Glass Animals were forced to skip the 2022 Grammy Awards after frontman Dave Bayley contracted Covid-19.

The Heat Waves musicians announced the news on their Instagram account hours before the show was due to start on Sunday.

"I feel fine, and am showing no symptoms so far, but nonetheless it would be truly irresponsible for me to attend the Grammy ceremony," Bayley wrote.

He added that the rest of the band - Drew MacFarlane, Joe Seaward, and Edmund Irwin-Singer - had not tested positive, but "out of an abundance of caution", they would also miss the ceremony.

"I am so incredibly heartbroken," he continued. "Not just within myself, but for everyone who has worked so insanely hard with us over the past couple of chaotic years, and every one of you who supported and believed in this project enough to get us here."

Less than an hour before the awards show began, Billboard hosted a Zoom interview with Bayley, where he said he felt "bummed out and shell-shocked" at the result.

"We took so many precautions and have been so safe, and lucky. .. but this (positive) result just came through, and I was speechless. I just stared at the result for like five minutes," he added. "Tonight was going to be like - it felt like a culmination. It was going to be the cherry on top of this crazy cake that's been built."

The British alternative pop band were nominated for Best New Artist at the ceremony but lost to Olivia Rodrigo.

Their 2020 single Heat Waves has been slowly gaining momentum in the last few months and has been No. 1 on America's Billboard chart for the past four weeks.

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