What is in each of your pockets right now?
Gum. That’s it. To be honest, I don’t really use my pockets that much. I have this bag that I bring everywhere; it’s like a giant pocket and it is just full of shit. I’ve got wires. I’ve got extra glasses, I’ve got more gum. I’ve got painkillers, pens, more glasses, a couple of hard drives, a pack of batteries, more painkillers, an Australian to UK power adapter, glasses cleaner, lip balm. Someone made this for me for a show: this crochet dolphin. I’ll stop there but I could go on for probably a year. It’s disgusting.
Your next album is called I Love You So Fucking Much. What is the weirdest thing you have done for love?
Recently, my dog went missing and my mum thought he went into a little pond. And I saw a splash in the pond, so I took my phone, threw it behind me, and I jumped in. And it wasn’t him. It was a fish splashing about, and the dog came up and was like, “What the fuck are you doing?” My dog just watched the whole thing. Hope I don’t get any incurable disease from rat piss or something like that.
What was the first song or album you bought as a child?
If downloading counts, it would have been Nirvana – a whole album. I really liked getting whole albums. I still think there’s a magic to it. It might have also been System of a Down’s Toxicity. I don’t know how I found the album when I was young. I was about 10.
I had a cousin who was really into music. I thought my cousin was the coolest. He played guitar, he listened to Nirvana and Oasis and Radiohead. He got me my first guitar. And he got me into downloading. I wouldn’t do that any more.
What is the ideal length of men’s shorts?
I’m a short shorts guy. I’ve got a little garden here, and I just wear my short shorts: comfy, free. I feel like I can do bigger steps. I can jump higher in my short shorts. There’s less drag. I think drag is really essential when it comes to it in general. My ideal short is like a 60s basketball short with a little piping down the side. They can say “juicy” on the back or something.
Would you rather die at the bottom of the ocean or out in space?
Space, definitely. The ocean … you’d just rot and be eaten by some weird fish no one’s ever seen before, like one that has arms, some eyes, something creepy down there. I always think the bottom of the ocean looks like it does in The Lion King – where the hyenas live? But with water. Scary.
What song do you want played at your funeral?
You can either go the sentimental route and play something really beautiful that makes everyone cry. And if I did that, I’d choose the Beatles’ A Day in the Life, or something like that. But I don’t want anyone to cry at the funeral. I just want people to go do something, take the day off instead, go do something they love. Maybe that’s the best bet. I want everyone to listen to their favourite song and do something that they love. Don’t spend any time crying over me. Go, party!
(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay. That’s probably my favourite song of all time. So maybe they can just have that playing in like a church somewhere, and no one should come. But that’s what I’d play alone as I sit in the coffin.
What do you do when you can’t get to sleep?
This is gonna sound absolutely insane. I couldn’t sleep the other day and we were shooting a video where my dog is an alien overlord. I got up and made him a helmet that has lights on it and flames. It’ll make sense, sort of, as much as that can make sense, when you see the video.
I like doing stuff. I feel like a lot of stuff that people do now doesn’t have an end: it’s like this endless pit. The internet is constantly demanding; there’s no end point. And so I really like making myself do things that you can do in an hour and then be done. This is going to get really deep: some old philosopher – I think it was like Aristotle or something – was like, you’ll never be happy unless you do things like that.
What are you secretly really good at?
I make the best pancakes. I have a bit of a secret recipe, but it involves putting two things in very small doses that you wouldn’t think go in pancakes, but it makes them, extra fluffy and melt in your mouth. The first one is that you have to put a little bit of lemon juice in. The second? No. You gotta come to me for the pancakes.
What word do you hate the most?
No.
What’s your most-used emoji?
The planet emoji. In every context, it’s quite ambiguous, but I feel like it’s quite positive in general, but also quite existential. If someone’s like, “What are you doing today?” And you send the planet over, it kind of diffuses the question and sends them an existential crisis in return. It’s good, nice, vague. The person is probably like, “What does that mean? Are you OK? Have you taken drugs?”
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Glass Animals’ album I Love You So Fucking Much is out 19 July. They play a string of shows in the UK in July, US in August and September, then Australia in November
Source: theguardian.com
