Tim Hughes talks to Dave Bayley frontman of an Oxford band who sell out everywhere and are loved by millions, but can still drink unnoticed in their local pub...

In the past year, Oxford band Glass Animals have gone from obscurity to one of the coolest bands on the planet.

Their gorgeous tune Gooey was the second most shared track on the music streaming site Spotify last year, and they have conquered the charts in America and Australia. They are mobbed at their shows and attract up to 10,000 people to their legendary festival sets. Yet, says frontman Dave Bayley, they can still walk into their local pub and not be recognised.

“It’s quite nice!” he says, with typical understatement, while relaxing at home in Jericho.

“It has been mental — but in a good way,” he chuckles. “I’m very happy about it all.”

For all the fame and adulation abroad, Dave, a fiercely bright neuro-science graduate, is refreshingly down to earth. He seems unaffected by the success he and bandmates Drew MacFarlane (guitar, organ and violin), Edmund Irwin-Singer (keys, bass, cello and piano) and Joe Seaward (drums) have enjoyed over the past 12 months. It’s a year which has seen the former St Edward’s schoolmates release their debut album Zaba on Adele and Primal Scream producer Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label; sell out London’s Southbank Centre and storm to success everywhere from Glastonbury to Chicago, selling out more than 100 shows.

Their slow-building blend of pop, trip-hop, dance and gentle electronic — Dave describes it as “hip-hop hold-ing a pineapple” — has been streamed 45 million times worldwide. Across YouTube and Vevo alone they have picked up more than eight million streams. Another of their songs — Toes — features on the soundtrack to the new Liam Neeson film Taken 3.

They have just starred at the 6 Music Festival, were this week confirmed as guests at this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals, and, as we speak, are preparing for yet another jaunt to New York before embarking on a European tour.

“It’s so weird,” says Dave, modestly. “I don’t know why. It seems to be that some people like our songs.

“It’s very surreal. I don’t like thinking about it very much. I just want to keep my head down and focus on keeping the project going. It has definitely taken us a bit by surprise, though. I remember me and Joe watching SBTRKT at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire with our manager, who said ‘give it a year and you’ll be there’. And now we are there!”

The band play the Empire on March 10. Before then, on March 3, they per-form their first hometown show since last year’s album launch, which took place in typically under-stated style at their local, the Jericho Tavern. For their next show they take things up a gear, but only a bit, choosing to play upstairs at the O2 Academy.

“It’s going to be good and exciting,” says Dave. “Joe, Drew, Ed and I basically grew up at the Zodiac and that top room is legendary for us. Many of our favourite bands played there: the Arctic Monkeys to a half-empty room, Maximo Park and The Rakes. It was our second home up to the age of 18.”

If they are big news here, they are colossal in Australia, and in America — where Dave and Drew both lived before Oxford.

“The shows just keep getting bigger and bigger,” he says. “The Australian festival shows were the biggest yet. We had 10,000 people coming to see us. It was pretty incredible for us to have a crowd like that.”

Oxford Mail:
Oxford band Glass Animals had the second most shared track on Spotify's music site

And the strangest thing? “The most amazing thing happened when our bassist walked into a guitar centre in Los Angeles,” he says. “He was looking at the guitars and there was a little boy playing one of them, so he asked him what he was trying to play and he said ‘I’m trying to play Toes by Glass Animals’.

“He said ‘Are you kidding me, I am the bass player from Glass Animals!’ “He couldn’t believe it; all the way across the pond!”

Among their biggest fans is Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, who booked them to headline his own Independent Venue Week night at the aforementioned Jericho Tavern.

Fortunately, for Dave at least, they are still able to drink there, and eat at their local curry house, without being spotted.“I don’t really get spotted in this country as much as in the USA or Australia,” he says. “I hate being recognised. I want to be able to go to Sainsbury’s in my pyjamas with bad hair and dribble on my chin!

“I love it here,” he goes on. “We were here for three days over Christmas and have only been home for two days, but it’s nice to come back to somewhere familiar.

“I’ve already packed my bag though. I’ve been for a farewell curry at the Standard Tandoori and it’s time to go off again.

“I’m having such a good time, though, and I have to thank the entire Oxford music scene for that. It has always been there for us — and we’re proud of it.”

New single Black Mambo is out on March 23.

Glass Animals
O2 Academy Oxford
March 3
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