Speaker 1: Loud and Quiet presents Midnight Chats.
Speaker 2: Good evening listeners, Welcome to tropical February in London. It's
Speaker 2: weird and it worries me, and welcome to the first
Speaker 2: episode of a brand new series of midnight Chats series
Speaker 2: seven no less. Three years since we recorded the first
Speaker 2: of these conversations with a microphone we brought off eBay,
Speaker 2: we are still going, still going strong. Those tuning in
Speaker 2: for the first time, I'm not sure where you've been
Speaker 2: maybe doing something more important, which is completely under standable,
Speaker 2: but this is what we do. Our podcasts are relaxed
Speaker 2: chats with musicians who we think have something interesting to
Speaker 2: say that loosely have a late night kind of vibe
Speaker 2: and that's it. It's not overcomplicated. Sometimes it's me Greg
Speaker 2: doing them and sometimes it's Stuart. And when we're not
Speaker 2: doing this, we're making a magazine and website and videos
Speaker 2: and it's called Loud and Quiet. It also has a
Speaker 2: website which is Loud and Quiet dot com. But with
Speaker 2: this new run of Midnight Chats, there will be a
Speaker 2: fresh episode every Thursday, dropping at midnight for the next
Speaker 2: ten weeks or so, and I can promise you that
Speaker 2: this spring twenty nineteen series features guests that are at
Speaker 2: least at least as good as those that we've had
Speaker 2: on before. There's sixty three of those previous episodes now,
Speaker 2: so do fill your boots if you have a particularly
Speaker 2: quiet weekend coming up. Anyway, feel like this is a
Speaker 2: really good one to begin on. Most of the time
Speaker 2: when we're recording these podcasts, we're meeting the artist for
Speaker 2: the first time, you know, we have a brief talk
Speaker 2: about the weather, make them a cup of tea, and
Speaker 2: then turn the MIC's on. But my guest on episode
Speaker 2: sixty four is someone I've known for quite a while now,
Speaker 2: about twelve years, i think, and he is Yannis Philipakis,
Speaker 2: singer with Foals. I was lucky enough to be covered
Speaker 2: in Cheap Beer at and write about a number of
Speaker 2: the band's early shows. These days, over the course of
Speaker 2: releasing four brilliant albums, they've very much outgrown playing illegal
Speaker 2: squad parties. Instead, they now headline festivals. Twenty nineteen is
Speaker 2: a new era for them since twenty fifteen's What Went Down,
Speaker 2: original bass player Walter left the band, and they've self
Speaker 2: produced a pair of new albums that they will release
Speaker 2: this year. The first of which which everything not saved
Speaker 2: will be lost. Part one is out on March the eighth. Now,
Speaker 2: this chat is quite fresh, recorded just last week, but
Speaker 2: awards week in fact, in a slightly echoey photo studio
Speaker 2: in South London. In it, we talk about drunk Russian
Speaker 2: tourists with fireworks, Yannis's recent visit to a Greek monastery,
Speaker 2: social media Stormsy's upcoming headline show at Glastonbury, and why
Speaker 2: his mum Yannis's mum changed the locks on the family
Speaker 2: home's bathroom door. What's left to say? Well, it's good
Speaker 2: to be back. If you like what you hear, please
Speaker 2: do rate and comment and subscribe wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: this all that stuff, But here we go the first
Speaker 2: in a new run of Midnight Chats. This is yanis
Speaker 2: from False Jannis. Welcome to Midnight Chats.
Speaker 3: Good to be here, Thanks.
Speaker 2: For coming on. How has your day been so far?
Speaker 3: It's been good. It's been quite long, been chatting. Did
Speaker 3: some photos?
Speaker 4: You know, all of the luxury problems that a man
Speaker 4: and a band faces.
Speaker 2: And this week is a busy week in the music industry.
Speaker 2: There was the brit Awards this week. Did you go
Speaker 2: to that?
Speaker 3: No, I didn't.
Speaker 4: I've been in the rehearsal studio and basically, yeah, we've
Speaker 4: been hammering it out for like six seven hours a
Speaker 4: day and then come evening, go for like a pint
Speaker 4: and then it's back to who just wiped afterwards?
Speaker 3: So we didn't go to anything. Also, it's the Brits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you went a couple of year nominated and
Speaker 2: went a few years aga. What was the actual experience?
Speaker 3: Like, it was good.
Speaker 4: I just remember being you know, it's like it's just
Speaker 4: pretty full on. But it was fun. I liked the
Speaker 4: spectacle of it. The food was slightly into par What
Speaker 4: did they say of that night? I remember, but it
Speaker 4: was something on crute right.
Speaker 2: Okay it was it a bit like wedding food, like
Speaker 2: when you go.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, like wedding food, but made without the love.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, so but anyway, it was fun and then
Speaker 4: the party, the after party is always quite fun. They
Speaker 4: always get quite hedonistic of the borch and you always
Speaker 4: like meet Liam Gallagher at three in the morning and
Speaker 4: he's screaming at you wearing a white leather beret.
Speaker 2: Which is good, sounds quite fun. Twenty nineteen shaping up
Speaker 2: to be a big year. For foals. Obviously. Where did
Speaker 2: the year start for you? Where did you actually see
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen?
Speaker 3: I was in India?
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, how was that? On holiday here?
Speaker 3: It was great. I went with my partner and it
Speaker 3: was great.
