Bastille: ‘Second album would be finished if it wasn’t for touring’

Frontman Dan Smith talks about following-up Number one debut 'Bad Blood'

Bastille‘s Dan Smith says he would have finished the band’s second album by now if it wasn’t for their hectic touring schedule.

Their debut ‘Bad Blood’ was released in March, 2013, and went straight to No 1. It’s since been certified platinum, meaning at least 300,000 sales in the UK, while also having a hit with single ‘Pompeii’ in the US. Speaking to Gigwise, frontman Smith said: “If we weren’t touring so much we’d probably have finished the album by now,” adding “I’ve never wanted our music to be one thing. I guess we make things when we feel like it.”

While not giving a timeframe for Bastille’s second album, he did say it would be more varied than ‘Bad Blood’. He said: “There will be some songs that’ll be quite guitar heavy and dark, and at the moment I’ve been listening to a hell of a lot of R&B, so there might be some songs leaning that way. But it’s one of those things where what I think sounds like a dark rock song or an R&B track might to someone else just sound like a Bastille song.

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Speaking to NME in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, Smith said of being Number One: “It’s the last thing we’d really aimed for or expected so it’s kind of surreal. We’ve been really busy on tour and I kind of haven’t really had to think about it much. I don’t think any of us really know what to think about it really; it’s just the last thing I ever expected to happen.”

Asked if the success of ‘Bad Blood’ could see a change in the Official Album Chart and lead to more success for new bands in terms of album sales, Smith added: “It’s just nice that a band has an opportunity to get a Number One album with the climate as it is at the moment. It’s obviously changing. I guess it’s just nice to see people buying into bands and I just think we’re really proud of the fact that we made the album ourselves in a tiny studio with pretty much no money, in a little windowless basement in south London with very little help or involvement from anyone else. We receive quite a lot of messages as well, you know, like, ‘I’ve never actually gone out and bought an album before and this is the first album I’ve actually wanted to buy in years,’ which is really flattering for us.”

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