#dan smith of bastille

[flowersmoons]

I’ve always loved writing story songs, and using tales of other people as a way into making music and talking about my experiences in life. Over the last few years, I’ve been working on a whole load of songs about people who I think are fascinating, and whose lives really spoke to me. I wrote these songs at my kitchen table, so they needed to sound homemade, and intimate, and warm. For me, it’s been the most brilliant, fun, and chilled process, while also trying to do justice to the lives and stories of these amazing people. And now, I’m really excited to start sharing it with you.

BASTILLE PRESENTS: & (Ampersand) – released October 25th, 2024

[bloody-wild-doomdays]

Babe wake up, Bastille just released devastating new music with Biblical and mythological references, we’re entering a new Bad Blood era

[bastillemxfans]

📸 Globe Trotter

[atearinspaceairlock]

BLUE SKY & THE PAINTER

[sad-boys-book-club]

"&" Ampersand - A Literary Companion

Selected stories with the themes of Bastille's upcoming project "&" Ampersand. And, of course, a love letter to my favourite band.

PART 1

Intros & Narrators: Wallace, David Foster. Oblivion: Stories. Little, Brown and Company, 2004./ Nancherla, Aparna. Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome. Penguin Publishing Group, 2023.// Eve & Paradise Lost: Bohannon, Cat. Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2023. / Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Alma Classics, 2019.// Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky: Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them. Harvard University Press, 2016. /Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson: Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2011.// Blue Sky & The Painter: Prideaux, Sue. Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream. Yale University Press, 2019. / Knausgaard, Karl Ove. So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch. Random House, 2019.//

PART 2

Leonard & Marianne: Hesthamar, Kari. So Long, Marianne: A Love Story - Includes Rare Material by Leonard Cohen. Ecw Press, 2014./ Cohen, Leonard. Book of Longing. Penguin Books Limited, 2007.// Marie & Polonium: Curie, Eve. Madame Curie. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./Sobel, Dava. The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024.// Red Wine & Wilde: Wilde, Oscar, et al. De Profundis. Harry N. Abrams, 1998./ Sturgis, Matthew. Oscar: A Life. Head of Zeus, 2018.// Seasons & Narcissus: Ovid. Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation. Penguin, 2004./ Morales, Helen. Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths. PublicAffairs, 2020.//

PART 3

Drawbridge & The Baroness: Rothschild, Hannah. The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2013./ Katz, Judy H. White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-racism Training. University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.// The Soprano & Her Midnight Wonderings: Ardoin, John, and Gerald Fitzgerald. Callas: The Art and the Life. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974./ Abramovic, Marina. 7 Deaths of Maria Callas. Damiani, 2020.// Essie & Paul: Ransby, Barbara. Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Haymarket Books, 2022./ Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press, 1998.//

PART 4

Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze: Gautier, Theophile. Mademoiselle de Maupin. Penguin Classics, n.d./ Gardiner, Kelly. Goddess. HarperCollins, 2014.// Zheng Yi Sao & Questions For Her: Chang-Eppig, Rita. Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023./ Borges, Jorge Luis. A Universal History of Infamy. Penguin Books, 1975. // Telegraph Road 1977 & 2024: Kaufman, Bob. Golden Sardine. City Lights Books, 1976./ Wolfe, Tom. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Pan Macmillan Australia Pty, Limited, 2008.

Original artwork created by Theo Hersey & Dan Smith. Printed letterpress at The Typography Workshop, South London.

[amaliatheartist]

Oh, this bitter peace in my mind

[aslongasitsrealtoyou]

Bastille Presents “&”

[mush-dooms]

when bastille said "but if you close your eyes does it almost seem like nothing's changed at all" and when bastille said "when I watch the world burn all I think about is you" and when bastille said "you were the light that is blinding me / you're the anchor that I tie to my brain" and when bastille said "when you just can't shake the heavy weight of living" and when bastille said "when it feels like the world's gone mad / and there's nothing you can do about it" and when bastille said "you have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve / and I have always buried them deep beneath the ground" and when bastille said "and all their words for glory / they always sounded empty" and when bastille said "but regrets can't change anything" and when bastille said "hope for the future's got me on my knees" and when bastille s--

[worst-room]

"But I'm an unreliable narrator"

[jackatlas]

i feel like a rabid animal over this btw

[stillavoidingbaddays]

Here are the stripped vocals from this beautiful song

[lil-bastilleglory]

Marie & Polonium is a bop?? (I love it!!)

[bloody-wild-doomdays]

I have a confession y’all

When I was at the ripe, impressionable age of 14 I became obsessed with Bastille and watched countless interviews of the boys to catch up on the fandom. One time I watched an interview where Dan said that he never used hair conditioner (because for some reason every interviewer had to ask at least one uncomfortable question about his quiff). And so I decided that I wanted to be like Dan and not use conditioner because he was cool (and because I too was a fan of his hair). So I stopped using hair conditioner and my hair actually became much healthier. In fact, conditioner made my hair so greasy and flat, and when I stopped using it I got so many compliments.

I am currently 23 years old and in graduate school, and I still do not use hair conditioner. I probably save myself like $60 a year by not buying it, but every time I have to explain to my roommates why I don’t use conditioner I come up with a lie. Because how could I say that the reason I figured out my hair was better without conditioner was because I wanted to be like a 29 year old British man with funky music.

I also still wear black vans because of Dan, but that’s another story

[bastillemxfans]

Ampersand 【&】 (Part 1)

Art by: Harriet Teirrah // Theo Hersey

[atearinspaceairlock]

SEASONS & NARCISSUS

[arabellas]

BASTILLE Exile (Taylor Swift Cover)