Foals Singer Yannis Philippakis Contrasts the Internal and External Changes of the Band
Matt Matasci
A little more than a year after British rock band Foals released “What Went Down,” they are ready to embark on another tour. Despite the reputation of the acclaimed fourth LP as the group’s heaviest, it has also been their most commercially successful. They continue to evolve from their underground roots and bring originality to a mostly-stale modern rock scene. Lead singer and guitarist, Yannis Philippakis, spoke with Entertainment Voice about the creation of “What Went Down” and taking the songs on the road.
How do you feel “What Went Down” grew your sound from the previous three records?
I thought that the songwriting was slightly more developed. I thought that in terms of the vocals there was a lot of growth with the melodies. The lyrics are at the forefront, directing the songs more than they have been in the past. On a more basic level there’s an added intensity in these songs. When we’re playing live now and pulling songs from multiple records, the live show just goes up a gear. There are new tunnels that the sound goes down that we can get lost in. There are new dimensions to what the band does.
A few albums into your career, has your creative process changed at all?
Yeah if you go back to the first record, it is now markedly different than we were back then. We were just young scamps who didn’t know what we were doing. We were quite naïve, in a way that a lot of new bands are. We definitely got a bit more, I don’t know, sophisticated, but I think that is kind of a dirty word. I think it’s a good exercise to try and go back to that place you wrote from when you were younger and where you were just doing hack, shit-job structures on songs and not really thinking. Kind of unlearn the things. It’s quite a rewarding way of thinking, not let them get too polished.
When Foals started out you were associated with the underground post-punk sound, but are now one of the most well-known names in modern rock. How has that transition affected the band?
Well, quite gradually. It depends on what aspect you are talking about really. Because I feel that internally we are very much the same. Obviously we are playing shows that are far bigger. A lot of the scenery around us has changed. We’re in a world that we didn’t ever really expect to be in. At the same time internally I think we are really quite similar to how we were in the beginning. I don’t feel like the intent has changed. We made four records and I think that some of the songs are more accessible because we’ve been around longer and we’ve got a reputation as a live band so they just kind of got bigger.
How do you feel these new songs translate to the live setting versus your older material?
More primal, so they kind of stepped right out of the studio onto the stage with very little effort. They weren’t conceived with the stage necessarily in mind. But I think the way that they were written with the five of us in the room and very little overdubs or much studio trickery, performing those is easiest. There are some other songs like “Albatross” and “Night Swimmers” where they are very difficult for us to play without resorting to backing tracks and computers, which we try to avoid. Unfortunately we can’t really play those songs live without compromising what we feel the show is, so we basically don’t play them.
Do you have plans to start writing the next record or are you just focusing on the tour at hand?
Yeah, we started writing “What Went Down” while we were still touring behind the previous record and there was a real appetite to do that at the time. But we didn’t realize that it would kind of mean we were essentially on the road for about four years, basically. So we are definitely looking forward to taking a little bit of a break, just live some real life again and to have something to write about. I don’t feel like I’m in the right place to write music at the moment. I want to stop and take a break, do some laundry.