anyone ever ask you if you're happy?
Speaker 2: Sometimes people do, and I'm like, oh, we don't want.
Speaker 1: To get That's why I started this whole podcast, happiness
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 2: Ask other people. My chat with Dave was one of
Speaker 2: my favorite conversations I've ever had on this podcast. I
Speaker 2: think it's really common for people who have creative pursuits,
Speaker 2: whether that's music or acting or art or media or podcasting,
Speaker 2: to really wonder about the purpose of it. Is this
Speaker 2: helping anyone? Is this indulgent? Why do I get to
Speaker 2: do this and other people are doing jobs at the
Speaker 2: same time that save lives? But music, I think is
Speaker 2: one of the most powerful avenues for happiness. It allows
Speaker 2: us to access the full range of human emotions in
Speaker 2: an incredibly mindful way. It's the backdrop to our lives.
Speaker 2: I know music plays in the background of some of
Speaker 2: my most precious memories. This conversation also highlighted how sometimes
Speaker 2: it's the moments we achieve the external markers of success
Speaker 2: and feel like something is wrong that are the most clarifying.
Speaker 2: It forces you to confront who you actually are and
Speaker 2: what actually matters to you, and sometimes it's different to
Speaker 2: what you imagined. Join me next week for a conversation
Speaker 2: with media personality, youth worker, podcaster and author Brook Blurton
Speaker 2: about processing trauma, balancing the pursuit of individual happiness with
Speaker 2: the needs and struggles of your community, and the moment
Speaker 2: she found love on national television and received news of
Speaker 2: a personal tragedy at the same time.
Speaker 4: She's a bachelorette, you know, and all of these comments
Speaker 4: and tabloids and etc. To then being in an ABNB
Speaker 4: by yourself organizing a funeral for your sister that you've
Speaker 4: just lost. It's just I don't not want to place
Speaker 4: myself there ever again.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, if you want to listen to last
Speaker 2: week's episode, I spoke to actor and Gowery Rice and
Speaker 2: her mum Kate about what success looks like at such
Speaker 2: a young age and how a parent navigates their child's
Speaker 2: career in Hollywood, and Gowery spoke about her previous roles
Speaker 2: and how she deals with criticism, while Kate spoke about
Speaker 2: her experience being in the acting industry and what she
Speaker 2: worries about regarding ang Gowery. If you enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 2: please review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If
Speaker 2: you'd like to suggest someone for the podcast, you can
Speaker 2: get in touch with me directly. My Instagram handle is
Speaker 2: Claire dot Stevens, or you can email us here at
Speaker 2: podcast at mamameya dot com dot au. This episode was
Speaker 2: produced by Tarlie Blackman, with audio production by Scott Stronik.
Speaker 2: See you next week.