When drummer Chris “Woody” Wood joined singer/guitarist and main songwriter Dan Smith in what would become the band Bastille in 2010, he had reached a turning point in his music career. He had decided to commit to music as a full-time endeavor, hoping to give drum lessons by day and play gigs by night. What Wood didn’t know at the time was that the idea for his day job would result in meeting Smith, who was playing gigs in London as a solo artist, and a fairly hasty end to Wood’s days of pursuing a day job.
“At the time, Dan lived about four streets away from me and I was out going door to door giving out drum fliers and saying if you needed lessons, give me a shout,” Wood said. “It just happened that that exact same week, Dan kind of thought, ‘Well, I’m kind of bored playing by myself. I want to get some other people onboard.’ That same week that my flier came to his door, he called me up and we kind of met and hit it off. So that’s how we met. So it was pretty much by chance.”
These days, Wood probably doesn’t think much about giving drum lesions. Four years after Bastille formed with the addition of bassist/keyboardist Will Farquarson and keyboardist/percussionist Kyle Simmons, it has become one of the most popular debut bands on the planet—a group that has seen three of the songs from its first album, Bad Blood, become hits in the United States and is now playing arenas on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Bastille certainly didn’t waste time getting its synth/electronic-based brand of pop music to the public, beginning in the United Kingdom. In June 2010, the group released a 7-inch single on the London-based indie label Young & Lost Club, before signing to Virgin Records in the U.K., which released the group’s first full-fledged single, “Overjoyed,” in April 2012. A second single, the song “Bad Blood,” followed in July 2012, and it became Bastille’s first song to crack the U.K. singles chart, reaching number 90. A third single, “Flaws,” did quite a bit better upon its fall 2012 release, shooting into the top 25.
But all of this was a mere prelude to the big bang that was the song “Pompeii.” Released in the U.K. in February 2013, a month ahead of Bad Blood, the song made it to number two on the singles chart, paving the way for the Bad Blood album to debut at number one on the U.K. album chart. Before 2013 was over, the success Bastille was having in the U.K. was spreading worldwide.
In the United States, the band has notched three hit singles. “Bad Blood” reached number two on Billboard’s Alternative Songs Chart. “Flaws” climbed to number eight on that same chart. And then there was “Pompeii,” which topped the singles charts at five different formats, has gone top five on two other charts and topped out at number five on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart, all while racking up sales of more than three million singles.
Wood said the band was basically floored by the success of the song.
“We never really paid ‘Pompeii’ that much mind at all,” he said.
“Obviously we always liked playing it, but yeah until it kind of became this [monster hit] that went off around the world, we had no idea.”
Now Bastille is giving its debut album another push in the States with a fall tour, its first outing on these shores to include arena shows.
Wood is relishing the fact that the group will be able to step up its show on the fall tour of the U.S. and Canada. “We’ll be playing venues big enough that we can finally take out our full-scale U.K. tour production, with the video screens and stuff,” he said. “It will be more of a show than a gig.”
Bastille headlines the Milwaukee Theatre on Saturday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m.
