SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Glass Animals are back with an album I'll have to politely call "I Love You So Bleeping Much." It's the band's fourth album and its first since 2020. It is filled with expressions of vulnerability and longing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN'T MAKE YOU FALL IN LOVE AGAIN")
GLASS ANIMALS: (Singing) That's just one more thing about you I don't need in my life. Never gave me goodbye, but you were gone in high school.
SIMON: Dave Bayley joins us now from New York. And, Mr. Bayley, I bet a lot of people say this to you, it's so bleeping good to talk to you.
DAVE BAYLEY: Ah. Thank you. Actually, I think you're the first. I haven't done many...
SIMON: (Laughter).
BAYLEY: ...Interviews yet. So that's the first time. And it sounds good. It sounds good on the radio, that song, too. Very nice moment, to hear that for the first time.
SIMON: Let me ask you about the beginning of your album. We're going to listen to a clip called - all one word - "Whatthehellishappening?" And it begins almost like the start of a psychological thriller.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHATTHEHELLISHAPPENING?")
GLASS ANIMALS: (Singing) And if I survive, if I survive, I'll do this again every summertime. I'm so happy with my hands tied. Being kidnapped is my thing in life.
SIMON: I mean, what a line. My...
BAYLEY: (Laughter).
SIMON: So happy with my hands tied. Being kidnapped is my thing in life. Is the song about that or something else?
BAYLEY: I mean, it's a kind of metaphor. Basically, the last album took us on such a wild ride, releasing this album in a pandemic that ended up doing something that we never expected. It kind of blew up, and we were all sitting there in our pants - pants in England is underwear - just watching it happen from our houses 'cause we were in lockdown. And there's just a sense of, like, detachment, just being pulled along, being slightly helpless. But there's a thrill to it.
So I thought that was a nice metaphor, just being kidnapped and thrown to the boot of a car and driven. You don't know where you're going. You're going very fast. And it's dangerous for a lot of reasons. But the result of that song is you end up kind of falling in love with the kidnapper.
SIMON: Well, my gosh. Well, it's a song, right?
BAYLEY: (Laughter) It's a song. It was just how I was feeling. It came out very quickly, that song. It came out very fast, and I think that actually works well with the subject matter of the song. It's just fast, spontaneous kind of stream of consciousness.
SIMON: I gather science fiction has been an influence on this new album.
BAYLEY: Big.
SIMON: Any works in particular?
BAYLEY: I'm a huge "Hitchhiker's Guide" fan. And to be honest, I've always wanted to write a space album, like, a sci-fi-tinged record. But every time I tried, it just came out very cold. It came out very, like, space. The vacuum of space is cold. It is sterile. It's not got any life in it. And I finally found a way to basically use that to put perspective on very intimate - very earthly, intimate love stories and stories about human connection. That juxtaposition was really powerful for me. And I thought "Hitchhiker's Guide" does that particularly well.
SIMON: Yeah. How do we hear that musically - sonically, if you please - on this album?
BAYLEY: I don't know if you know the original "Hitchhiker's Guide" radio shows. Have you ever heard those?
SIMON: You know, I've never heard them. I'm certainly aware of them.
BAYLEY: Oh, they're worth checking out. They're amazing. They were back in the '60s, '70s, I think, and they were soundtracked by BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which is just, like, the first synthesizers that had been made, were used to soundtrack them. So I actually bought a load of those bits of equipment. I wanted to make sounds like that that really referenced that time and that period. That retrofuturistic soundscape was a huge part of this record.
SIMON: Let me ask you about another song, "Wonderful Nothing."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WONDERFUL NOTHING")
GLASS ANIMALS: (Singing) Been a great gunfight. You drew blood. I set myself on fire. But you've had your time. Oh, you've had your time.
SIMON: Oh, my. Anti-love song?