Speaker 4: We got fireworks shot almost directly at our head by
Speaker 4: a load of highly inebriated Russians who earlier in the
Speaker 4: evening had been wearing Santa Father Christmas hats and drinking
Speaker 4: taputin while watching his annual address to the Russian Populace.
Speaker 3: It was fun.
Speaker 4: It was on a beach. I'd never been that close
Speaker 4: to a firework like. I mean, they were literally they
Speaker 4: were exploding at hare height.
Speaker 2: So this was no like organized fire displayed. This is
Speaker 2: just people setting off for random It.
Speaker 4: Just mainly acts on a beach full of vodka setting
Speaker 4: stuff on fire.
Speaker 3: It was great. I felt like it was a symbolic
Speaker 3: start to the year.
Speaker 2: Did you spend Christmas in India as well?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: I had Christmas in London and then went to Oxford
Speaker 4: on Boxing Day and then yeah, I went to India
Speaker 4: and was there for a bit and it was great.
Speaker 4: I've never been before, but I loved it. I'd like
Speaker 4: to go back and where did.
Speaker 3: You go goer?
Speaker 4: Basically it was Mainian goer, So yeah, the first bit
Speaker 4: of the holiday was yeah, in Russian trance party land
Speaker 4: with relentless one sixty ppm kick drums and fireworks coming
Speaker 4: at my.
Speaker 3: Head and dubious, dubious shrimps and prawns.
Speaker 4: I was just saw of baby hammerhead shark on a
Speaker 4: fish blatter and I was absolutely horrified.
Speaker 3: So I was walking out of like a hotel resort
Speaker 3: type thing.
Speaker 4: They had like the catch of the day on ice,
Speaker 4: you know, and there was your usual snapper and mullet,
Speaker 4: you know, there was there was classic there are your classics,
Speaker 4: your classics, bear did bream, and then there was just
Speaker 4: nestled in amongst you know. The more prevalent catch of
Speaker 4: the day was an actual baby hammerhead shark, and I've
Speaker 4: I've never been more disappointed in a fish fish selection ever.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was just outrageous.
Speaker 2: On all of your travels over the years, what's the
Speaker 2: weirdest thing that you've tried in terms of food?
Speaker 4: Yeah, usually I voyeuristically watched Edwin because he's kind of.
Speaker 2: The most intrepid first person in Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has kind of no sense of self preservation
Speaker 4: when it comes to food. I've watched them eat horse
Speaker 4: ice cream in Japan. It was frozen slices of horse
Speaker 4: meat and we ate it after a show, So imagining
Speaker 4: that that's that's then going to float on a belly
Speaker 4: full of vodka Red Bull at the time, which is
Speaker 4: what the drink of choice was before the shows.
Speaker 3: Horse ice cream.
Speaker 4: He also ate on the same evening, he ate squid
Speaker 4: testes or squid eggs or something.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he was a glutton for punishment that night.
Speaker 4: It was the same like Jack passed out in the
Speaker 4: restaurant from jet lag, and we we fed him bits
Speaker 4: of squid and we drew a little, gave him a
Speaker 4: little French beard, a little little cyrano number, a little
Speaker 4: GotY And he's never forgiven us for that, all right.
Speaker 2: He still brings it up there, Yeah we have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it occasionally resurfaces on the internet. Yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: pretty safe eater.
Speaker 2: In terms of travels, then, since what went down, he
Speaker 2: had a bit of time off and then you came
Speaker 2: back to recording and making a new record. Personal travel
Speaker 2: like going away for fun and not for work as
Speaker 2: you do all the time. Where else have you been
Speaker 2: in between what the last couple of years, I mean
Speaker 2: your adventures to India with some mad Russians. But where
Speaker 2: else is.
Speaker 4: I went to Cape Town a couple of times. I
Speaker 4: got some family there, so I went there and that
Speaker 4: was cool. I mean, I always find it kind of
Speaker 4: an ambivalent experience going. I love it, I love the landscape,
Speaker 4: but the social injustices out there, Like I didn't never
Speaker 4: find like it's not.
Speaker 3: I just always feel it a bit. I love it
Speaker 3: as a place and I always.
Speaker 4: Have a great time, but you can't help but feel
Speaker 4: that things are not right there. And then the main
Speaker 4: place I spent time in was Greece. I went to
Speaker 4: Mount Athos, which is like a monastic community. It's like
Speaker 4: a peninsula and Greece, and it's been a monastic area
Speaker 4: for over a thousand years. It's twenty eight monasteries there.
Speaker 4: You have to like get a special ticket to go there.
Speaker 4: You can only go by boat. They have a customs border.
Speaker 2: It's like so it's got its own island.
Speaker 4: It's no, it's it's it's on land, but you can
Speaker 4: they don't let you go through the land border. Only
Speaker 4: men are allowed, and it's only been men for like
Speaker 4: a thousand years.
Speaker 3: And it's pretty intense. There's like, it's a pretty intense place.
Speaker 2: What is the lifestyle, like the people that.
Speaker 4: It's just monks. It's only monks that live there permanently.
Speaker 4: They have some and there's maybe a few people that
Speaker 4: live there to help the monasteries or but it's only monks,
Speaker 4: proper monks.
Speaker 3: It's very it's very austere.
Speaker 4: So I've gotten this boat from a place called Ranopolis,
Speaker 4: which is and it's kind of it's north of Athens.
