The Edge managed to get an exclusive interview with Bastille at Blissfields festival. Editor Megan Downing caught up with the guys about their extremely busy schedule.
How’ve you all been since we last spoke?
Kyle: Good! Busy. We’ve done more gigs.
Woody: More music, been to more places.
Kyle: We’re still playing music
Dan: Still trying to play music.
Modest!
*all laugh*
So your Glastonbury set got a record breaking crowd, as you’ve probably heard, how was that for you? I unfortunately couldn’t get in the tent!
Dan: It was so nuts.
Woody: Someone told us the tent might collapse at one point with everyone trying to push in, that could have been quite cool if that had happened.
Dan: I mean, that would have been awful!
Woody: Well, we’d all be dead, but you know!
Kyle: What a way to go out though! We’d live forever if that had happened.
Dan: In infamy. That crap band that killed loads of people.
Woody: Exactly, what a waste.
Kyle: I mean, it would have only killed 5,000, but there were more people there!
So it was good, the consensus is that it was good?
All: Yeah!
Woody: It was amazing.
So Will, I want to ask you about your new tattoo, can you tell us the story?
Will: Basically if anything happens in your life, of any note, the best thing to do is to drink obscene quantities of tequila and get yourself brandished, permanantely, for the rest of your life, with a kind of emo girl’s lament on the one part of your body that is definietly going to look bad in 50 years. Anyone who doesn’t do that is probably not living their life to the full.
Do you regret your decision?
Will: I regret almost every decision I’ve ever made. Nah, I don’t really. It’s fine. I mean, I already had a spider and the Parker Pen logo, so somehow the worst tattoo in the world is the best tattoo for me.
Dan: That’s a really nice thought though.
Will: For anyone else that would be ghastly, but on me it’s somehow better than the other two.
That’s a beautiful story Will, thank you. I know you get asked about this a lot, but your album did go to number one. Where were you when you found out?
Woody: In bed!
Dan: Yeah! Our tour bus had been driving over night and had pulled up in Leeds University Campus, we got woken up from a call from our manager saying “your album is number one!” I walked out of the tour bus cause I didn’t want to wake everyone up and it was snowing, and I went to uni at Leeds, so I was on the campus that I studied at and loved for three years. It was very surreal. Then we had a gig there that night, Kyle also went to uni in Leeds, so it was a homecoming show meets weirdest news I’ve ever heard in my life.
Will: When you told us all we were half asleep, then I went back to sleep all happy, and I was a bit wary as to whether it was a dream.
Dan, have you been writing new material?
Dan: I have written some stuff, I’m finding it quite hard to finish things at the moment but I’ve started writing it and we’ve sort of started playing them a little bit but not really. I just wanna get everyone in the studio, I want to get Kyle in to help make it sound good. But he’s a busy man.
Your new single is ‘Things We Lost In The Fire’ is out next month, why did you choose to release this one as a single?
Dan: I think we kind of always wanted it to be a single, I think it’s a bit of the album which doesn’t have any electronics on it at all, which is quite nice, and it feels quite band-y and it has strings on it too.
Will: It’s also one of those songs that seems to go down really well as gigs. That helped make the decision I think.
Dan: It’s one of the songs in our set, that’s not a single, and people seem to really respond to, which is nice.
Have you started thinking about the music video yet?
Woody: We’ve made it!
Dan: Yeah, it’s finished, it goes up online next week.
That’s amazing!
Woody: Yeah, exclusive!
Very exciting.
Dan: We went to Lithuania to make it.
Woody: In a plaster of paris refinery, not even joking.
Dan: Don’t give anything away!
*all laugh*
‘Laura Palmer’ was the last single, influenced by the television show Twin Peaks. Dan, I wanted to know your favourite moment of Twin Peaks? I’ve nearly finished the second series.
Dan: Don’t spoil it cause these guys haven’t seen it. But I like the bit where Audrey is being all sexy and puts the whole cherry in her mouth and ties the stalk into a knot with her tongue and takes it out to prove how sexy she is.
She is so sexy, is she your favourite character?
Dan: Yeah.
Kyle: I like the dead one.
*all laugh*
The theme for this year at Blissfields is film, if you could choose any theme what would you choose and how would you make that happen? The Staves already said Twin Peaks so you can’t have that one.
Will: The easiest would be to have a music-festival-themed music festival and then you would just make a music festival.
Kyle: Then you would have absolutely nailed it.
Will: It’s perfect! So that’s what I would go for.
That’s kind of an anti-answer Will, thanks.
Will: I’d go for the Blissfields themed Blissfields.
Kyle: Ah, nice.
Brilliant.
*all laugh*
So you were all at Glastonbury, did you see The Rolling Stones’ phoenix?
All: Yes!
Dan: Which Mumford and Sons used as well. I was quite disappointed at the pheonix, I thought it was going to take off.
With Mick Jagger riding it..
Dan: Yes! I thought the wings were gonna open up and it would fly away. I mean it was cool, it was a nice little edition.
So if you had all the money in the world and were playing on The Pyramid Stage, what would you have done?
Dan: Book Jay Z.
Kyle: Yeah and just watch him perform.
*all laugh*
I just saw a photo shoot you did (Dan) in Notion magazine, why were you so upset?
Dan: Because I was by myself.
Kyle: And there was smoke in his face.
You look so moody!
Dan: They told me to.
Did they?
Dan: Yeah, of course! They also set off loads of smoke bombs in my face.
I thought they might have been threatening to murder kittens behind the camera.
Dan: I do look well moody don’t I! I’m not particularly comfortable having photos taken, so I think that probably comes across quite a lot. I always look really pained or really upset, cause I generally am.
Kyle: It’s good, cause the end product is well sexy.
That photo shoot is pretty sexy, well done.
Dan: Thanks Megan.
So this is the last question I have, I was trying to think of a really funny one, but all I could come up with is: what can we expect from tonight’s show?
*all laugh*
Dan: Woah, you really didn’t try did you!
Kyle: You gave up on that one pretty fast.
Claire didn’t try either! *points behind the camera*
Claire: I came up with the money one!
Dan: Sorry for not answering that one properly..
She also came up with: Bastille rhymes with pastille, what is your favourite flavour of Fruit Pastille flavour?
Dan: Strawberry and blackberry. The black and the red ones, obviously!
Will: Why do they put the yellow ones in? Often you’ll get three in a row! Jesus, why don’t they just do packets of the black ones.
Woody: It’s a slap in the face to the consumers.
Dan: It’s like they hate us.
Claire: See Meg, good response from that one!
I know, great response, better than my stupid ‘what can we expect from tonight’ question when I’ve seen the set about fifteen times.
Kyle: Exactly, you know whats happening, we’re gonna play the same bloody songs we’ve been playing, same order!
Will: Although we’ve got a new backdrop! Marginally bigger than our last one.
Kyle: And we’ve got strings with us!
Dan: Yeah, they’re over there.
Kyle: Hi strings!
There we go, that turned out alright in the end.
*Dan jumps*
Will: That was my foot.
Dan: I thought someone was following me.
Woody: Easily startled.
Dan: That terrified me.
That’s it guys, thank you so much for your time!
Dan: Thank you for having us!
The Edge’s review of Blissfields Festival 2013 including a review of Bastille’s headline set coming soon. Also check out the video of me interviewing the Bastille guys below.
2 Comments
This is bloody hilarious!
Great interview! Looking forward to the video 🙂