We find the Bastille frontman, Dan Smith, on the cusp of an extraordinary fourth act – offering up the band’s latest album, which crafts a soundscape of electronic sci-fi cinematic quality into the music, so much so, you feel like you’ve escaped onto a future-gazing film set. Talking to Dan, (one very cold day in January), is easy - he’s witty, fun and very quick to join the page you’re on. Here we find out that he’d quite like to play Mozart on the big screen, and why you wouldn’t want him on your team in a pub quiz.
Jacket Louis Vuitton, turtleneck Johnstons of Elgin and top A Cold Wall
So you’re basically obsessed with movies, are you the film geek I need to take with me to a pub quiz?
Despite being completely obsessed with films, I have one of the worst memories in the entire world, so unfortunately I would be no use to you whatsoever in a pub quiz! But one of my best friends Al, has an encyclopaedic memory of every film ever, so generally if he’s in your team, you’re sorted!
Noted! And how did that passion for the big screen all begin? Were you one of those kids eager to escape the real world through your imagination?
Massively, I always loved the escape of watching films as a kid, a bit like with reading, but maybe in less depth. They give you a window into other worlds and other lives, and coupled with beautiful aesthetics, film can introduce you to some of your favourite songs and your favourite artists, so for me they were a way to learn about life and the world, and get you outside of your own influences, I just fucking love film!
What films started that long term love affair then?
When I was 11, I got weirdly into horror as I definitely wasn’t allowed to watch it, so I guess that’s why I was drawn to it, and then I took a journey through my teens into adulthood via horror into arthouse and then world cinema - via David Lynch and Kubrick - and so many other masters. I was such a film geek, and actually really wanted to be a film journalist.
Left Full look Prada & glasses Gentle Monster
Right Jacket, pants and shoes Louis Vuitton, turtleneck Johnstons of Elgin, top A Cold Wall & belt Berluti
And film has also intertwined with the whole Bastille story really, particularly adding quotes and samples from movies into your songs?
Before our first album came out, we made two mix tapes which used film soundtracks and quotes from films and a weird mix of our songs and covers. We’ve always loved making music videos too, it’s been a great opportunity to collaborate with new upcoming directors and people we meet along the way, to make these visual companion pieces to our songs. I guess for us through music videos and other things we’re building a world around our albums, and there is always a kind of visual element and this intermeshing of film and music, as there is in all cinema, so I’ve always wanted to delve more into that world, and have every intention, if and when I get the time, to do that.
Tell me more about the process behind it?
When I’m writing and producing it’s always quite visual in my head and using the imagery and the lyrics, and the sonics and sounds, all the different musical parts, and the production, to me that’s like trying to create an audio film almost. On our first album, with songs like Pompeii, Laura Palmer and Icarus, they were nodding towards stories I always thought were interesting or fascinating, and that’s always been a big part of what Bastille has been about from the beginning really, you know, using pop culture and stories either as metaphors, or as ways to talk about things happening in our lives.
Left Shirt Lanvin
Right Full Look Fendi
And your songs have appeared on a few movie soundtracks, would you be up for composing scores for films?
I would fucking love to do that!! There was a project we were involved in early on, where Zane Lowe the DJ, asked a load of bands and artists to re-score the film Drive, so that was a really nice experiment early on, as we were given a couple of scenes and told to write incidental music or background music, or a song, and I never think too ambitiously or too far into the future, but getting that chance in your career to try something like that was so much fun, and ever since then I’ve wanted to do as much in the film world as possible.
I wrote a song recently for a documentary that’s produced by Leo DiCaprio, about the environment, and that was really interesting, it’s incredibly sad and moving, and I picked up a guitar, (and by the way, I don’t play guitar!), but in this instance, I picked up the guitar and wrote this song that feels very different to lots of other music we’ve put out, but I absolutely love it and it’s had a big effect on what we’re going to do in the future.
Coat John Lawrence Sullivan, Coat (under), Jacket (under), pants and shoes Hermès
What about if you could play any musician or singer in a movie, who would it be?
That’s such a good question, I like that question a lot! Maybe Mozart, it would be fun to get all dressed up as one of the rock stars of a very very different era, or Sid Vicious, which would be really fun. The idea of me acting is never going to happen though, as I have very little control over my facial movements or anything! I was once asked to audition for the new series of Twin Peaks by David Lynch, and I did a tape, and fucking hell, it was terrible, I was so bad!
So do you prefer being behind the camera then, as you also made your directorial debut on the video for the track No Bad Days, what was that experience like?