Speaker 4: It's like you go from Thessaloniki and you go along
Speaker 4: and you get this boat from the first thing you
Speaker 4: notice is that on the boat it's only men, and
Speaker 4: it's is it's very strange.
Speaker 2: And monks and the day tripping monks on their way
Speaker 2: back or they've.
Speaker 4: Been, you know, they might have been on a I
Speaker 4: don't know, they might have been to criticize the pope
Speaker 4: or something because they're Greek Orthodox mostly there's some Russian
Speaker 4: Orthodox as well.
Speaker 3: But and then the boat does some stock.
Speaker 4: A lot of the monasteries are on the sea and
Speaker 4: they have their own like jetties or their own like harbor,
Speaker 4: not Harbor's, but they're their own docking stations and we
Speaker 4: got off the one that I was staying at, and
Speaker 4: there were these it was just something out of the
Speaker 4: Middle Ages. There were these monks in like these smocks
Speaker 4: who were going through their fishing nets and they had
Speaker 4: sea urchins. They'd been catching sea urchins and there's some
Speaker 4: fish and then you're there and it's like it's just
Speaker 4: full on. They had their own their own clock, they
Speaker 4: have their own time system. It doesn't align with what
Speaker 4: we consider to be the twenty four hour clock. They're
Speaker 4: thirteen days behind in the calendar. The food is spartan.
Speaker 4: The place we were at, what they were like no phones,
Speaker 4: no drinking, no smoking, you can't talk, and meal times
Speaker 4: you're up at three in the morning.
Speaker 3: To go to like services. That the thing I enjoyed.
Speaker 3: I love the music. I love the spiritual singing.
Speaker 2: It's going to say, did you go there with a
Speaker 2: view to going on like a kind of mind retreat?
Speaker 2: Was that the idea?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And also I was just I was thinking, I just
Speaker 4: felt curious about it as a place because it's just
Speaker 4: a kind of in the same way, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to go to Mongolia. I want to go I
Speaker 4: want to do trips that I feel like interesting basically
Speaker 4: mind expanding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just yeah, that's the kind of travel I enjoy.
Speaker 4: And Mount Athos is just somewhere where I was attracted
Speaker 4: to the ancientness of it and and the austerity of it,
Speaker 4: and the landscape's beautiful. You know. It's like most of
Speaker 4: these monasteries were built like fortresses. They looked like castles
Speaker 4: because of the piracy.
Speaker 3: In the Mediterranean. Yeah. I went there partly to.
Speaker 4: I like, after touring, I like to do to put
Speaker 4: myself in a situation that's going to freak me out,
Speaker 4: Like it is going to be the most direct contrast
Speaker 4: to tour and to all of the excesses of the
Speaker 4: road is to go to a spartan ancient monastic community
Speaker 4: and feel myself, you know, crawl.
Speaker 2: Purging the tour experience, cleanse the body.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, did you find it useful? Did yeah
Speaker 2: come back feeling refreshed?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I came back feeling like different, you know,
Speaker 4: And I enjoyed this.
Speaker 3: Kind of like.
Speaker 4: Changes your sense of self when you're there. You know,
Speaker 4: you think about who you are when you're in London.
Speaker 4: It's like you're attached all that there's all these attachments
Speaker 4: we have as people when we're in a kind of
Speaker 4: developed society in terms of fashion and our phones and
Speaker 4: like how we slot in, we think about ourselves in
Speaker 4: these ways. And when you go to something like that,
Speaker 4: like all of the coordinates and moves and you're just
Speaker 4: just this person, you're just like a You're just a human.
Speaker 3: And I enjoyed that.
Speaker 4: And yeah, and the music, like the singing, the Byzantine singing,
Speaker 4: I find it.
Speaker 3: I think it's cool.
Speaker 2: Did you snap out of those habitual things like that
Speaker 2: we all have checking your phone every minute?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I had to, Yeah, because it just wasn't any signal.
Speaker 3: I try.
Speaker 4: I tried to get online, just rapidly, rabidly trying to
Speaker 4: make it work like a crack addicts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you just did you remind you that you've
Speaker 2: just got a dependency on those kind of things like
Speaker 2: most of you huge.
Speaker 4: I had that in India as well. Actually there wasn't
Speaker 4: really much WiFi where I was. And yeah, just quite
Speaker 4: quickly you realized that I read, you know, I started
Speaker 4: to read books instead, and I was again and I
Speaker 4: used to be a voracious reader. And one of my
Speaker 4: main disappointments in myself is that I feel that I
Speaker 4: don't have the discipline or the attention spam that I
Speaker 4: used to whilst in proximity to the Internet. So I
Speaker 4: find the Internet overridingly seductive, and I don't feel I
Speaker 4: have the will power to withstand it, and that.
Speaker 3: Really bothers me.
Speaker 4: Actually, one of the things I enjoy about being forced
Speaker 4: to be with that WiFi is I remember how much
Speaker 4: I enjoyed living without it, you know, And and the
Speaker 4: time passes differently, reading books and just enjoying that feeling
Speaker 4: of just being a person that's out of reach is enjoyable.
Speaker 2: Did you see the Nils Farm stuff this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I did, Actually I saw that yesterday.
Speaker 2: What did you think of it? So this bit if
Speaker 2: people are listening to this and they don't know what
Speaker 2: that is. Nils Farm, obviously big celebrated musician known for
Speaker 2: his kind of largely sort of ambient music work, said
Speaker 2: this week, I'm going to start I'm going to come
Speaker 2: off social media, starting with Facebook. So I don't like
Speaker 2: the idea.
