Daytime TV turn a brush with death into a defiant new single and UK tour
Daytime TV have released Creatures, a new single shaped by vocalist Will Irvine’s experience of recovering from a life-threatening illness.
Released today, Friday 14 August, the track finds the alternative quartet pairing a heavy guitar-led charge with a dancefloor-minded refrain. At its centre is a deliberately blunt question: what would you do if you had one day left on Earth?
Irvine sings, This is where I wanna be found when I drop dead, framing the song as an invitation to stop overthinking and join the noise.
“Where’s your head at when you’ve got one day left on Earth?” Irvine said. “I was seriously ill a couple of years back and that was the question as we wrote the song. It’s a playful look at mortality, when you zoom out and see that we’re all just creatures crawling around this little planet.
“If we didn’t take everything so seriously, if it was your last day on Earth, you’d just get your friends together and have a massive rave. It’s a bit of a manifesto for me: let’s just have a good time.”
A song written after survival
Creatures is Daytime TV’s third single for Marshall Records, following Pause and Sun. Produced by Pete Hutchings, whose previous work includes Royal Blood, Foals and Gang of Youths, the song was recorded at The Marshall Studio in Milton Keynes.
Irvine’s illness placed the band’s future in doubt. He recalls playing a show at London’s Roundhouse while severely unwell, hallucinating and struggling with extreme pain.
“We played the Roundhouse, but I don’t remember a single thing from the show,” he said. “Before it even started, I was fully hallucinating, with spots all over my vision. I was just sitting in the corner shivering and had a full-body rash. The joint pain was so insane that I was on a lot of drugs.
“I had to leave for the stage ten minutes before the rest of the band because I was essentially crawling down the corridor, but I was determined to play.”
He added: “What I do remember is being on stage and the pain disappearing. The adrenaline and my sense of purpose completely took over. Up until then, my existence had been about just trying to stay alive, and suddenly I was doing my favourite thing in the world and everything else washed away.
“But, after the show, the band had to carry me into a taxi. They were angels throughout the whole experience.”
After doctors warned that intervention was urgently needed, Irvine began a high-dose steroid treatment. “Three days later, the symptoms started fading,” he said. “At points I genuinely believed I was going to die or never be the person I was again, so I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have another go.”
Intimate UK dates set for October
Daytime TV will take Creatures on the road this autumn, with a run of intimate UK shows presented in association with Music Venue Trust and Marshall’s Keep Live Music Alive campaign. Support acts are yet to be announced.
- 17 September – Kaiserkeller, Hamburg
- 23 September – Supersonic, Paris
- 14 October – New Adelphi Club, Hull
- 15 October – Tin Music and Arts, Coventry
- 16 October – Le Pub, Newport
- 17 October – Crauford Arms, Milton Keynes
- 18 October – Bear Cave, Bournemouth
- 28 October – The Quarry, Liverpool
- 29 October – Yellow Arch, Sheffield
- 30 October – Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh
