Joe Seaward was terrified.
“We wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else anyway.”
But as soon as we started playing, I felt completely at peace."
Elliott Arndt
Everyone miraculously walked away with a few scratches.
The moment served as one of the dummer’s only memories in the hospital.
Concentration and recall were two of the biggest things impacted by his operation.
Joe Seaward says he “felt completely at peace” in his comeback show following the accident.Elliott Arndt
Yet the dichotomy between the mental and physical recovery was clear from the outset.
He had to be told multiple times that he’d even broken his leg.
“I was walking across the hospital thinking, ‘Thisfinghurts!’
Glass Animals performing live before the pandemic hit.Pooneh Ghana
Why didn’t anyone tell me?!'
They said ‘We did try, you just have no recollection of it.'”
His bandmates were checking in the whole time.
“It was all very ironic,” MacFarlane says with a laugh.
Bayley, motivated by Seaward’s accident, found himself writing from a more personal place.
The fan response to “Agnes” cemented that idea.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?'"
“Each line of the song is expanded upon and explored in another song,” he says.
“There’s something about when songs start with me and that guitar.”
It had been over a year since they’d played together.
To go from that to playing in front of a crowd again would be a lengthy journey.
Adds Irwin-Singer, “Joe was literally holding it all together.”
Now, songwriting is an exercise at looking inward, using the past to recontextualize the future.
During “Agnes,” Bayley stood on Seaward’s drum kit and sang to his best friend.
“Every aspect of my life had to be ground up,” he continues.