Speaker 4: That which is the nafest one, isn't it Facebook? Yeah,
Speaker 4: they get rid of the Facebook first. It's the nafest.
Speaker 4: It's the easiest one to cull. Probably, which is the
Speaker 4: least Nath probably Instagram. I feel like Instagram is the
Speaker 4: one that's a bit more edgy, bit more hip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably right. And so he said he's going
Speaker 2: to come off of these one by one because he
Speaker 2: doesn't like the fact that that ultimately they've become the
Speaker 2: way that he speaks to his audience, and he disagrees
Speaker 2: with their politics and the morality around those services, and
Speaker 2: so he's coming off and he wants to communicate with
Speaker 2: the fans in a different way, in a more direct way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's going to be interesting is how he tries
Speaker 4: to or how how are you how he replaces it.
Speaker 4: I think about getting rid of social media a lot,
Speaker 4: and I what I've done is get rid of it
Speaker 4: from my actual devices quite often.
Speaker 2: As ink you go through and you'll just delete I'll
Speaker 2: just delete that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just delete that.
Speaker 4: And I'm close to deleting Facebook permanently. And then I
Speaker 4: have I think this is what you feel ransomed like.
Speaker 4: I have people that I communicate with through Facebook, and
Speaker 4: without it, I probably wouldn't communicate with them at all.
Speaker 4: And that's the that's the little catch that keeps me
Speaker 4: ransomed in And I guess Neil From is reacting to that,
Speaker 4: and I applaud him for it. I wonder, I wonder
Speaker 4: how it's going to work out for him. But I
Speaker 4: think that social media, they they sold us like a
Speaker 4: utopian technology and actually it's just a kind of conniving
Speaker 4: business as any of that. They're just harvesters of how emotions.
Speaker 4: And having said that, I'm a total sucker for it.
Speaker 2: But I think that's the issue, though, isn't it. Everybody
Speaker 2: feels pinched between these two things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that isn't that in itself.
Speaker 4: They've made us feel like that, you know, And I
Speaker 4: think that, So I think good on From for kicking
Speaker 4: back on it and trying to deliberate himself. We'll we'll
Speaker 4: see what he replaces it with or how he will.
Speaker 4: You know, they just have such a monopoly on it
Speaker 4: that it does just feel wrong.
Speaker 3: But at the same times you feel kind of but
Speaker 3: both just on a.
Speaker 4: Pragmatic level, that you'd be losing touch with people and
Speaker 4: that would be bad for your your project or whatever
Speaker 4: it might be the use it for. But also but
Speaker 4: it is addictive, so you feel the lack of it,
Speaker 4: you know, you feel the loss of the little serotonin
Speaker 4: kicks you get from it, from Marty from Warsaw you know,
Speaker 4: liking a post yeah yeah, or Barry from Bogner retweeting
Speaker 4: with a comment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going to be an interesting experiment. I kind of
Speaker 2: think I watch it with interest in like a year's time,
Speaker 2: to see whether it has any effect or whether he
Speaker 2: feels better. I mean, ultimately that's that's probably what he's
Speaker 2: going to measure it by. It's just if he doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like he's beholden to it and he's still also Zuckerberg.
Speaker 4: It's like, particularly with Facebook, I mean all of you,
Speaker 4: all of them, but like Facebook is so.
Speaker 3: It's so clearly like morally they just don't care neither.
Speaker 4: They don't care, they don't pay tax as Zuckerberg didn't
Speaker 4: turn up to the MPs wanted him in for that
Speaker 4: selecting mete. He just doesn't give a shit. And I
Speaker 4: just think that it's a hard company to like Facebook.
Speaker 4: They just seemed they just seem like they just seem
Speaker 4: like the devil's work, don't they a little bit in
Speaker 4: a way They do though, don't they? And also all
Speaker 4: the Cambridge analytics stuff, the fact that they don't they
Speaker 4: don't seem to have a responsible attitude to how how
Speaker 4: information and with political ramification as are spread.
Speaker 3: They just don't. They don't care.
Speaker 4: There's no social responsibility there, they don't. They don't care.
Speaker 2: Do you think they care if loads of people decided
Speaker 2: they were going to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if it hurt their bottom line, it would, But
Speaker 4: I mean it would require probably what like hundreds of
Speaker 4: millions if not, I mean, I don't know how many
Speaker 4: billion people.
Speaker 3: Are there billions of people.
Speaker 2: More than there's certainly more than a billion people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it would require hundreds of millions of people
Speaker 4: to quitit or to be up in arms in some way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'd take notice of that many people did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should talk about some music. Sure, So, got
Speaker 2: a new record coming out next week. It's the first
Speaker 2: of two albums you're released in twenty nineteen. It's ten tracks.
Speaker 2: Ultimately you've recorded twenty tracks. There's ten tracks on each album.
Speaker 2: It's another one coming in the autumn. When you were
Speaker 2: working on all of this music, what made you eventually
Speaker 2: land on the idea of putting out two albums of
Speaker 2: ten tracks as opposed to doing a double album, doing
Speaker 2: a massive, long playlist style album. Why why settle on
Speaker 2: what you've decided to.
