Everyone was listening to stuff they grew up with. I remember, beginning of the climate, everyone was listening to old records. And really, from the beginning, I didn’t think the song was gonna… I dunno, I just didn’t think there was that much space for new music in that climate. Even before the song came out, I thought, “This is gonna be a tricky ride.” The song was gonna come out, and we had the date penciled - and then the pandemic hit.

Did you ever get to a point where you were like, “OK, well, we’ve gotten this far, that’s great, but now it’s probably gonna start to wind down from here,” or did you always hold out hope that it was gonna climb all the way to No. The song had such an incremental journey. In the same way that you, like, follow your child’s life through school - you’re always seeing what it’s doing, seeing what it’s up to, making sure it’s making friends… keeping tabs on it in the same way. Have you been following the song’s journey over the past year-plus up the Hot 100? band’s current North American tour - about the song’s historic journey to the top, as well as his band’s half-undressed reaction to the news of their accomplishment, and his feelings about the Disney smash that “Heat Waves” just deposed.

It’s been quite difficult to do that… that’s my hunch as to why people have gravitated towards this song a little bit.”īelow, Bayley talks to Billboard from Portland, Oregon - the latest stop on the U.K. And not everyone’s been able to just go visit their parents, or visit their best friend. And I think through the last couple years, and still now, people have been missing their loved ones. “And I think maybe with - the song is about nostalgia and the past, and remembering people and missing people.

A post shared by billboard I think people do like a bit of familiarity when there’s a bit of like, discomfort in the world,” Bayley says of the song’s success.

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