I loved the planning and the writing and the pulling everything together, but I always forget with our music videos, as I always get so invested in making it all happen, that when it comes to the day of shooting, I’m like, oh bollocks, I’m in this too, I’ve got to try and act, and that moment is always a stark realisation!
Maybe with film it’s easier to play someone else rather than yourself, I guess the film journo in you would’ve been your worst critic then?
Yes completely! I’m rubbish at acting, and terrible on camera, I’m much much happier behind the scenes. I imagine there’s loads about acting that’s really quite fun, but it’s also a very precise skill that I just don’t have unfortunately!
Ok, what about a biopic of your life / the band’s life so far instead…what would the title be?
I don’t think we would be interesting or worthy enough for a film, maybe ‘Fear and Self Loathing in a Tour Bus’!! Biopics in general as a genre are interesting, as it’s hard not to be formulaic, there was an amazing Dylan film, where he was played by loads of different people including Cate Blanchett, and that was really interesting. It’s nice when there’s room to be experimental and reflect what the artist was really like. I’m working on a film at the moment with two others, which is about a couple of really well known figures, and part of the challenge is to be true to how they were, and make something that doesn’t follow the formula of ‘a story about a well known person’, you know.
Left Shirt Tod’s
Right Full Look Fendi
Interesting! So tell me more…is it coming out this year, who is it about then?
These things take ages, so I don’t think it will be out this year, and I would fucking love to tell you who it’s about, but I can’t!
You mentioned earlier about creating worlds around your albums, and this new record is inspired by a sci-fi and tech dreamscape.… tell me more?
I guess in the album we talk quite a lot in various different places about the reality of us all living through a time where the internet, and the way that we live on the internet, has seeped out into the real world, and it’s even strange saying that, because the internet is the real world, it’s where we spend a huge chunk of our waking hours. On the album we just try to present things the way they are - the idea that the reality we all live in at the moment feels like sci-fi, between the amount of time we spend on screens, and how we relate to ourselves and other people through technology. Not to mention the last couple of years, where our relationship with technology due to being at home so much, has been hugely amplified, and also the language of lockdowns and pandemics, like so much of that language is really the kind of thing we’re used to hearing in films and disaster movies, and dystopian fiction. It’s a cliché to say it, but the reality we’ve just lived through, and continue to live through, feels like a slightly mad sci-fi, because all the tropes you would associate with the genre are happening, it’s quite surreal.
So if you had to describe the new album (Give Me The Future), in a movie poster tagline, what would it be?
Well, when we were finishing the music and going into building a futurescape world around the whole album campaign, someone said, “You don’t predict the future, you imagine it”, and that’s kind of become the tagline for the whole album.
Left Coat, bottle & shoes Givenchy, shirt John Lawrence Sullivan, pants Christopher Raeburn, tie stylist’s own
Right Coat Salvatore Ferragamo, vest (worn over coat) Helmut Lang, jacket (worn under) Craig Green, hoodie Tod’s
And you’ve included a fictional narrative of escape within the songs too, especially with the track Thelma & Louise?
Well the first track on the album, is essentially about plugging into whatever your form of escape is, whether that be putting a head set on, literally plugging yourself in and watching a film, going into your dreams, that’s the kind of doorway into the album. So tapping into the kind of escapist narrative, that film is just this brilliant story of two really empowered women who decide to cast off the life they’re not satisfied with, and go on this escapist road trip - so the song is a love letter to that film really. It’s a short song but I wrote so many verses to it, and if you go anywhere and do anything, why wouldn’t you want to be Thelma and Louise you know?!
But you won’t make a video with Bastille driving off of a desert cliff?
Ha ha! Well I think Wayne’s World 2 already got there!
Ok final question, what one film would you suggest we watch to mentally re-energise us all to move forward with positivity, in this post-pandemic future?
Oh my god, that’s such a good question, I can’t think of anything! I dunno, WALL-E?! There’s hope for us yet… I think a Disney Pixar one, as they’re always so incredibly deep.
I think ‘Inside Out’, the idea that the moral of that story, for kids, is that it’s ok to be sad sometimes, because life can be depressing, it’s such a far cry from the animated films of our childhood you know. I think something human and warm.
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Interview by Kate Lawson
Photography by Leonardo Veloce
Styling by Michael Miller at Stella Creative Artists
Creative direction by Rose Forde at The Wall Group
EIC Michael Marson
Hair by Roku Roppongi at Saint Luke Artists using TIGI
Grooming by Jo Frost using MZ Skin
Stylist’s assistant Abigail White
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