Speaker 4: Do it just felt right really like, I don't I'm
Speaker 4: not a massive fan of double albums. There's only probably
Speaker 4: only one or two that I can think of that
Speaker 4: I like. Even when I like them, I always feel
Speaker 4: that the good tracks are overshadowed just by the sheer
Speaker 4: volume of stuff. It's like a Dickens novel. It's always
Speaker 4: a bit too long. It's like a bit of a
Speaker 4: ton You.
Speaker 2: Pick it up and then you have to just put
Speaker 2: it down and finish it another time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you just think like, oh, cheers. You know,
Speaker 4: couldn't you have like given it to me? And I
Speaker 4: don't know, Like it just feels like you're burdening the person.
Speaker 3: So we didn't want to do that.
Speaker 4: And yeah, putting on one just I don't know, I
Speaker 4: just didn't feel I just want a sense of proportion
Speaker 4: to it. So and also we felt that there were
Speaker 4: kind of two We felt that there were two bodies
Speaker 4: of work within the bigger body, like that could see
Speaker 4: that there was two opening tracks, two closing tracks, two centerpieces,
Speaker 4: and that there was a distinctive palette, and there were
Speaker 4: songs that didn't go well together.
Speaker 3: There were songs that one of the.
Speaker 4: Concerns we had when we were at the final stages
Speaker 4: of recording, was like, how will Black Bull go against Cafe?
Speaker 3: Like how will they be on the same record.
Speaker 4: There's such different, such different entities that how are they
Speaker 4: going to ever make something that's coherent? And we want
Speaker 4: to make a coherent, structured record that's got a great
Speaker 4: journey from beginning to end. And so the way of
Speaker 4: doing that was to separate out the tracks that didn't
Speaker 4: work together, and that formed two better cohesive, standard part records,
Speaker 4: but that also fundamentally exist in the same world. I
Speaker 4: don't feel that you've got to the end of the
Speaker 4: album until you get to the end of this the
Speaker 4: end of the second album.
Speaker 3: For me, the full the real closer is the end
Speaker 3: of the second album.
Speaker 4: I feel that I'm done with the world, which is
Speaker 4: the end of the Part one is like the cliffhang.
Speaker 4: It's end of series one, and there's like dot dot
Speaker 4: dot to be continued.
Speaker 3: That's how I think about it.
Speaker 2: It's called Everything Not Say Will Be Lost Part one
Speaker 2: and Part two. So thematically, is it fair to say
Speaker 2: that it's an album or it's a pair or a
Speaker 2: pair of albums, One body of work that explores the
Speaker 2: idea of Nintendo, Nintendo permanency or lack of permanency, the
Speaker 2: things that we might lose if we don't knowish or
Speaker 2: cherish or continue to develop. Is that is that fair?
Speaker 2: And if and if it is, what kind of things
Speaker 2: are you talking about in that respect?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I like the phrase. I didn't.
Speaker 4: I came across the phrase at a certain point and
Speaker 4: didn't didn't think about it as being an album title,
Speaker 4: and then it was one of those mind worms or
Speaker 4: something that kind of get in and you. It would
Speaker 4: just recur at times. I'd think about it and I
Speaker 4: was like that it just stuck with me, and I
Speaker 4: like that. I liked the fact that on the surface
Speaker 4: it's really banal and it comes from this kind of cold,
Speaker 4: un sexy digital place of just reminding you.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like a digital chore chare master.
Speaker 4: But then it's obviously got these these massive romantic resonances
Speaker 4: underneath it, like you're talking about, And Yeah, I just
Speaker 4: thought that it's summed up a lot of the concerns
Speaker 4: on the record, and that as a slogan.
Speaker 3: I like big, big words in album titles.
Speaker 4: I like big titles, you know, Like I think that
Speaker 4: that's clear probably from the titles that we've chosen to
Speaker 4: we like big words. It's not a whole lot of
Speaker 4: nuance necessarily in the album titles, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're quite.
Speaker 2: Falling back on just calling it an album foles yet,
Speaker 2: which is fine, which some bands do by the time
Speaker 2: they reach album five.
Speaker 3: I don't like it. I've never liked that. I think five.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that your only the only time to
Speaker 4: do a self titled release is your first one. I
Speaker 4: take umbrage at bands that do it later on in
Speaker 4: their career because it's just smacks of laziness. Let's not
Speaker 4: get down that road. But but yeah, so yeah, I
Speaker 4: just yeah, I think it just sums up the themes
Speaker 4: and the lyrics.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: He talks a bit about how you had a vision
Speaker 2: in your head when you were writing some of these
Speaker 2: songs about the hollowed out centers of our towns and cities,
Speaker 2: the sort of decimated high street vy can replaced by automation,
Speaker 2: and you know, lack of people and communities. So I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask a bit about your memories of you know,
Speaker 2: do you do you have a sort of nostalgic reminiscence
Speaker 2: when you think of like going to the center of
Speaker 2: town when you were like younger and I don't know,
Speaker 2: going into our Price or HMV and like those that
Speaker 2: feeling like a sort of center of your universe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: I mean, I you know, I always enjoyed going to
Speaker 4: town as one of those kids.
Speaker 3: Was like, I'm going to town month Saturday morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Saturday morning, get back tonight.
Speaker 4: Get on the bus, you know, sort of loiter with
Speaker 4: all the other oiks down outside that they collect be
Speaker 4: or whatever, and you know, put get get a Labrett piercing,
Speaker 4: you know, drink some w k D that you get
Speaker 4: some some man you hassle, yeah, outside bottoms up or whatever.
