Glass Animals is an English indie rock band that is known most by their hit single, “Heatwaves,” which was voted number one for Triple J Hottest 100 of 2020, had over 2 billion streams on Spotify in 2022, and reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Albums from the band include Zaba (my favorite :D), How to Be a Human Being, Dreamland, and the most recent one, I Love You So F***cking Much.
Though Glass Animals is made up of four creatives, I will be focusing on Dave Bayley’s songwriting in this post.
Dave Bayley describes his creative process as something that surprises him, and something he cannot control. The best songs come from when he writes the first line of a song, and he can see the end of the tunnel. He hears the sounds, the tempo, the chords–it all tells a story. Often, he has a little recorder next to his bed and when he wakes up, he will see things he recorded that he does not remember saying. In addition, he says the songwriting process is kind of magical. There are moments where something clicks or when a lightning bolt of inspiration comes.
In connection with Faith, Hope, and Carnage, Nick Cave describes how his album, Ghosteen was subconscious, vulnerable, and focused on interiority. The reason it had such an emotional pull was because it came from the subconscious and the hidden yearning of his heart. Dave Bayley had a similar experience where a lot of his song-writing process is emotional and comes from the subconscious, which would result in him finding a melody and lyric that is heart-wrenching.
Both these creatives show that the creative process can often be vulnerable, uncomfortable, and transcendent.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEvi2417pQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Animals#History
Faith, Hope, and Carnage
I think it's really interesting that both Cave and Bayley's subconscious comes out in their songwriting. I thought it was really unique that Bayley has to have a recorder by him when he writes otherwise he'll forget what he wrote. I also think its interesting that both of these creatives are musicians and their creative processes are so similar: makes me think perhaps many songwriters are able to tap into their subconscious thorough their songwriting.
ReplyDeleteThis post does a great job of showing how unpredictable and personal Dave Bayley's songwriting process is. It's interesting how he talks about writing songs almost by accident, with ideas coming to him when he least expects it. The comparison to Nick Cave's emotional and subconscious process makes a lot of sense too—both creatives seem to tap into deep, personal feelings to create their music. I also like that you mentioned Zaba as your favorite album—it really shows how much you connect with their work!
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting post. It reminds me of Kanye West's creative process where he often times has these moments of spontaneous creative outbursts. It is also similar to how humans evolved, as described in my focus book by Fuentes, "The Creative Spark". Humans tend to record things, such as painting them on walls or carving them into stone. This helps facilitate our creative processes. I think that this really resonates with you and you seem deeply inspired by this artist's creative process. I think that more artists, especially ones in music, should try and reflect at a deeper level to find hidden gems of creative inspiration.
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