INTERVIEW FOALS

Honeys of the UK band Foals have been trying to figure out their sound: they’ve gone from electronic club music to “post-punk” and “blank bark”, but the signature vocals of front-man Yannis Philippakis put together with groovy synths and keys have compiled an entirely new album of tracks that explore everything from funk to ballad to dance… Their latest album Holy Fire is a build-up of both Antidotes and Total Life Forever; Edwin Congreave talks about ways the band has moved out of their British bubble and the ways they’ve incorporated the aesthetics from Afro-beat straight out of Brooklyn and being influenced by South Korea, Japan, and Dave Sitek.

CST: You’re in Tulsa at the moment, what’s that like?

Edwin: It’s all right, pretty weird. It’s a big city I don’t know anything about. Everyone is just playing pool.

CST: Are you touring at the moment?

E: Yeah, we’re doing a short US tour; we played a festival in Chicago. We’re driving down to San Francisco to play a festival called Outside Lands and a couple of shows in between.

CST: What have been your favourite shows at the moment?

E: Well we played a couple of big shows in the UK. We played at Glastonbury; we headlined a festival called Latitude. I think those are by far our favourite because we were playing to our own crowd, our own songs were quite big and made us feel like what we achieved is actually really significant.

CST: Any interesting locations or cool festivals?

E: I think the only festival I’ve ever really properly enjoyed was Glastonbury. It’s just the best festival in the world. It does what any other festival in the world does, but it’s better. It’s so big that you can go there with any preconception, you don’t need to enjoy rock & roll, or dance music, you can just go there and have a really good time. It has an incredible atmosphere that you don’t really get at other festivals. But Tulsa is pretty interesting, though I don’t feel at home, it’s really alien here but I like it. Interesting location. We played South Korea for the first time. I could only describe it as weird. It was really untraditional. It’s a strange place. The festival we played was Marshland. It had an end of the world vibe, and it was really muggy.

CST: What’s your favourite song off Holy Fire to play live?

E: Inhaler, because it’s got a really typical reaction and you can see the audience and the rest of the band enjoying themselves. The crowd will react well to it; it’s easy to play.

CST: I remember the first time I ever listened to Foals, it was when Bebo was still around and there was a website theme that had ‘we fly balloons on this fuel called love’ written on it in pretty writing. I liked the line, so I Google searched it and found you! How do you think you’ve progressed personally and musically since first creating and releasing Antidotes, and then Total Life Forever?

E: Ha! That’s a really lovely story. I think the biggest influence after Antidotes was Sitek himself; he changed how we thought about music. I was the last person to join Foals. The band began really differently, with a different singer. It was a lot more emo, and the singer quit and they wanted someone for keys in March 2006. Before then I had an alternative life, there wasn’t much to speak of. I was a student; I had nothing much going on in my life. I dropped out of uni in 2005 and I was a friend with Yannis because we worked at the same shitty café. We hung out, we had some music similarities and he knew everyone in Oxford.

E: (We’ve changed) In terms of the playing, the genre we were listening to, the genre of the band we thought we were. He basically told us that we didn’t have to be this British dance music band; we could be anything we want. He got us to listen to this African music… we’ve played big shows and we’ve been around the world and we’ve seen how other bands express themselves. The main change was ourselves. We grew up a lot in our time. There hasn’t been a big shift, but rather a steady evolution.

CST: Have you travelled to Australia? E: We toured! Splendour in the Grass, I think in 2009, I can’t remember; we played Laneway Festival and Big Day Out. We like Australia. We’ve played so many Festivals on a Sunday afternoon at like three-o’clock that it doesn’t feel like we’re playing to Australia. But we love going to Australia.

CST: Playing here in summer is the worst.

E: We have way too much fun in Australia. It can be really hot, like Big Day Out this year, we were in town when it was 46 degrees, which is the hottest we’ve ever experienced. We wanted our performance to be amazing. With that kind of weather… but it’s weird because it got really windy and they started dismantling our stage and we were all really confused so we didn’t get to play the show we wanted to play.

CST: Does anything piss you off musically?

E: A lot, but I try to keep it to myself. There’s a lot of negativity in the music world, especially on Twitter. I’ve got a bad habit of getting carried away myself. Actually, while we were in South Korea I was just on my phone on the Wi-Fi, this band Fun. were playing. I’ve never heard them before. I was with Jack, our drummer, and we couldn’t possibly believe that this band could be so shit. No, they’re not very good. I know there’s a lot of rubbish music but they’re by far the worst I’ve ever heard in my life. And they kept telling the crowd that this was the best show they’d ever played and he really loved them and they were going to come back and I’ve never heard a voice laced with more bullshit before. I got a bit carried away and bitched about them, but then I realised it’s a bit uncouth… they won a Grammy – they won two Grammies because they sold so many singles. They’re awful; they sound like they’re taking the piss. They didn’t find out I trashed them on Twitter; I imagine they’re so busy having lots of money. The option to play with them wouldn’t even come up.

Secret Sounds Presents
FOALS WITH ALPINE
Supported by triple j, Street Press Australia and Tone Deaf

SUNDAY 22 SEPTEMBER: METRO CITY, PERTH – (18 )
ON SALE NOW Tickets from: oztix.com.au & 1300 762 545

TUESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER: HQ, ADELAIDE – (LICENSED ALL AGES)
ON SALE NOW Tickets from: oztix.com.au & 1300 762 545

NEW SHOW! THURSDAY 26 SEPTEMBER: THE PALACE THEATRE, MELBOURNE – (18 )
ON SALE FRIDAY 7 JUNE: Tickets from: ticketek.com.au & 132 849
FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER: THE PALACE THEATRE, MELBOURNE – (18 ) SOLD OUT

SATURDAY 28 SEPTEMBER: ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY – (LICENSED ALL AGES) SOLD OUT

NEW SHOW! SUNDAY 29 SEPTEMBER: ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY – (LICENSED ALL AGES)
ON SALE FRIDAY 7 JUNE: Tickets from: ticketek.com.au & 132 849

WEDNESDAY 2 OCTOBER: THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE – (18 ) SOLD OUT

SATURDAY 5 OCTOBER: THE GREAT HALL, AUCKLAND – (LICENSED ALL AGES)
ONSALE NOW Tickets from: the-edge.co.nz & 0800 289 842