Speaker 3: I was absolutely like.
Speaker 4: That, and I made some great friends and some enemies
Speaker 4: through that type of physical architecture that used to exist,
Speaker 4: which was like record stores in Oxford definitely was like
Speaker 4: record stores. I used to love going to the bookshops,
Speaker 4: and there was great, great bookshops, none of which really exists.
Speaker 4: There's any a couple. I mean, there's still some great bookshops,
Speaker 4: but not like it used to be. Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: made friends through that, and I felt like I was
Speaker 4: attached to or as part of a bigger kind of
Speaker 4: cultural or subcultural group that was attached to these physical
Speaker 4: landmarks that exist.
Speaker 3: And to me.
Speaker 4: On tour, you know, if we're in a city and
Speaker 4: I know, I can go out and I can walk around,
Speaker 4: I don't care what the weather's like. If I can
Speaker 4: go and walk around, I can get a cup of coffee,
Speaker 4: and there's some record stores and there's some bookshops. I
Speaker 4: enjoyed that process of discovering a city feeling like there's
Speaker 4: those types of sanctuaries in the city. To me, a
Speaker 4: city without that type of shop is it's all just
Speaker 4: prep otherwise, Isn't.
Speaker 2: It stays a bit of your heart sink when you
Speaker 2: just walk past another phone shop or yeah, pound store
Speaker 2: or an Amazon locker union.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Maybe, you know, maybe for somebody else, a phone shop
Speaker 4: phones for you, they get off on that, you know,
Speaker 4: and that's where they want to hang out and they
Speaker 4: want to talk to other people about the latest android.
Speaker 4: But for me, I find that thoroughly, thoroughly depressing proposition.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I just was attracted to this idea.
Speaker 4: Of putting these these scapes into the songs. And definitely
Speaker 4: like the neighborhood I live in London's there's lots of Foxes.
Speaker 3: I know this fox is all.
Speaker 4: Over London, but I feel like there's a particularly precocious
Speaker 4: brigade of foxes where I live. They've almost formed the union.
Speaker 4: It feels like they're just out there in marauding teams, but.
Speaker 2: You can always hear them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean in mating season.
Speaker 4: It's like yeah, and I just yeah, I wanted to
Speaker 4: I wanted to represent them in the record. I want
Speaker 4: to to represent the old, decaying Victorian railway bridges and
Speaker 4: the litter and the foxes and the weeds that are
Speaker 4: springing up, and the weird foam they put in in
Speaker 4: shop windows when it's closing down, but you know, some
Speaker 4: Moreley's chicken bones out clogging up the drain and that
Speaker 4: type of like particularly British detritus. I just wanted to
Speaker 4: tap into that and then and transform it into something
Speaker 4: that's beautiful that forms the landscape for the songs in
Speaker 4: a way.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a bit about you getting out on the
Speaker 2: road again, because I know you're excited to do that
Speaker 2: because it's been in Foles terms quite a while since
Speaker 2: you've been out since the last record. Walter's obviously left
Speaker 2: bass player Walter are on good terms and you're not
Speaker 2: going to replace with a new permanent member. But you
Speaker 2: have got Germany from everything everything coming out with you
Speaker 2: to as a touring bass player. Now that you've started rehearsals,
Speaker 2: how's he slutting in?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah good.
Speaker 4: I was teasing them about is she is yesterday? So
Speaker 4: I think that's a good signifier that he's fitting wearing crocs. No,
Speaker 4: he likes these Clarks. He prefers them as dance or shoes.
Speaker 4: I like these Clark's desert boots and to me they
Speaker 4: look like tee towels that have got a cereal box
Speaker 4: steak to the bottom.
Speaker 3: But he likes them, he says. He tells me that
Speaker 3: the Vibes Cartel wrote a song about them.
Speaker 4: But you know yet, I'm yet to hear it.
Speaker 2: Is he on day one when he came in with you,
Speaker 2: did you give him like an initiation? Did you like
Speaker 2: after the day?
Speaker 4: I didn't give him the look on the first day
Speaker 4: the look the look be taken to the side.
Speaker 2: Before he started.
Speaker 3: He made some mistakes.
Speaker 4: He made some mistakes on the first day and I
Speaker 4: spared him the luk. But come come tuesday, he got
Speaker 4: the luck and and the.
Speaker 3: Way that he dealt with.
Speaker 4: The look was going to be symbolic of how he
Speaker 4: how he's going to continue for the rest of the year.
Speaker 2: Do you think he how is he going to adapt
Speaker 2: to the Foals way of touring.
Speaker 4: I think he's in a relish not having to wear
Speaker 4: one of those tight tunics he's got to wearing all
Speaker 4: the time and everything everything, probably boiler suits something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been teasing, but that would be like telling.
Speaker 4: That he's got to still wears everything, everything outfit, the
Speaker 4: mechanics outfit he's got.
Speaker 3: No. I think he's you know, I think he's really exciting.
Speaker 4: They've been you know, jokes aside, they've been great to
Speaker 4: he's been, he's been great.
Speaker 3: To want to do it.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine wanting to go out on another tour
Speaker 4: after having already been on tour phrasers and certainly touring
Speaker 4: with us as a is tiring and fun. But you know,
Speaker 4: but are we going to take it out of him
Speaker 4: all right? I'll be surprised if there's much left of
Speaker 4: him for everything, everything to use afterwards. We're going to
Speaker 4: ring him out like a sponge.
