Spilt Milk House Party is coming to Newcastle next month and Glass Animals frontman Dave Bayley, for one, is excited.
He declared his undying love for our nation in 2021 by getting an outline of a map of Australia tattooed on his buttock, having just taken out the top spot on triple j's Hottest 100 countdown for the song Heat Waves.
Bandmate Drew MacFarlane got a tattoo of a koala.
Glass Animals are squeezing in the Spilt Milk House Party dates during their headline tour of Australia next month, joining Troye Sivan, G Flip, Artemas and Sycco at Newcastle Entertainment Centre on November 24.
That's quite a line-up.
The success of Heat Waves has been nothing short of record-breaking. The song topped the Australian singles chart for six consecutive weeks, was No.1 on the ARIA Top 100 Singles for 2021, and is one of the top 10 highest certified singles in Australian history.
It also enabled Glass Animals to become the first British band to achieve No.1 in the Spotify global chart, with more than 44 billion global streams.
In July the four-piece released their fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much, the follow-up to 2020's Gold ARIA-Accredited Dreamland which sold more than 12 million copies globally.
Bayley is on tour in Switzerland when Weekender calls.
"It's been a long stint but so much fun. The crowds have been amazing. Adorable," he says. You can hear the excitement in his voice when I tell him the weather is starting to warm up in Australia.
"All right! That's what I'm hoping for. It's freezing cold and super wet where I am right now."
He can't help but talk about that triple j Hottest 100 win, and who could blame him? It was life-changing for the band.
"There have been a few key, pivotal moments for the band, and one of them was the triple j Hottest 100 win. That was enormous for us, that's what changed the trajectory of everything," Bayley says.
"There was a fire burning gently in the background around our previous album and I feel the Hottest 100 just poured petrol over it and completely changed our lives.
"I stayed up all night to listen to the countdown, I knew we'd been tipped. We're often in Australia while the countdown is happening and it's a beautiful thing to witness and be part of, but we couldn't this time because of the good ol' pandemic.
"I was in my underpants, sitting on my sofa, alone, listening to the countdown, eating cereal. I was sweating by the time we got to the top five at 7am."
The TOUR OF EARTH is Glass of Animals' first opportunity to share I Love You So F***ing Much, live, with audiences. Bayley admits he's been nervous but reckons that's a good thing.
"I always get a little bit nervous before getting on stage, still to this day, and if that goes away you're probably jaded and should quit," he says, laughing.
"I care a lot.
"There's always nerves going in to the first leg of the tour, certainly, especially when playing new songs for the first time.
"I didn't know how they'd land live. You never know. But the people have been amazing, wearing outfits and bringing weird inflatable objects and crazy signs to the shows."
He describes the band's live shows as "otherworldly".
"I want the lyrics and the sounds and the stage set-up to build a world that people can escape to on the night. For me, that space cowboy alternate reality is almost starting to feel more real than real life."
Bayley has said previously he likes to take risks on each new album. It's been 10 years and three studio albums since the release of Zaba in 2014 which contained the hit song Gooey. What risks did he take on I Love You So F***ing Much?
"I went as personal as I could, and I've never really done that before," he replies.
"I've always been a little bit afraid to talk about myself, and think it's selfish, but I've slowly realised that those parts of the songs get the most emotional response from the people listening.
"I really dove into that with this record, I went full-on personal. I guess vulnerable is the word? It sounds a little cheesy, but I just laid it all out there.
"Normally I'm trying to hide behind funny metaphors and images and making things abstract enough so that they don't feel totally real."
Bayley does the lion's share of the song writing for Glass Animals, locking himself away in a room for however long it takes. He enjoys the solitude.
"You know, that's one thing that hasn't really changed over the years. I still find it most comforting just writing alone in a bedroom," he says.
"You don't need all the fancy stuff, you just need to be somewhere that you're really comfortable, somewhere I feel I can let my mind wander and let my guards down.
"I tend to set up a little studio in a bedroom and just write away."
Life as a world-famous travelling musician can be hectic, even surreal. Bayley does what he can to keep grounded.
"There's no time alone. I wake up and there are 50 or 60 people there, every single day and everywhere I go," he says.
"They're all people I love very much, they've become like family ... a nomadic family.
"You have to do things to keep your head straight. I go on runs, I make music in the corner of a room, I keep trying to do the things that make me feel real."
