In a small wooden nook of the legendary St Pancras Clock Tower, with the London skyline glowing through the windows, Bastille’s Dan Smith brought his & (Ampersand) project to a close on 26 August, a bookend to the series and to summer itself.
The evening felt intentionally small: featuring only a piano, a handful of friends, fans, and collaborators, and a setlist that pulled from across the four-part project. Stripped of Bastille’s usual widescreen production, the songs felt even more intimate, landing between a diary entry and a short story.
After the performance, Smith sat down with BBC’s Maia Beth for a conversation about how & came to life. “I’d been writing a lot of songs about other people, and I kind of always start there now,” he said, recalling how the idea took shape during a break from the band. “It was a really fun way to deep dive into history and culture, stories that are really well known and others that are less known, and to see what it would be like to inhabit those characters for a few minutes.”
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He admitted that one of the hardest parts of the process was compressing entire lives into a four-minute song. The companion Museuses podcast gave him space to dig deeper, exploring the choices behind each story and the ways cultural narratives shape how audiences see these figures.
Though it began as a solitary project, Smith described it as collaborative. “When we toured this last year, it was super collaborative. Everyone was a singer-songwriter. It felt like a warm hug sitting on stage in the middle of this circle of incredible artists,” he said.
Part Four ties the project together, anchored by “Bored & Overboard (Pandora’s Box),” a confessional track that feels both haunted and defiant. Elsewhere, it moves through the outlaw rush of “Bonnie & Clyde,” the retelling of “Bathsheba & Him,” and the self-reflection of “My Head & The Glass.” The EP also includes various live recordings from Arte’s Turner Gallery sessions, where these moments allow listeners to “hear the rain on the roof, the mistakes, the humanity of it,” as Smith put it.
“It’s been a really lovely thing to use these stories and songs as a way to collaborate,” Smith said. “I hope this lane continues, just another space to make music.”
Smith will head back on the road with Bastille this November for their FROM ALL SIDES UK tour, with tickets on sale now.
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