He has found critical and commercial success, while behind the scenes the frontman has battled with his self-confidence and severe stage fright. He explains why he still loves being in the band

Dan Smith doesn’t know how to switch off. In the decade or so that he has been the creative heart, and frontman, of the band Bastille, he has thought about music constantly. There was a two-week period over Christmas and new year where he thought he had managed not to. Then he went to a double bill at the cinema.

“I got the whole way through the first film and three-quarters of the way through the second film before I had to leave, sing into my phone in the corridor awkwardly, and then come back in,” he says. “If I have a song idea that pops into my head, I have to get it down. It will eat away at me if I forget it, or it’s just on loop in my head.”