It's such an interesting experience seeing how different people react to music and the generosity of some and the craziness of others - people who go see bands in different countries, know all the words to the songs, and get tattoos. It's so unexpected.
— Dan Smith
I guess the way people release music and the way people listen to it has changed and is changing constantly. We wanna get the music out as quickly as possible. We're sitting on a lot of stuff and constantly making new stuff as well.
I'm not interested in writing overtly autobiographical songs. I would rather explore interesting stories. I like the idea of the songs being evocative and distinctive, so I have in my mind the atmosphere that a film could evoke. I like to think of them existing in their own little world.
When 'Flaws' went to No 21, we thought it was the most chart-bothering thing we'd ever do. We had a little party and started thinking about the next album.
'Fire Walk With Me' was so divisive because the tone was so different than the TV series. But now television is almost more of a free medium than cinema.
I think there's some people that absolutely love attention, and I'm not necessarily one of those people, but we're so, so lucky to be able to do this with our lives. There are certain aspects that maybe are not amazing, like having to represent us.
I really like people to be able to interpret stuff in their own way, I like the ambiguity of the medium. We're just four guys in a band trying to articulate things in a questioning way. Who are we to tell people what to think?
Mark Crew, the only producer we've ever worked with, has been joining us on tour as often as possible.
I was obsessed with harmonies and how to put songs together in lush soundscapes. But I don't know what it was all about, really.
In 'Good Grief', in trying to create this sense of the huge downs and ups, stumbles of this process, we're almost using the music to make it uplifting, so it's not completely hopeless.
I listen to unhealthy amount of Kanye. The Fugees. Also, 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.'
There are so many different points to 'Wild World,' and it sounds quite different to what people would expect from us.
It was quite nice having a routine, going to the studio every day and finishing off 'Wild World'.
There's definitely a couple of people I'll play stuff to when it's nearly finished just to see what they think; Mark, our producer, his wife is Australian and just listens to the radio - she's awesome - and, I guess, is quite a casual music listener.
A lot of our songs are based in reality but imagined or using fictional characters as a way to write about something. I think inspiration comes from anything and everything, and it's filtered through our brains, and it comes out sounding like our band.
I've never been interested in diarising my life through song. So much stuff has been done before. So many people have brilliantly articulated the pain of heartbreak or the joy of love or whatever. Those elements exist in our music, but I guess I strive to write about unconventional things instead.
The idea of doing film and music together is an absolute dream.
I think basically, there are some bands and acts who feel the need to cultivate a persona or act a certain way or get quotes or whatever, because they feel like that helps them get promotion, and I feel like we're a band who have always just made music that we love and kept ourselves to ourselves and got on with it.
We've been having a great time writing for other artists in and amongst making our Bastille albums and mixtapes.
My songs used to be significantly more bizarre. I used to play a big electric piano and a loop pedal. I was really into Regina Spektor, and I liked her narrative lyrics that were quite off the wall. I used to layer things up and try and replicate what I'd been doing with my bedroom recordings.
Reading interviews with other people, I see them say, 'All I want is for our band to be massive', but it was never an ambition of ours to be in a band that's this big. That's so far from how my mind works that I find it puzzling. There's nothing wrong with being ambitious, but we're not.
We love to visit Las Vegas. It is so much fun, so iconic; it is always a pleasure.
When we started out in the U.K., there were songs that we made, we put them on the Internet, and we immediately started touring the U.K. We borrowed our friend's mum's car, and drove ourselves around for, like, a year playing gigs in pubs and tiny little venues. In that respect, we're pretty grass roots as a band. We've done all that together.
There haven't been many examples of times when we've done a cover and not put it out in some form.
I run our Twitter and Facebook pages, because I feel it's important to maintain a personal relationship with fans.
I never, ever imagined leaving Great Britain.
'The Shining' is operatic and sensational and... really shocking. It has this amazing meld of classical music and modern interpretations of classical music, and incredible imagery. From the set design to the costumes, there's so much to unpack.
I made a lot of the first album on a laptop in my bedroom after college and after work.
There's a part of me that wants to let all the different moments of 'Wild World' to have their moment and be released properly.
The mixtapes, and a lot of our music, it comes from a place of fandom and appreciation and of respect and of nodding toward stuff that we feel really affectionate towards.
I'm into really terrible, trashy American horror films. I think the 'Final Destination' 'sinquology', to phrase it, is brilliant! It's un-toppable in terms of how incredible it is.
Our favourite album that we always listen to in the car is '2001' by Dr. Dre, which is just the ultimate album of all time.
Lip synching in a video is usually my idea of hell.
Often, with our music, there's quite a lot going on, so people hear melodies that sound up and catchy, and production, and maybe don't really listen to what the songs are about, so it's nice to sing a song like 'The Currents' and really mean it.
I think everyone has such varied taste in music.
The first turning point, when I stopped doing things by myself and the Bastille project began, was the inclusion of more electronic music into the sound.
I know who buys our music: we have such a diverse fanbase.
The Backstreet Boys posted a cover of our single 'Good Grief.' It was so cool, and they reached out to us, saying, 'When you're in town, come to the show.'
IHeartRadio was a mind-blowing experience. We're just this little band in England, and we played in between Alicia Keys and Nicki Minaj. It was incredible and surreal.
I write songs, but the guys play on them, they have opinions on them, and we tour together and spend all our time together.
It's fun to take songs from a completely different context and reframe them. We did two mixtape albums called 'Other People's Heartache' and 'Other People's Heartache Pt. 2,' which were full of those kind of covers and mash-ups, mixed with film music and film quotes.
After everyone's gone to bed, I still find myself sitting at the computer writing songs. It's a nice reminder that this has always been a kind of hobby that I get on with because I really love it.
There's always room to make stuff that is completely morose and downbeat, but we'd probably spiral into a state of complete despair if our music reflected the lyrics all the time. I think that's almost the fun game with some songs, is this complete tearing of two feelings at once.
I'm massively obsessed with Frank Ocean, so it's always great when he decides to release music.
One of the best things about being in a band is that we're so lucky to be able to travel the world. It takes us to all these cities that we've never seen before.
To be honest, I'm always really interested when people say they can relate to our songs. On the first album, that wasn't something I'd ever anticipated or thought about.
Playing new songs at festivals is weird, obviously. People at festivals are always a bit drunk, and probably just want to hear stuff they know by bands they love, or are checking you out and don't know your stuff very well.
I remember being obsessed with 'The Score' by The Fugees. I used to listen to a lot of really melodic music with a lot of harmonies. The Beach Boys used to make me happy, and Simon and Garfunkel, and I used to listen to a lot of film soundtracks as well.
When we started making mixtapes, we were just ripping stuff off YouTube and DVDs, naively thinking that because we were putting it up for free, it was gonna be fine.
Sometimes it's necessary for your sanity to hone in on the things that you love and the people you enjoy hanging out with.
