Foals
Words: Karley Sciortino
Photos: Maria Elisa Gomez
Five scruffy, sweating kids all face each other, jolting about a stage as if caught in some fucked-up, party-induced earthquake. It’s the perfect image to partner the soundtrack of Foals’ intricate, mathematical, body-convulsing dance music. In an industry where trends come and go like the number 12 bus, it’s refreshing to see a band who are so devoted to the music they make that it’s almost impossible not to fall head over high-heals in love with them at the first strum of an electric guitar. Still barely into their 20s, this quintet of geniuses are making it quite clear they’re in this for the long haul.
I had the pleasure of talking with Yannis (guitar/vocals), Jimmy (guitar/keyboards), Walter (bass), Jack (drums), and Edwin (keyboards): five talented, humble, and intelligent musicians, following their first gig on the Transgressive Roadshow tour last September. In a freezing cold warehouse in Manchester, they spoke eloquently and enthusiastically about their love of techno, their resentment of scenes, and their diligent lifestyle. Foals spent some time this summer in Brooklyn recording with Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio.
How long have you guys been around?
Yannis: We formed in May of 2006. We’ve all played together a bit before in various different groups, but we’ve only been together in this format since May.
You’ve recently signed to Transgressive Records after being together only six months. Do you think bands nowadays get signed earlier in their careers than they used to?
Yannis: I don’t think any of us are very aware of the way trends in the industry work at all. I do, however, think there’s a danger in bands getting signed too early because it’s very easy to think you’ve achieved your goals when you get signed, and perhaps slack off. But hopefully we won’t play into that danger and carry on like we always have been, which is just to work hard and make the music that we like to make, regardless of pressures concerning labels and management.
Why did you choose to sign to Transgressive? Do you feel an affinity with any of the other bands on the label?
Yannis: We feel more of an affinity to Tim and Toby [co-founders of Transgressive Records] than to the other bands on the label. They have a real passion and enthusiasm, as well as a great ethical policy. There were other labels interested whose rosters of bands we perhaps felt more of a connection to, but ultimately
I think it’s about where you feel at home.
Edwin: Transgressive signs bands because they like them and because they want other people to like them, rather than some sort of financial security. That’s really good for us because we want to keep our creative control.
Now that you’re signed, are you going to give up your jobs?
Yannis: We gave up our jobs a little bit too early. We’ve been fucking hungry for the last three months.
Where did the name “Foals” come from?
Yannis: We like horses, and there’s something pretty in the idea of a newborn thing that’s still wet from the uterus. It’s innocent.
What are your favourite animals?
Edmond: Butterfly.
Walter: Beaver.
Jimmy: Blue shark.
Yannis: Hummingbird.
Jack: Capybara. It’s a big rodent.
What are your ambitions as a band?
Yannis: With Foals we are trying to communicate something to an audience, and get people dancing. We like the idea of music having a function, and people reacting to it in a physical way. Ultimately we want to make guitar-based music that aspires to be in some way like techno. We see a beauty in cleanliness and precision.
Who are your idols?
Yannis: I really like Andy Roddick. He’s the all-American hero, as well as the most beautiful tennis player of all time. In his words, “There is no plan B.” He’ll never win another Grand Slam. Such tragedy.
Both singer/guitarist Yannis and drummer Jack were both previously in The Edmund Fitzgerald. Do you feel Foals is a natural progression?
Yannis: Yes definitely. We were in Ed Fitz when we were 15 and 16 years old, and it’s inevitable that your musical opinions and tastes change as you get older. When we were 15 we stayed home and listened to Skinny Puppy. At 18 we went out and got involved in more dance-oriented scenes. There’s only so much you can gain from playing stuff that no one’s ever going to get.
If you could put on your ideal festival, who would you get to play?
Walter: Whoa, there’s just so many. Probably Smashing Pumpkins, Blue Oyster Cult, and The Cure.
Jimmy: Mark Knopfler from the original Dire Straits, Radiohead for my own self-indulgence, and Haddaway.
Jack: Mice Parade, Plaid, and Battles.
Yannis: Glen Branker, Basher Funker, and Skinny Puppy.
Being from Oxford, do you think bands from London have better chance of being recognized?
Yannis: London is so contained and there’s such a massive music scene there that I think it’s good to come in as the outsider and let people get a taste of you, and then leave and come back a month later, while slowly building up a fanbase. I don’t think any one of us like the idea of a scene. Bands play two shows and they wear the right clothes and know the right people and suddenly they get this pseudo fame, which is often undeserved. I feel lucky that we’ve done it the way we have. There’s nothing better about London than anywhere else, and I think the bands they produce, if anything, are more susceptible to fashions and trends, which for me isn’t what music is about at all. Like, fuck it. Go play at a house party to a bunch of people with cleft pallets, have a good time and get to know everyone. Who cares about playing the ‘right’ show in Shoreditch for people who over-compensate?
Jimmy: Some of the best shows we’ve played have been in these weird, crazy, backwards towns. It’s really exciting because the crowd doesn’t know who we are, and we can introduce ourselves. If we can impress upon one person at a show in Hertford, then that enough for us. It was worth the trip.
Website: myspace.com/foals