Taking Over

As they make their way around the world on sold out tours, Britain's apocalyptic popsters Bastille are still coming to grips with the dizzying levels of success they've achieved this year. As Bad Blood took top spot in the UK charts and became the highest selling digital album of the year, they looked to Australia to dip their toe in the water with two intimate shows far smaller than the stadium crowds they'll return for in June.

“In a band context and also just personally it was the first time I've got over there and it was just incredible; the response we got just shocked us all, we just totally weren't expecting it…” says keyboardist Kyle Simmons of Bastille's quick August visit. With genuine disbelief he attempts to sum up the events of last year.

“It's pretty weird,” he continues. “Quite early on we sort of exceeded our expectations. We're quite a pessimistic band as it is and now to have a chance to come back [to Australia] and with our album having done what it did and the response that came from the album and the singles and stuff, we're just blown away and we're so happy to come back and hopefully be playing some new songs as well… It's so weird because none of us sort of saw this ever happening and now it has none of us can have an opinion because it's the weirdest thing to us, but obviously we're so chuffed that it's turned out like this.”

Currently enjoying continued chart success with Of The Night, the lead single from a deluxe double album release of their debut titled All This Bad Blood, the four lads were barely out of nappies when the '90s hits they mashed together – Corona's The Rhythm Of The Night and Snap!'s Rhythm Is A Dancer – originally did the rounds.

“I s'pose we were all pretty young when they came out and so it was one of those songs that you were never really sort of old enough to form an opinion about, it was just somethin' that was on all the time… [The Rhythm Of The Night] was one of them songs that you'd hear somewhere and you'd be singin' all the words going, 'Why do I know all the words?' You just can't explain it; it was just one of them. Basically Dan [Smith – frontman and songwriter] thought that they were the same song… In his mind growing up they just mashed together… And then we were like 'Hey, what a great idea – let's mash them together'… People seemed to really like it and then it just kind of took off,” Simmons notes.

Renowned for their mixtapes and covers of other artists as diverse as Miley Cyrus, TLC and Cutting Crew, the deluxe edition also offers two previously unreleased tracks which hint at what the future may hold for Bastille.

“We are so excited about that because obviously when you release an album, there's a lot of songs that you'd love that don't make the cut; there's only so many songs that can go on the first release. We were happy with the release but it was just a shame, but now we've been given a chance to release it with all the songs that we've done so far and even a couple of new songs…” he says, expanding on the significance of the fresh tracks. “… It was sort of to give people a hint towards the different sounds we might be working with next. We've just started using guitar; on the first album, the first release, there was no guitar at all, so we're using guitar now. One song's really quite heavy and rocky but then the other song's almost a bit garagey so yeah, it's just to give people an idea of where things could go on the next album.”

Considering the diversity of Bastille's style and their position as one of 2013's biggest success stories, once their touring commitments wind down in 2014 the writing for their second record really could take them anywhere.

“…The whole thing about us not picking one genre, it's not like a conscious thing: 'Oh, they're tryin' to be different' – it's just that we don't feel the need to write in one style…” Simmons admits. “Each song might lend itself better to a different sound so that's why we can go completely electro, or we can go bandy, we can go really hip hop or we can go into sort of stripped back acoustic-y stuff – and definitely on the next album I think we're gonna try and stretch it even further and experiment with where we can go 'cause I think that's the fun really.”