Bastille’s lead singer Dan Smith has said acting like a “toddler” on stage to distract himself from stage-fright has led to many performing faux pas.
The pop rock band frontman appeared on BBC Two cooking show Saturday Kitchen Live and said he is “the worst dancer in the world” but does it to dispel his nerves on stage.
Smith, 35, said: “It’s a distraction thing for me. I’m someone who loves being in the studio recording songs, so working out how to be a front man was sort of learning on the job.
“I used to distract myself by climbing up on things, jumping in the crowd, I have so many embarrassing stories.
Change of plan… sadly Dave Grohl is stuck in LA and won't be able to appear on the show tomorrow!☹️
But the brilliant Dan Smith from Bastille joining us in the morning for all the usual chaos with Matt, Sam and Shauna, Angelo Sato and Helen McGinn!😃
Live on @BBCTwo at 10am! pic.twitter.com/3HNRYn9iDw
— SaturdayKitchen (@SaturdayKitchen) February 18, 2022
“It’s like someone released a toddler on stage, always tripping over, electrocuting myself on stage by accident, falling off the stage.
“I once, at a festival, climbed up on to the speaker and got stuck half way up like a sort of worm, it was so embarrassing, our tour manager had to help me out.
“Another time we were in Alabama at a festival and we emerged like these vampiric pale white guys all dressed in black off the tour bus and played at this beach at this beautiful festival.
“We were getting so sunburnt during the gig that our tour manager walked out mid gig to save the day and it was the least rock and roll thing ever, we were live on TV and he walks out with factor 1000 sun cream, he said ‘sorry mate you absolutely need this’.
“I changed from the palest white to luminous red live on stage, as you can tell I’m pretty cool.”
Bastille was founded by singer-songwriter Smith in 2010, but later expanded to include Kyle Simmons, Will Farquarson and Chris “Woody” Wood.
The band, known for hit tracks Pompeii and Happier, secured their third UK number one album with Give Me The Future this year.
They previously enjoyed two other UK number one albums, 2013’s Bad Blood and 2016’s Wild World, while 2019’s Doom Days peaked at fourth place.
Talking about their album’s success, Smith said: “It’s mad, we are really excited and weren’t necessarily expecting it at all.
“It’s brilliant to see how people have received it. It’s really crazy.
“We did a little two-week tour where a small group of us went around the country in a van and were playing sometimes two shows a night.
“It was really fun, it was pretty weird, it was very different to what we normally do.
“There were points where we were singing people’s dreams back at them which I don’t think a lot of the audience were expecting, so a few walkouts.”
Smith stepped in at the last minute to “save the day” on Saturday Kitchen Live, replacing Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl, who got stuck in Los Angeles following Storm Eunice.