Foals Interview

[This is an interview I did with Foals in Bristol with my friend Mark Higgins either late 2007 or early 2008; or perhaps some other time entirely, I don't really remember]

We walked into Foals’ cosy little band room atop the Carling Academy to find the band in what appeared to be a relatively relaxed mood. Yannis Philippakis, the lead singer, is comfortably slumped on a couch with a lead singers best friend, cough medicine, nestled close by his side, and a lead singers worst enemy, marijuana, lodged firmly between his fingers in the form of a joint. Edwin Congreave, who plays keyboards, is having the most fun, drawing in colourful texter on blank record covers of an EP of covers that Foals did with their Canadian tour-mates Holy Fuck. Apparently the proper record covers hadn’t come though in time, “so I’m just making something really disgusting because someone is actually going to buy this.” 

The other band members flutter in and out of the room, with Yannis clearly the designated spokesperson. The first few minutes of the interview are a relative non-event, as we struggle to hear Yannis above the wall of noise that is Holy Fuck’s sound-check. We do learn though that Foals have been on quite a lengthy tour, and the band are clearly looking forward to a well earned break.

In an attempt to reinvigorate things a bit I ask Yannis about the scuffle that he was involved in backstage at a festival in Spain. The story I had read said that Yannis was sticking up for Kele Okerake, the lead singer of Bloc Party, who was getting racially abused by the entourage of John Lydon (of Sex Pistols fame). Unfortunately, Yannis isn’t exactly forthcoming about the details, and approximately three awkward silences transpire over the next few minutes. Although he does tell us that he was arrested and put in handcuffs, he seems to make more of a point in correcting my pronunciation of Kele. I guess you can’t take the Oxford University out of the Oxford drop-out. Other than that, he says that “the whole thing wasn’t really that big a deal," and flutters his eyelids much like a 12 year old schoolgirl would.

I ask about the kind of music scene that Foals emerged from in their hometown of Oxford, where the current lineup jumped around a number of bands before settling in their current state. Yannis is a bit more forthcoming this time, speaking of the positives and negatives of the Oxford scene: “Oxford’s small, so it is quite easy to get involved with the scene, yet having said that, it is quite clique, and there are very few bands from Oxford that even try and play out of Oxford. You get a lot of weird bands, like noise bands, and you don’t get a lot of local scenes that are like that. The bad side is that it becomes very self-applauding and elitist; there were no real pop bands. It felt like we were a reaction against this, and that really was a large part of why we wanted to make Foals.”

Yannis is more talkative now, and chat moves on to the reasons why Foals make music: “We just wanted to make music that people could dance to, we weren’t just weird bearded dudes that knew loads about tone generators. It was all about the fun of making accessible music…I don’t like the idea of music being used as a tool, I just like the idea that pop music is universal. You can go to the Ukraine and people like Madonna. Sure, there is a sinister side to it, yet I think that there is a positive side to it as well.”

We then move on to the UK music scene, which is something that Yannis finds quite uninteresting at the moment: “I don’t listen to bands like The Wombats because they are not very exciting. If you’re in a band I think it’s better to not be influenced by your peers and contemporary surroundings. That’s why I’ve been listening to lots of older records from the 60’s and 70’s. We listen to a lot of surf rock, kind of instrumental stuff,” says Yannis in a very ponderous mood. And Yannis isn’t finished there, as he is markedly worried about the route that the distribution of contemporary music is going down, mentioning that during our current generation we might just see the death of the album as more and more people “just listen to singles now.”

Yet Foals debut album Antidotes is an album in the truest sense of the word. On it, there is a clear influence from African music, including appearances from Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra. We find out that it had a lot to do with their producer, Dave Sitek from TV On The Radio.

Yannis tells us that Sitek isn’t exactly your run of the mill producer (“If Dave had a real job, he’d be a demolition man”), and two weeks before leaving to go and record in the US, Dave told them to listen to nothing but Afrobeat and one album by Flowers Of Romance (who ironically contained John Lydon in their lineup).

“Dave was like smoke lots of pot and listen to this stuff. He was a really big influence on us and challenged us; he made us think that being in a band is more than just coming in, playing your instruments and recording. Why can’t an album just be a kick drum and a vocal, cos’ that’s all you really need. Some of the most powerful music can just be the sound of a pick-axe on a road.”

However, Foals and Sitek ended up having a disagreement about where the album was going, ending with Foals mixing the final copy themselves. We are reassured by Yannis that everything is fine between them now, as the pair met up just last week in New York.

At that point, the next two guys to interview Foals walk in, both notably dressed in shitty fluorescent jumpers, and this breaks up the flow a bit. Yannis gives them a look of disgust. The tour manager asks how much longer we’ll be. We have run well over time and Yannis still hasn’t offered me any of his joint. Either it’s because he has a cold or because he is a prick. Anyway, I keep the fluoro kids waiting and yap some more about Foals sophomore release.

Yannis tells us that they plan to release the album Spring/Summer 2009, but he stresses more than anything that there is no rush to get it out: “There are different influences on this album, and we already have some loops and everything. Although more than anything we really just want to take our time about it.” And at that, the interview travels it’s full circle, we bid Foals adieu, go grab some West Country cider and jostle in through the crowded Academy to watch the lively sets of both Foals and fellow tour-mates Holy Fuck.