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12:41 · 1,805 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- Dave Bayley recorded the vocal for Gooey while holding a pineapple he had named Sasha Fierce, a performance trick meant to push the track toward a tropical feel.
▶ 00:00:19
- He moved from Texas to Oxford at 14 and only started writing during sleepless nights as a medical student, and dropped out of medical school once the band had a deal.
▶ 00:00:57
- Their EP reached Paul Epworth, who produced Adele and Foster the People and was starting a label, and they became the first act signed to Wolf Tone.
▶ 00:01:17
- Zaba takes its world from a children's book, The Zabajaba Jungle, with other tracks working as sonic readings of The Island of Doctor Moreau and Heart of Darkness.
▶ 00:02:03
- The interludes are field recordings from the producer's house mixed with the sound of Bayley's pet rabbit chewing on microphones, run through synths and effects.
▶ 00:02:27
- The rhythmic debts are not to indie rock at all: Timbaland, Dr. Dre, Flying Lotus and the experimental rock band Can.
▶ 00:02:48
- How to Be a Human Being came out of conversations with strangers on the Zaba tour, turned into 11 characters, each given a board and a website detailing their bedroom, clothes and food.
▶ 00:03:41
- The pineapple got so out of hand that Reading and Leeds added the fruit to their banned items list in 2017, and fans answered by bringing inflatable ones instead.
▶ 00:05:00
- Drummer Joe Seaward was hit by a truck while cycling in 2018, suffering a skull fracture and brain damage with two life-threatening operations, and spent two years relearning to walk, talk and drum.
▶ 00:06:15
- Dreamland came out of that, almost entirely produced by Bayley and openly autobiographical, with interludes cut from his actual childhood home videos and the tracks grouped into childhood, adolescence and adulthood.
▶ 00:06:58