Glass Animals are the next big thing to emerge from Oxford’s fertile music scene. Tim Hughes spoke to the schoolfriends

Dave Bayley is out of his shed.The frontman of Oxford buzz band Glass Animals is taking time out from the group’s HQ — an old stable near Shotover.

“We call it The Shed,” he says. “I don’t know why it’s there, and it’s in the middle of nowhere, but it’s got everything we need to do a live show with guitars and drum kit, and is set up like a stage.”

There is little doubt that Glass Animals are the next big thing to come out of Oxford – following in the footsteps of Radiohead, Supergrass and Foals as the band most likely to make it huge.

Dave — a neuroscience graduate — and his equally highly qualified bandmates are rapidly picking up admirers of their elegant electro-indie. In fact Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood is such a fan he picked the band to headline his sold-out night at the city’s Jericho Tavern to celebrate Independent Venue Week.

For Dave, who lives in Walton Street, it was a particular honour. “It was pretty amazing,” he says.

“I live just over the road from the Jericho Tavern and it was one of the first places I saw a gig in Oxford. I didn’t know Colin was actually going to come to the show too. It’s cool to be appreciated by anyone, but especially by someone making music you respect.”

Like so many bands, Glass Animals met at school; in their case St Edward’s, in Woodstock Road — an establishment with a formidable record of turning out musicians.

Dave had arrived from America, where his father had been working, and quickly bonded with Drew MacFarlane – who had also been brought up in the States.

“I came here from America when I was 13 and the first person I was introduced to was the only other ‘American’ at the school,” says Dave. “We were both fake Americans because we were British but had grown up over there.

“Drew introduced me to the guys who are now also members of the band [Edmund Irwin-Singer, Joe Seaward] — and it just happened.

“We just happened to be the people at school who listened to leftfield music, and liked soul, rock & roll and r’n’b when everyone else was listening to Snow Patrol.”

They also happened to be talented musicians. “We had to do a lot of music at school,” says Dave. “Infact the only reason I went was because I had a music scholarship. I am pretty amateur compared to the others, though.”

With Drew playing guitars as well as organ and violin, Edmund mastering keys and bass as well as cello, piano and choral singing, and Joe a natural drummer, they are a virtuoso bunch.

For Dave, the songwriting came when he took up a place at King’s College, London, to study medicine — later curtailed into a degree in neuroscience. “I was a bit of an insomniac,” he admits. “So I spent my spare time fiddling around writing music. “I wrote a couple of tracks, showed them to Drew, and he helped me fix them up, put them on the internet, and get a bit of attention.”

It wasn’t long before they attracted serious industry interest. “We were contacted by all sorts of labels and publishers and didn’t really know what to do,” he says. “So we took everything offline for a year and-a-half, and started again properly in 2012.

So how does he sum up the band’s idiosyncratic sound? “It’s so difficult to say as I am so buried in the music and have no outer perspective,” he admits., before deflecting the question at me.

On Tuesday they play the O2 Academy Oxford in support of fellow electronic-experimenters, the synth-pop act Metronomy. The show follows a series of shows at the South by South West music conference in Texas, and precedes the release of new single Gooey, out on Paul Epworth’s Wolf Tone label. The single’s striking video, shot by Australian director-duo The Apiary (Lily Coates & Gavin Youngs), as well as previous offering Psylla, is available to view on YouTube.

“It’s a weird video for us as we didn’t have a huge amount to do with it,” he says. “We tried to find out what Gooey meant to us, wrote a few ideas down and found someone whose video would work. The result is cheeky with weird sexual undertones and naivity.”

The video references DH Lawrence’s Women in Love, but also comes across as oddly psychological and pharmaceutical. A hint at Dave’s academic background perhaps?

“Neuroscience creeps into everything we do,” he says. “It’s always spinning round in my head.”

The album — Zaba — follows in June. “It’s a big beautiful album which goes from start to finish,” he says. “It’s not just a collection of songs. And 80 per cent of it was made in Jericho. We are putting the finishing touches to it — and will soon be popping the Champagne!”

And the band’s name? “It fits the music,” he says. “Some is delicate while some is intense and wild.”

It is that wild side that comes out on stage. “Seeing us live is different from hearing us on record. It’s more intense and dancy. We pick up the tempo, have a bit of fun and party!

“And, for some reason, people think it’s okay to party harder because I’m there with my neuroscience degree!”

Glass Animals support Metronomy
O2 Academy, Oxford
Tuesday
Tickets £15.50 ticketweb.co.uk