Speaker 2: If you're just like handing back and just broken, Jeremy
Speaker 2: to it yes, just just a mop. Why was it
Speaker 2: not right to replace Walter with a new permanent member
Speaker 2: of the band.
Speaker 3: I just couldn't. We couldn't. We couldn't even envisage who
Speaker 3: that would be.
Speaker 4: You know, the band to us is the five of us,
Speaker 4: and now with Walter gone, it's the four of us, and.
Speaker 3: That's just what it is.
Speaker 4: It's just like it's you know, it's a family. It's
Speaker 4: like you can't just sort of graft somebody onto it. Also,
Speaker 4: now you know, there was more room to maneuver in
Speaker 4: them recording.
Speaker 3: It was kind of liberating in us having that extra
Speaker 3: root leg room.
Speaker 4: Walter was a tour guy and he took a couple
Speaker 4: lot of space, and now it's it's better extra oxygen now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, then there's more bunks in the bus.
Speaker 4: You know, each of us get a little bit more money,
Speaker 4: and there's more space in this stud there's better oxygen.
Speaker 2: On the tour in front. With the release of two
Speaker 2: albums this year, have you considered doing any shows where
Speaker 2: you're going to play both albums in their entirety, say,
Speaker 2: with an infal in the middle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we haven't really got to that stage yet,
Speaker 4: but I hope that towards the end of the touring cycle,
Speaker 4: once both albums are out, that we will do some
Speaker 4: sort of perhaps something special as it were, where we
Speaker 4: do the two albums. Yeah, and then maybe with some
Speaker 4: old songs, you know, in the encore or Yeah. I
Speaker 4: think that would be cool, But we don't really have
Speaker 4: a plan for that. All we really know at the
Speaker 4: moment is I think we're going to largely focus on
Speaker 4: album one for the first half of this year, and
Speaker 4: then you know, we probably won't play any tracks off
Speaker 4: album too, and let until it's out. Oh okay, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think we're going to wait because partly in rehearsals,
Speaker 4: we just there's so many old bangers. We still want
Speaker 4: to play that without the show becoming too and you know,
Speaker 4: we don't want it to get onto like cure esque
Speaker 4: lengths of three.
Speaker 2: Outs darting at seven o'clock in the evening, and I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I just don't know how he's got the energy
Speaker 3: for that. I just can't. I can't.
Speaker 4: You know, we want to play, We want to play
Speaker 4: great shows, and also just think, out of respect for
Speaker 4: the music, it's better just to hear on record first
Speaker 4: most rather than on somebody's MP two upload.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to pump you for information about what
Speaker 2: festivals you are aren't doing. I'm interested to know big
Speaker 2: movie music events happening later this year. Obviously Storms, he's
Speaker 2: head down in Glastonbury for your first time.
Speaker 3: That's wicked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to ask, what do you think
Speaker 2: of that?
Speaker 4: I think it's wicked. I like Storms a lot, and
Speaker 4: I think that it's good. It's just good for British
Speaker 4: music in general. It's good for grime and like UK
Speaker 4: hip hop, but it's also just good for British music.
Speaker 3: It's just fresh, it's exciting.
Speaker 4: I'm interested to see, like how the show will be
Speaker 4: and how, you know, how he's gonna It's a big crowd,
Speaker 4: like to command. I'm sure he'll do He's going to
Speaker 4: do a great job, but it's definitely like something where
Speaker 4: you go you've got it's one hundred and you know
Speaker 4: how fifty thousand people in that crowd in the Pyramid stage.
Speaker 3: So but I think it's just yeah, I think it's good.
Speaker 4: I think Glastonbury's bills are great and I think it's
Speaker 4: important that a festival of that size can champion relatively
Speaker 4: you know, he's not really that new, but it's not
Speaker 4: like he's not a heritage actors.
Speaker 3: He so I think that's good.
Speaker 4: It's like they're taking risks and they're creatively pushing boundaries
Speaker 4: in terms of their choices, and it's alongside, you know,
Speaker 4: alongside the more classic choices.
Speaker 3: But I think, I think that's cool.
Speaker 2: I've got a theory, or rather I've got an opinion
Speaker 2: that Glastonbury should only ever book headliners once because I
Speaker 2: think like there's a special energy about getting that chance once.
Speaker 2: And I don't think an artist has ever gone back
Speaker 2: to Glastonbury a second or a third time as a
Speaker 2: headliner and never been better than.
Speaker 3: The first time. That's interesting.
Speaker 2: Is there something to be said for What I'm interested
Speaker 2: to know is when you get to do things multiple times, like,
Speaker 2: for example, once you've played a venue more than once,
Speaker 2: is there a special feeling you get from doing something
Speaker 2: for the first time, Like would it be thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: you played a show at Wembley Arena for example a
Speaker 2: few years ago, would you go back to Wembley Arena?
Speaker 2: Would it be the same if you've turned up there
Speaker 2: for a second time? Or is there something kind of
Speaker 2: inescapably exciting about doing something for the first time?
Speaker 3: I think if the show is great.
Speaker 4: We've had shows there's not even necessarily a big show,
Speaker 4: but we like there's one. There's a couple of like
Speaker 4: smaller shows we played back in the day where we
Speaker 4: just had great shows there for whatever reason, they just
Speaker 4: there was a vibe. And then we went back to
Speaker 4: those venues for a second time and totally it always
Speaker 4: it never exceeded the expectation, And it's very rare that
Speaker 4: you ever like.
