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Charlie Carter

Bastille are ready to storm Hong Kong again, two years after our home-grown rock festival launched the indie-pop band to international success.
Clockenflap 2012 was the London-based rockers' first major festival appearance, and their debut gig outside Europe. Soon after, they shot to the top of the charts in Britain and the US before embarking on a sold-out tour of the States.
Now the four members of Bastille are coming back for more, with a new album in the wings and a new sound. "We had a wonderful time — it's such a beautiful place," says bass player Will Farquarson from Los Angeles.
Named after the French holiday Bastille Day (July 14) on account of it falling on frontman and founder Dan Smith's birthday, the band's career has gone stratospheric since their West Kowloon show two years ago.
Then, they were a little known band that had only recently been augmented by friends Kyle Simmons, Farquarson and Chris "Woody" Wood, after the one-time solo artist Smith decided he wanted to move from bedroom crooner.
Their emotionally charged pop anthems quickly won an audience that straddled the genre-fractured world of pop. A spate of hit singles followed, including the floor-filling  Pompeii, with its instantly memorable opening refrain "eh-eh-oh eh-oh" becoming the crowd chant of 2013's festivals and indie discos.

It established the band as one of the most promising acts of the year, a fact consolidated when they won the British breakthrough act gong at the UK's music awards show The Brits this year. Their international appeal was confirmed earlier this month when they were nominated for the best new artist Grammy award in the US.
"We just make music we like and are proud of," says Farquarson. "We don't ever really think of who's going to be listening. We just write, and if people like it, then that's a bonus.
"It's been amazing experience touring in the US," he says, noting that the tour has gone very well. "US touring differs from the rest of the word most because of the sheer size of the place. It still has a particular mystique. There will always be something special about the US."
With the runaway success of Bastille's debut album Bad Blood, which became the biggest selling online album in Britain last year, the multi-instrumentalists have turned to recording and producing other artists including Angel Haze, and British singer-songwriters Ella Eyre and Gabrielle Aplin.
Bastille's success has resulted from the way they have negotiated the minefield of the modern pop business, in which artists make little money from sales of music, and where promotion is done through social media.
Two decades ago, a band would have shuddered at the prospect of licensing their music to commercial interests, but today's bands are compelled to seek endorsement deals because the collapse in sales means they must come up with innovative ideas to make money.
"I think a lot of people in music are nostalgic for how things used to be, but those times are past. I think for any negative aspect of the changes we've seen in the last couple of decades, there are equal amounts of new opportunities," says Farquarson.
One of Bastille's most successful experiments has been its three "mixtapes", hodge-podge collections or songs, reworkings of other bands' material and even TV theme tunes and movie music. These have kept the band's profile up while it works on its next album. The collections have been artistically well received, too.

Such has been the success of the mixtapes that the most recent edition — titled  Other People's Heartache Pt III  — became a fully fledged album of collaborations with other bands and artists they consider friends or who they admire. Among their co-stars are American rock sisters Haim and rappers Rag N Bone Man and Lizzo.
"We try to work with as many as possible, although often logistical issues and busy diaries make that tricky," says Farquarson. "For the most part it's personal, though. We choose friends mostly, or people we respect. Usually both.
"It's always really fun to work with our friends. We only really work with people we get on with. It's always good to see other people's process. It pushes us creatively, and helps us to think outside the box," he says.
The new album is expected next year, and signs are that it will be more guitar heavy than the first. In the meantime, fans can hear the band on this year's iteration of Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas, as they were called upon by Bob Geldof for the charity single.
"It was surreal," says Farquarson. "Quite intimidating. We turned up and we stood in the green room with all these amazing artists feeling slightly out of place. Then after watching Seal and Sam Smith sing their parts, we got told we had to have a go. It was scary."
 
Bastille, January 7, 7.30pm, Star Hall, Kitec, 1 Trademart Drive, Kowloon Bay, HK$680, HK Ticketing. Inquiries: 3128 8288, hkticketing.com
 


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}British band Bastille owe some of their success to the Clockenflap festival

British band Bastille owe some of their success to the Clockenflap festival