‘Grateful My “Heat Waves” Demo for Rihanna’s Manager Didn’t Go Further’

It used to be that you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals. The song, during some months in 2021, and then many more in 2022 thanks to a moment of TikTok virality, was everywhere: its sultry hip-hop-inflected psych-pop piped out of every phone speaker, car stereo, and TV sound system. Frontman Dave Bayley’s vocals slipped into the grooves of your brain as easily as sweat drips down your brow.

Along with “Normal People,” “Ted Lasso,” and “The Oscars Slap™,” it was one of the few things that cut through the Covid smog – resonating with listeners enduring seismic upheaval. It reached No 1 in five countries, even cracking the top five in several more. Ironically, it was in the US that the Oxford indie outfit – comprising Bayley, drummer Joe Seaward, guitarist Drew MacFarlane, and bassist Ed Irwin-Singer – found the most success: five weeks at the top after a record-breaking 91-week ascent, the longest-running Brit-born hit since the Spice Girls. As hit songs go, it was a biggie.

“F***,” was Bayley’s first reaction when the dust finally settled. “I joked that I might quit – you know, leave on a high – but I realized commercial success was never the point,” he smiles, speaking from an office chair in his east London studio. It has taken Bayley four years to come up with a follow-up worthy of “Heat Waves”; this week, Glass Animals release the smooth, summertime-ready “I Love You So F***ing Much.”

On it, Bayley asks a crucial question: “What do you think about when you think about love?” He answers his own question through various stories. “Show Pony” is a fuzzed-out pop song about when you’re a child and witness your first blueprint for a relationship; “How I Learned to Love the Bomb” is a guitar-led lament about a toxic lover; “I Can’t Make You Fall in Love Again” is a deceptively perky eulogy for an irredeemable paramour, delivered in his signature falsetto.

Bayley’s studio reflects the album’s sound: its gelatinous guitars, warbly melodies, and cozy instrumentation mirrored in the warm glow of lamps dotted around the dimly lit room. Opposite his tech set-up and recording booth is a Seventies-style sofa in a shade of tangerine. A three-wick candle burns on top of the matching ottoman. The inside of a lava lamp best describes the vibe.

The outside world feels distant – as if we’re in a galaxy far, far away. Bayley loves space: a drawing of a rocket in blue and orange crayon is taped next to the door; his favorite emoji is the planet. Initially, he set out to make a “space album” in the same vein as “Dark Side of the Moon,” but the results were cold. “I scrapped the whole thing,” he says. “It felt thin and there wasn’t enough humanness. Not enough heart, or soul.”

The new record, their fourth, has more emotional depth than their 2020 album, “Dreamland.” While it retains the Day-Glo synths and hummable melodies, they often belie something more serious, a sonic sugar cube to help get the medicine down.

Emotions tend to run high after a near-death experience. In April last year, Bayley stayed at a hilltop Airbnb in Los Angeles, only his positive Covid test and recording equipment for company. Then a storm hit – not just any storm but a biblical downpour. “There was no way out,” Bayley recalls. “Or in. I didn’t know how I was going to get food; the roads were too muddy to drive. I was like, this is the end.” The owner of the Airbnb texted to ask if he was alive. “She sent that message every day for three days,” he says. “It was genuinely scary.”

Though nearly dying isn’t fun, it can be inspirational. Within two weeks, Bayley wrote all of “I Love You.” “I was stuck in the house looking out and seeing all these interactions from so high up – people laughing, crying, hugging,” he says. “I was imagining their love stories and thinking about my own. It was like I was in space looking down, and space paled in comparison to those tiny human stories.”

It’s the autobiographical snippets that have Bayley feeling anxious in the lead-up to the album’s release. “I’m very conscious that there are people I don’t want to hurt,” he says, cautiously discussing the quietly devastating “I Can’t Make You Fall in Love Again.” Still, Bayley keeps details of his relationship private. “There’s a side of me that’s slightly panicking about how personal it is,” he grimaces. “I feel like I’m about to walk outside naked. Not even all of my friends know these stories.”

In the past, Bayley would redact details to temper a song’s vulnerability. “There’s another version of ‘Heat Waves’ that’s really very long,” he laughs. Bayley initially wanted someone else to sing “Heat Waves” because it felt too personal. “I had hoped it would be someone else’s song,” he says, referring to pop superstar Rihanna. “It got so far that I was sitting in the Roc Nation offices, playing the song for her manager,” he says. But in the end, it didn’t work out, and Bayley is grateful for that.

Though the song’s final lyrics are general, Bayley was shocked that it resonated so widely. “I thought it was too personal and vulnerable to really do what it did,” he says. “But that gave me a lot of confidence.”

“I Love You” carries that confidence and while it’s unlikely to match its predecessor’s commercial success, it may fare better critically. Bayley tries not to read reviews but admits it’s impossible to avoid them entirely; his family often sends him snippets. Bayley frequently flips questions back on you, a sign of his genuine shyness, contradicting his lively onstage persona.

Bayley grew up in College Station, Texas, the son of scientists. He was introverted at school, preferring to communicate through music. At university, he chose music over medicine, lying to his parents for a year while doing odd jobs and DJing in London. The tragic death of a friend who encouraged his musical pursuits was the final push he needed.

For years, his parents hoped he would return to school. Only in 2017, when Glass Animals played Radio City, did his mother take the band seriously. “Though she wasn’t happy with her seats,” Bayley laughs.

Bayley is leaving London, needing a quieter life. “The city is a lot,” he says. “I need to be able to come home and switch off.”

Music called to him through guitar bands like The Strokes and dance music. “I got a little Casio keyboard synth and that was the beginning,” he says.

In 2020, drummer Joe Seaward suffered a complex skull fracture in a cycling accident. It was uncertain if he’d live, let alone recover. “We thought it was over,” says Bayley. “I wouldn’t have wanted to continue without Joe.” Miraculously, Joe made a full recovery.

“I Love You” comes with liner notes by Gabrielle Zevin, author of “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,” adding a special touch to the album.

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