BAYLEY: (Laughter) I think it's - they're all kind of anti-love songs. They're love songs. Love is a complex beast. And I say they're love songs in a very broad sense of the word love - in terms of, like, relationships with family members, friends and the mushy stuff. It's a combination of all of it and all different sides, the good sides and the bad sides. And this is maybe one of the darker sides. It's the relationship between hate and love and how linked they are.
SIMON: We probably should be able to infer this from your accent, but you grew up in Massachusetts and Texas, didn't you?
BAYLEY: I did. Yeah. I had.
SIMON: (Laughter).
BAYLEY: I moved around a little bit as a kid, and my accent was a strange one. My dad was Welsh - strong accent. And my mum Middle Eastern - strong accent. And then I went to Worcester, Mass. - strong accent. Then moved to Texas - strong accent. So you can only imagine the monstrous combination. I sounded very strange. And when I moved to England when I was 12, I was just - I just hit a reset button.
SIMON: So when Glass Animals play South by Southwest, it's a homecoming for you.
BAYLEY: Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love coming to America. Just - it does feel like home. All the nostalgia comes flooding back, and I think there are a lot of references. There's some nostalgic moments in this record that reference a lot of quite American things. And there's a song about growing up in Texas called "I Can't Make You Fall In Love Again," and it references a few places in Texas that I used to - my local haunts growing up.
SIMON: Is this a more personal album for you?
BAYLEY: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it's the most personal so far. I always felt it was very selfish to talk about yourself in my family. It was like you - keep you to you. And I think I slowly realized after writing one very personal song on the last record and that - it was called "Heat Waves," and it resonated particularly well magically. And it just made me feel like it's OK to write something personal. It's actually more powerful.
SIMON: Could you set up the song? We're going to hear a little of it now. But set it up for us first, please, if you could - "Lost In The Ocean."
BAYLEY: Oh, this is my favorite song on the record. This album is exploring all the different types, the ups and downs of love against the context of the vacuum and magnitude of the universe. And "Lost In The Ocean" is where the spaceship lands back down on Earth, and you realize this is where it's at. This is where everything important is happening right in front of you when you're back home with the people and things that you love. This is "Lost In The Ocean."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOST IN THE OCEAN")
GLASS ANIMALS: (Singing) You get lost in the ocean. What do you do when you are so broken? The flood, the feeling comes over. How are you so loved and so lonesome? You get lost in the ocean.
SIMON: It's a beautiful song.
BAYLEY: Oh, thanks. Thanks. I mean, I've heard it so many times. I'm a bit - it's...
SIMON: Yeah. Well, that's - I guess that's the process of making an album. But does the song remind us to cherish what's right in front of us?
BAYLEY: That's the idea. And that's the idea of the record, is there's so much going on and so much happening in the world, and it's all so big. It can completely blow you off your feet if you're not careful. And I think I got blown off my feet for a bit, but - and the album takes you through that. And then this song is realizing that those little things right in front of you, those human connections that you have, are so complex and so important, and the size of them swallow the universe whole if you really think about it.
SIMON: Dave Bayley is frontman of the band Glass Animals - and their album "I Love You So Bleeping Much."
BAYLEY: (Laughter) This is causing us a lot of problems, that title. It's a marketing nightmare.
SIMON: Is it a marketing nightmare?
BAYLEY: It's been fun, actually. I quite like the - I think it's good to have limitations. Everything's so possible in the world right now. You know, you can do anything with a computer, and anything you can imagine can happen. Whereas I like a bit of limitation, and this is definitely (laughter) - we can't print it anywhere or say it anywhere. So it's a nice limitation to have. We have to be creative.
SIMON: Yeah. It's been so bleeping good to talk to you. You knew I'd say that, didn't you?
BAYLEY: I knew it. I knew it. But it sounded good. It's been bleeping good to talk to you, too. Thank you so much for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOST IN THE OCEAN")
GLASS ANIMALS: (Singing) You get lost in the ocean. What do you do when you are so broken? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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