Although it's not uncommon for bands to take a break from performing, the reasons behind Glass Animals' hiatus were extraordinary. In 2018, drummer Joe Seaward was cycling in Dublin and "I got hit by a truck when I was trying to cross a road," Seaward explains. "It was bad. I can remember everything until it happened. I can remember the moment it happened, but I can't remember anything after that for about a week."

What followed was a lengthy and arduous recovery process. "I learnt a lot about myself and my friends and my family and human bodies, all of which are very amazing," Seaward says. "It was hard. I had to learn how to do many things that I'd taken for granted for a long time again, and I'm still learning those things. I think one takes for granted lots of things in life, and when they're taken away, it's quite shocking — like speaking and remembering and reading and walking. All of those things that you wake up every day and take for granted that you can do those things, so when it's taken away, it's quite a shock."

Now, Seaward and his bandmates — frontman Dave Bayley, bassist/keyboardist Ed Irwin-Singer and guitarist/keyboardist Drew McFarlane — are back on tour. Ahead of a sold-out show at the Fine Line in Minneapolis, they visited The Current studio for a session hosted by Jill Riley.

"It's very, very nice to be back," Seaward tells Riley, acknowledging just how important his bandmates were during his rehabilitation. "The recovery process was made very much easier because of them and by them. So it was a pretty amazing experience in that regard, to go through it with these people. And it's kind of even more special to be back here doing this with them now because of it."

Bayley says being back on tour has been "super dope," although he admits some apprehension at the beginning of tour. "I was pretty nervous," Bayley says, "obviously worried about Joe, but also nervous because we hadn't done it in a while."

Audience reactions, however, soon put the band at ease. "The crowds have been incredible," Bayley says. "I didn't know if they'd still be there. We put the tour on sale, and we didn't expect it to sell out as quickly as it did. It sold out super quick, and that kind of blew us away — got us really excited, and then it's been even more exciting since we set foot on the first stage."

Use the audio player above to listen to the complete session with Glass Animals.

Video

Songs Performed

"Your Love (Déjà vu)"
"Life Itself"
"Gooey"
Song 2 is from Glass Animals 2016 release, How to Be a Human Being; song 3 is from the band's 2014 album, Zaba; and the first song is a 2020 single. All are distributed in the U.S. on Harvest Records.

Hosted by Jill Riley
Produced by Anna Weggel
Engineered by Michael DeMark and Tessa Bloch
Visuals by Nate Ryan
Web production by Luke Taylor

External Link

Glass Animals - official site

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