Dan & Kyle from Bastille talk to eGigs

After seeing Bastille support Two Door Cinema Club in Birmingham I knew that I had to see them again as headliners and so on the way home from the Two Door gig, we brought tickets for the Kasbah in Coventry which quickly sold out afterwards(phew). A great little venue in Coventry, which at 1.30pm already had fans sitting outside the doors waiting for 7pm to come. Dedication as it was freeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing! We headed upstairs to meet Dan & Kyle to have a little chatty before the last show on their UK Tour touring with the Number 1 album 'Bad Blood.'



So how is it all going so far then guys?
Dan: Good thanks.
Kyle: Yeah Busy.

You've just had three days off?
Dan: We have. We did have three days off and it was our first weekend off in...since the start of the year. Very much enjoyed I think.

So tonight is the last night isn't it?
Dan: Well it is the last night of this tour but tomorrow we go to Ireland and our European tour starts. We have a few dates in Ireland and then yeah...It doesn't really stop.

It's already April, does everything just seem to merge into one?
Kyle: It's April...
Dan: Did you get any good April Fools?

I read one about you guys. Whether it was April Fools or not...
Dan: Which one?

Oh there were more than one?
Dan: Yeah, apparently some people on Twitter were saying I was dead?

Kyle: Apparently The Killers had broken up or something. That's one that I saw.

I heard that you were doing a world tour with Lady Gaga next year?
Dan: That's true.

..Ooooh is it? Interesting...
Dan: No it's not haha.

I was going to say. I read it and was like...Whaaaat...do I believe that or not?
Dan: I read that one as well. That's' hilarious. Imagine that though! Imagine if that was true.

It said something at the bottom like 'Sources of the band are yet to confirm' .. reaaaally.
Dan: Yeah I got quite a few messages on Twitter.

You've just released your debut album. I got it the day it came out and its just seemed to have exploded for you. Did you expect it?
Dan: No not at all. We dont really have...we got sent through some statistics and stuff yesterday but we don't really have much perception of how big it is...cause we have been on tour and kind of getting on with it and it is quite weird. We weren't expecting anything like that at all. We had some gigs on Thursday & Friday and we were chatting to some people from our label and they were saying that at their most optimistic, what they thought that we what we would do in the entire album cycle, we have actually done in the last month so I don't think anyone.. least of all us, expected it.
Kyle: Not even the label had faith in us haha.
Dan: At even their most optimistic, they didn't think this would happen. It wasn't what we were thinking about or aiming for or anything like that so its cool.

You have some very .. dedicated fans. I did a casual tweet of 'I'm going to interview Bastille'. SOME of the tweets I got back were colourful... interesting.... but they are dedicated to you guys.
Dan: Hahah yeaah.

From one tweet that I did...it just went off.
Dan: Oh really? God, I'm so sorry

Yeah some people were like That's AMAZING.....others - you don't wanna know. But that is good for you guys because..
Dan: What people being horrible?

No no, the dedicated fans. There are already girls outside this venue.
Kyle: Really? Its freezing out there. This tour has come at a time where...its the biggest stage we have been at and its so cold and I've felt so bad for the hardcore people who are there so early at the front of the queue. And the weather...It's such a band choice of band in terms of timing and tour.
Dan: We gig at the coldest part of the day.
Kyle: I feel really bad.
Dan: We are really lucky. You know, you never have any idea what sort of people will like your music. The fact people do and feel really enthusiastic and passionate about it. I guess is really nice. As four very normal people, sometimes we feel like we are put in a position where we are like "We are really boring and really normal" Don't get so excited – please. But we are massively grateful for it.

Have you had anyone try and jump on the stage during the tour? Or fling things at you?
Dan: I tried to climb around the side of this drinks stand at the side of the venue in Brighton and I just got dragged into the crowd. That was the closest I've got. Some guy had a baguette and I was like throw it to me! I waved it around for a little bit and then I was like "I dont want this anymore" .. So I threw it back to him..
Kyle: ..T-shirts, hair extensions..
Dan: Presents.

Hair extensions?!
Dan: Oh yeah!! A clump of hair landed on the stage! At a quite violent gig as well. There was a lot of moshing at that gig and this clump of hair landed.
Kyle: Some girl, bless her, looked at me and was like **points**. "Oh this is your hair?" I threw it back.

