While it probably doesn’t seem like Glass Animals really ever escaped our ether and musical minds due to the sky-rocketing success of their song “Heat Waves,” the band did actually take a beat to make some new music, and now they’re officially back.

On heals of sharing cryptic posts, making A LOT of references to what we now know to be their next album title, I LOVE YOU SO F***ING MUCH, and finally dropping their brand new single "Creatures in Heaven,” the band’s lead vocalist Dave Bayley checked in with Audacy’s Brad Steiner to chat all about it at the Hard Rock Hotel in New York.

Discussing what it was like to put on the pressure of “Heat Waves” when going back into the studio, Dave admitted, “it was hard actually… It’s quite a surreal experience having that kind of song like that especially when it was, I’m gonna say the C word — COVID. We kinda watched it, we were spectators, we couldn’t go out into the world and like see it happening. We were kind of sitting in underpants at home… like just getting emails… like ‘people seem to like this song,’" which he noted was, “cool, wicked,” and “great.”

“So coming back into the world,” he continued, “I think we’re all a little bit lost. And you know the natural place for us is to just hide in the studio, alone, be a little bit isolationist about it, in our underpants, yeah and that’s it. We just kept it as it always was, just sit down, focus, work on making the best thing that you can, without thinking about the past.”

Wiping their social media and starting from scratch for this new era, one thing they’ve been able to do this time around is start this new musical phase with fan meet-up focus groups to introduce Glass Animals’ new sound with the lead single, "Creatures in Heaven.”

At first joking that things went terribly, jesting that “someone threw up,” and that “someone flipped over a table and left the room,” and that he “got punched” and “that someone bit off my ear,” Dave then shared how things actually went down, expressing, “it was actually amazing, it was really emotional."

As many artists have noted in the past, by they time we hear a song, they’ve listened to it so many times, “you get a little like immune to it.”

And though “it’s really sad song, and when I wrote it I was really sad,” Dave admitted, he’d “gotten used to that feeling.” However, when “you get to the room, and you hear people listening, see people listening to it for first time, you hear that again and you feel it.” So the first one, we pushed play and I forgot how sad a song it was, everyone started crying and then I started crying and it was like ‘oh my God, this is more than I signed up for today.’”

Recently sharing that every song on the album is “written for someone or the concept of someone,” Dave elaborated further that while some of them are very specifically about one person, "some are kind of more an amalgamation of people where similar thing happened.” The common thread is they’re all “very very personal.” Answering Brad’s question about if someone would be able to deduce if a song is about them, Dave conceded, “I think some people can probably work it out.”

Revealing he’s feeling slightly nervous about the level of vulnerability on I LOVE YOU SO F***ING MUCH, Dave shared that while the last album was personal, "it was very much about things happened long time ago,” so there was this “level of detachment.” And with “Heat Waves,” “being such a personal song," along with “a lot of the other songs in the last record,” because of all the “positivity” and “kindness that came back from the people” it gave Glass Animals the “courage to do something, to push further,” which is “always the goal with the record.”

Discussing his conceptual way of writing songs, Dave’s main goal is to do things differently, to do “something new.” Adding, “I’d hate to do something that’s been done before by someone else.”

Also explaining what a peanut butter vibe is, something Brad has been wondering about for 10 years, Dave said the best way to describe it, is that childlike feeling of eating a big ole scoop of peanut butter off a spoon. He also delved into some of the bands more iconic and memorable lyrics, like “My girl eats mayonnaise / From a jar while she's getting blazed,” from “Season 2 Episode 3.” Brad asked Dave to share what he thinks will be the most unique lyric on the new album.

“Oh, that’s a good question,” Dave noted, “There’s a song on the new album and the first line is  — what the H is happening? What is this? I just woke up in the trunk of a black out 99 Toyota Corolla.”

Before concluding the conversation, being that they were in the Hard Rock Artist Lounge, and the Hard Rock is known for its unique collection of items. Brad inquired what would Glass Animals’ contribution be. And we can guarantee its not what you’re thinking… because it’s actually not a what, but a who.

To find out, and listen to the entire interview, press play above.

Words by Maia Kedem Interview by Brad Steiner