Yet, despite this objective success, sitting in the control room of Bastille’s studio with his ankle resting on his knee, Smith says he has a “very low opinion” of himself. “I can’t really explain it,” he says. “I think there’s dissonance in my head between what we’ve achieved and how I’m perceived, and the reality in my head.” Before his third year at university, he went travelling in Thailand and caught a virus. He lost his appetite and the weight fell off. When he returned home he started eating more healthily and exercised more. That summer, his weight dropped six stone. “When I lost loads of weight and suddenly just looked like a different person, it’s quite a … I think for anyone that’s gone through quite a big, radical physical transformation it can be a fair thing to get your head around.” For a long time I identified as a bigger guy and still do to this day Dan Smith I think a lot of people suffer from different versions of body dysmorphia,” he says. “We all have the version of ourselves that we see in our own heads and often that’s so different from the version of who we are through other people’s eyes.”

Their fourth album, the masterful Give Me The Future, was hailed by many critics as their best release to date, with The Fader describing it as “a grand collection of sci-fi inspired songs attempting to make sense of the world’s fast-moving venture into dystopia.” Here’s the chorus to “Distorted Light Beam,” delivered over pumping drum machine and noir-disco synth: “When I’m dreaming tonight, I can do anything/When I’m dreaming tonight, I can go anywhere/When I’m dreaming tonight, I can be anyone.” Grice, Alisdair (3 February 2022). "Album Review: Bastille – Give Me the Future". Gigwise . Retrieved 3 February 2022. The title is ominous. Bastille have always been the go-to band for pop-centred positivity, but Give Me The Future at title glance seems to beg for something more post-pandemic, as opposed to finding the light within it. Yet the album still manages to deliver Bastille’s signature heavy happiness, even if by abandoning the present. Irish Albums Chart: 11 February 2022". Irish Recorded Music Association . Retrieved 12 February 2022.

Classical and Opera

Murray, Robin (19 October 2021). "Bastille Announce New Album 'Give Me the Future' ". Clash . Retrieved 17 November 2021. The ARIA Report: Week Commencing 14 February 2022". The ARIA Report. No.1667. Australian Recording Industry Association. 14 February 2022. p.6. I remember playing at Alexandra Palace [in north London] – which should have been such an amazing moment – and two songs in I just lost it and went completely pitch deaf and the whole gig for me was then this mad, terrifying rollercoaster of just trying to get through it. I hear myself saying this and it’s just a real shame.” Dutchcharts.nl – Bastille – Give Me the Future" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 February 2022. Johnson, Chloe (4 February 2022). "Bastille - Give Me The Future". MusicOMH . Retrieved 28 May 2023.

But this intense, sudden rise to fame “freaked out” the fame-averse Smith, who is happy with the fact that many people have heard Bastille’s music, but have no idea what he looks like. “I was hugely self-deprecating as a defence mechanism,” he says. “I was always such a huge pessimist. We all worked so hard on the band at the beginning – and continue to – because we loved it. But I’ve always been expecting it to fall apart at any moment. I think that’s why I never think too far in the future.” Smith says: “It’s really satisfying to have finally directed, and I’m really proud of the little film we made. I grew up with film as my main obsession, so this was a bit of a dream. I learned a sh_tload and it was good to be challenged in a new way.” The double album contains 3 separate stories, each focused on their own themes, while still adhering to an overarching world built by the band to tell the album’s story.

About

This is a love letter to Keith Haring and the ’80s New York art-party scene. If you could plug in and go anywhere and be anything, what an amazing place to potentially go and be. I think he’s such a wonderful character, such an inclusive artist who just wanted to take art to everybody, and was just so feverishly, obsessively creating all the time. This song is imagining that we are him arriving in New York with all this hope and optimism and finding this amazing art scene. It’s another hopeful, optimistic, organic party moment within this quite digital album.” Following on from playing festivals such as Boardmasters, Sziget, and Reading & Leeds this weekend, they’ll take the “Give Me The Future” tour to South America, stopping in Argentina and Brazil, before continuing an enthralling trek across Europe. I guess this song is asking, ‘If you can have these amazing relationships online or all these amazing lives in a digital space, and you’re not happy with how things are outside of that, is it not incredibly tempting to just want to stay in those spaces for as long as possible, and what does that do to us?’ There’s a line about the freaks and geeks ruling the world—it’s fascinating to see the owners of these tech companies being almost more powerful than entire countries. It’s a strange time.”

Drop the needle at any point in the album, and hear Smith’s proclamations that he is in the future, and he can do anything, and be anyone, and the simulation is like a dream, a dream that is good but perhaps so good that it’s also bad. The songs are virtually interchangeable. Strazzabosco, Domenic (31 January 2022). "REVIEW: Bastille begs 'Give Me The Future' on new album". Riff Magazine . Retrieved 28 May 2023. I was thinking about Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver and all the acoustic artists who manage to write music that is both orchestral and floaty, but also a grounded in some grit,” he says. “It was very much at odds with all of the synthesizers, drum machines, and electronic instruments and the production that we were using for Give Me The Future, but I feel super proud of it.” Smith grew up in south London with his lawyer parents and sister. He had a happy childhood, he says, but he was a self-conscious child and never dreamed of a musical career. “Just the idea of standing up in front of people and doing anything, let alone playing music, was so far from anything I could imagine wanting to do.” Cush, Andy (14 February 2022). "Bastille: Give Me the Future Album Review". Pitchfork . Retrieved 15 February 2022.a b Neale, Matthew (27 October 2021). "Bastille announce major UK arena tour for 2022". NME . Retrieved 17 November 2021. O'Donnell, Henry (15 July 2021). "Bastille have launched their new single, 'Give Me the Future' ". Dork . Retrieved 17 November 2021. You’ll also hear the voice of award-winning actor, musician, writer, creator, producer, director and activist Riz Ahmed on a spell-binding and evocative spoken word piece called Promises. Riz’s piece was a response the album and brings its overarching themes into sharp focus. Over the course of their previous three albums, Bastille have cemented a reputation for building whole worlds around their releases, often doing so with innovative award-winning creativity. Give Me The Future is no different, this time accompanied by a fictional, but familiar tech giant called Future Inc, the creators of an invention called Futurescape – a device which allows users to live out their dreams virtually.