We went to see you when you were supporting Two Door Cinema Club in Birmingham. I was surprised at the amount of people, not in a bad way, but.. I was photographing in the pit and I turned around and hundreds of people, who knew every lyric to your songs AT a Two Door gig. It was bizarre because afterwards we left, and you could hear people talking about you guys, over the headliners.
Dan: It was nuts for it. It was our first ever support tour and we didn't know what it was going to be like. And like you say, we have friends who have been on support tours before and they say.. the venue was half full.. the crowds can be quite .. they aren't there to see you.. it can be tough. A bit like playing a festival where you feel as though you have to win people over. Not that we didn't go in with that attitude because we did. We were really lucky and loads of people knew our songs and some of the best gigs we have ever had were on that tour. By the end.. playing in Nottingham at Rock City at the Two Door tour, the whole room was jumping up and down. We were just looking at each other in complete disbelief like .. what the hell is happening? It isn't even our tour. It was fun.

I think its rare where you find the support equals what the headliners do. And now you are at Glastonbury this year?
Dan: Yeah I know...which is mentaaaaaal, we can't believe it. To be honest, our whole summer is looking at all festivals that we are doing. Its a bit unbelievable. We played loads of festivals last year but only a few kinda major ones and lots of smaller independent festivals. So we are playing at Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, Isle of Wight..Benicassim.

The big ones.
Dan: Yeah, big festivals. It's nuts but I guess we will see if anyone comes or not.


You'll have one guy dancing by himself.
Dan: Well we were at Lovebox last year, we were first on the main stage and I dont think the front gates hadn't even opened yet. We got on with our set and 4 people just wandering across the field. We thought they were going to watch us.. oh no, they are just picking up litter... and went the other way. It was our first experience of playing on a big stage and we were like "There are video screens!! We are on video screens!!" The novelty of the whole thing was funny. We will see what happens this year.

Your next single am I right in saying is 'Laura Palmer'? You've just done the video in LA? All this knowledge!
Dan: I know! Impressed.

Can we know what the video is about?
Dan: Oooooo mmmm its... we will leave it was a surprise but the only thing I will say is its kind of ..we wanted to...I dont really like the idea of music videos and stuff in the typical sense so we wanted to make a video that we would never ever ever want to make and then just completely subvert it but thats...all im going to say.

All I'm getting?
Dan: Yep. It was fun though. Even just saying that we went to LA to make a music video. We sound like such dicks.

You played South By South West. How was it performing for the Americans?
Kyle: They were really nice. I say it like that because we just weren't expecting anything at all. You go across the other side of the world and we dont expect to be as lucky with fans as we have been here and we havent done any work over there. Like here, we have massively built up over the past couple of years. Literally stepping into America ..we expected to play to a few people in a park and the gigs turned out to be a lot more formal than we were expected and they were nice, the crowds were really nice. We did three gigs and a little pub gig. The one that was sort of outdoors like festival vibe and the other was down an alley way, down like a street party and just three really different shows. They went really well. We enjoyed being out there.
Dan: It was our first ever experience of America and going there as a band, to me we were just walking around like, "Wow...everything is amazing. Look at the side walks!" And we were excited to eat as much as possible and there was sun. It was good.

Their portions out there are ridiculous!
Dan: Not as big as we were hoping though. We were going out there expecting a real challenge and I dont know if there was a portion that we didn't finish....which is in no way a brag. More because we were disappointed. We expected like chest size portions of meat and it wasn't quite there. Hopefully if we are lucky we will go back and reignite the challenge.

Did you have a large supersize McDonalds?
Kyle: No they don't have them anymore.

One last question – totally selfish reasons. Are you playing 'Daniel in the Den' tonight?
Dan: (shakes head) Sorry. Its one of those where.. I dunno. The set list we are trying to reflect everything. The albums, the EPS and we didn't want to put too many slow ones in. And we practiced 'Daniel in the Den' a lot and it just never felt like it quite clicked. The lazy part of us was like "Yeah, we have to leave something for the next tour."
Kyle: It seems to be a lot of people's favourite. We wouldn't ever imagine doing it unless we felt completely happy with it.

Oh yeah definitely. You don't want to put a half hearted version in.
Kyle: We tried a few different ways and it just not quite right.
Dan: Its just not there yet. It's interesting though. I think if we had of known .. I guess its one if people who haven't followed us for a while have never heard before. It seems to be a lot of people's favourite from the album. I think if we'd had known we might of.

Thank you very much for talking to me and taking the time too.
Dan: That's alright. Thank you.

I'll leave you to get ready for the show tonight. Best of luck!

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