Speaker 3: Because you build up in your mind.
Speaker 4: So I think there's something there's something magical about doing
Speaker 4: something the first time. Unless you didn't feel that it
Speaker 4: was you didn't have that really, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: mind playing the same place twice. It's just if you're
Speaker 4: trying to chase this magical, magical event that you can,
Speaker 4: you can find that it's it's crestfalling or something.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think that lightning any strikes once.
Speaker 4: Right, That's what they say They say that, yeah them, Yeah,
Speaker 4: those people, yeah them.
Speaker 2: Not because we've known each other a long time. I'm
Speaker 2: just interested to get a few thoughts on just obviously
Speaker 2: you're here talking about a new record that you're about
Speaker 2: to put out, but the very early days of fALS
Speaker 2: We've talked about this before, but.
Speaker 4: You're always going to take it back to Guildford or
Speaker 4: wherever it was, don't the Star and.
Speaker 2: Garter half of Marquee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just it's like, yeah, exactly, love it. What
Speaker 3: was that band that we played with?
Speaker 4: And they they they like came with their sort of
Speaker 4: Sony publishing deal and there they're matching moccasins and it
Speaker 4: was like they had a huge There was a lot
Speaker 4: of branding and it was all preemptive, wasn't it, because
Speaker 4: no one can remember them now.
Speaker 2: I don't know who the band was that night, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember they did bring they.
Speaker 3: There was there was like a backdrop and stuff.
Speaker 2: There was you know, a Thursday night in Harvard and
Speaker 2: it was about twenty five people there.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, good times.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. I mean that's the question really fond memories,
Speaker 2: like what what? What are the vivid memories view of
Speaker 2: just those first like eighteen months of foals before antidotes
Speaker 2: came out.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 4: It was exciting, it was pretty wild. I remember being
Speaker 4: pretty cold a lot. We were we had this red
Speaker 4: you know, we had this would saved up this postal
Speaker 4: Vans read postal ban and Jimmy managed to open the
Speaker 4: top of it like a tin candlid by going into
Speaker 4: a car park that was too low and then we
Speaker 4: just froze our asses off from this thing. And it
Speaker 4: had a brain as well. It literally had this sort
Speaker 4: of exposed circuitry that we were using as an astray
Speaker 4: and we were listening to a lot of Kitsune Kitsune mixtape,
Speaker 4: mixed CDs or whatever and Edmund's closed on the back.
Speaker 4: I remember there was always there was always you'd go
Speaker 4: to get get a piece of music equipment. It would
Speaker 4: always be you'd always get a bit of ed and
Speaker 4: Edwin's sock, a loose sock attached to an amp or
Speaker 4: attached to a plectrum. And yeah, that was kind of
Speaker 4: the vibe. There was a lot of excitement. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of anticipation. I felt that we were onto
Speaker 4: something exciting. We were kind of nervous, we were like
Speaker 4: anxious about the future in some ways.
Speaker 3: And we were, but yeah, it was it was a
Speaker 3: good time. It was a good time.
Speaker 4: It was also contrasted by like going out onto the
Speaker 4: road for these kind of long weekends and playing and
Speaker 4: then go back to our parents' houses in between and
Speaker 4: there was something very There was something like conflicting about
Speaker 4: going out and being like men of the road, where
Speaker 4: boys of the road and living it up and then
Speaker 4: going back kind of tail between the legs, back to
Speaker 4: mum and then downplaying everything that had happened and asking for.
Speaker 3: Money as well. I've been like Mum and I borrow
Speaker 3: a tenor.
Speaker 4: I remember being broke, like we were super you know,
Speaker 4: everything costs us money and we were making our own badgers.
Speaker 4: Everything was quite diy. I remember like putting a lot
Speaker 4: of time into all of that.
Speaker 3: It was good.
Speaker 4: It was a good time. But I definitely am glad
Speaker 4: I'm not still having to deal with Edwind's loose socks.
Speaker 2: What would your mum say when you went back home
Speaker 2: and you were like, I just played the house show
Speaker 2: at four am in in Elephant and the Castle. Would
Speaker 2: she be excited about that? Or would she be like,
Speaker 2: can you not make so much noise when you come
Speaker 2: in next time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mum.
Speaker 4: Actually, we used to have like metal you know, we
Speaker 4: had the locks on the bathroom door were with there
Speaker 4: were metal you know, they were like a key type system,
Speaker 4: and my mum changed it to this tacky plastic one.
Speaker 4: So it wouldn't wake her up. But I think that
Speaker 4: was saying quite a lot. My mom wasn't that particularly.
Speaker 4: She was quite stomic about the band. She was fairly.
Speaker 4: She's quite guarded about it, unlike say Jimmy's folks, who
Speaker 4: have always been like, they come to the shows they like,
Speaker 4: they rock up with the Foals gear, you know, the
Speaker 4: Foals shoes to the full on, like decked out in
Speaker 4: merch and my mom in the audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And my mom has only come to like a couple
Speaker 4: of shows, not because she doesn't like it, but just
Speaker 4: do you think she.
Speaker 2: Just wants to give you the space.
Speaker 4: No, I don't think so, because she doesn't like to
Speaker 4: give me space and other aspects of my life. So
Speaker 4: I think it's more just that she she finds to.
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