FOALS frontman Yannis Philippakis describes making album number five as “jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and having to figure out how to land”.
The bearded singer and guitarist with the Oxford band says: “Ten years in, when you have made a number of records, you have to find a way of keeping it vital.”
Alex Knowles
Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 is, as the title suggests, the first of two records, the second of which will be released in September.
It’s a brilliant album with frenetic guitars mixed with electronica and impressive lyrics reflecting the world today.
Standout tracks are ferocious first single Exits, the hazy electronic Sunday, the exhilarating On The Luna and In Degrees which Philippakis, 32, describes as “Foals going for the jugular of dance music”.
He adds: “We’ve always flirted with dance music and it was time for a no-holds-barred dance floor track.”
Alex Knowles
When Foals finished touring, they took a break and mid-2017 Philippakis decided to get away and go travelling.
Sitting outside his local in Peckham, South London, chatting over a G&T, Philippakis says: “When we are touring we stay up late and drink and enjoy being on the road.
“The shows themselves take a lot out of us, so we really needed to get away from each other rather than to go back into the studio. We needed time to daydream and get bored and have space away from it all.
“I went to Greece, to Karpathos near Crete, where my dad is from. The village is up a mountain, a world away from being in a band.
“It’s very traditional and sometimes I will visit a bar there and they’ll whack on a Foals track which is embarrassing.
“My younger cousins make a fuss but the older family members aren’t as sold on my band.”
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Disappearing for a while proved fruitful for the singer who studied English at Oxford University, although he dropped out before graduating.
During his travels he also visited the monasteries of Mount Athos and experienced sleeping in monks’ cells.
He says: “Having some time away and totally different experiences meant that when I came back to writing, the urge to write was a genuine one.
“Getting away was good for me in a lot of ways.”
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Lyrically, the album is also a step up, too. Philippakis says that unlike other records where he had to dig deep to get to the themes he wanted to write about, with this one a lot of the lyrics came knocking.
He said: “We were in the studio for a long time though so the ideas had time to marinate.”
Subject-wise there are dark themes through Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part 1 and first single Exits deals with Brexit, with lyrics about living underground.
Philippakis, a Remainer, says: “I felt like the ideas I was attracted to writing about were ones that you can’t escape. Being able to write lyrics that resonate to what is going on now was important.
“There is a Black Mirror vibe in some of the songs and a book I took influence from was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but I’m not writing about a dystopian future. I’m dealing with the present day.
“There are Silicon Valley billionaires buying up land in New Zealand to build habitable bunkers for the future. Every time you open a newspaper or go online you read about the bee population plummeting, or an island of plastic the size of France in the Pacific.
“The level of surveillance going on . . . these things are happening now. I hate the lack of compassion of today.
“In Oxford, one of the most barbaric things I saw was the anti-homeless spikes that have been installed.
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And looking back on the lyrics there is this repetitive theme of mazes and labyrinths. That is subconsciously tapping into the confusion.
“We are faced by these massive problems and there is no clear, right solution.”
The band was dealt a blow at the start of making the record when bassist Walter Gervers announced he wanted to leave
“We definitely didn’t see it coming,” says Philippakis.
“But at the same time, we’d known for a long time that he had other demands in his life. He has a family and is further down the road of adulthood than we are in terms of responsibility.”
Philippakis says he did try to talk him out of quitting but knew Gervers’ mind was made up.
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He says: “I tried to probe how seriously he felt and it quickly became clear that he had made his mind up.
“Getting to the end of touring (2015 album) What Went Down, I think he felt like Foals has taken over his life in a way that continues to make that type of commitment. We’ve been doing this for a decade and there’s no signs of it stopping. So he left and we carried on as a four.
“We didn’t want to replace him, as that would feel wrong. What it did do, though, is change the way we worked. Edwin and I played bass and so the main thing then was thinking how best to write the record.
“There was never any question about whether we would do it, just about how to do it.”
2017 Gaelle Beri
With Gervers leaving, Philippakis says Foals — guitarist Jimmy Smith, drummer Jack Bevan and Edwin Congreave on keyboards — “were pushed out of their comfort zone”.
He explains: “We’d wanted to undergo some change before we started and so we sacked off the Oxford studio. That meant we just worked in the [London] recording studio, listening to the speakers rather than being in a room making a ruckus.
“And losing a member has made us tighter.
“It makes you think how important the remaining members are. And I never thought that going from an odd number to an even-number band would matter but there’s something about the dynamic, the discussions and the casting vote.
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There has definitely been some changes in the feelings within the group — even the photos look better now there is the four of us.”
Philippakis also produced ENSWBL — Part 1 though he admits he was reluctant at first.
He says: “It was a worry. It wasn’t my idea. It was Jack who was quite insistent about us trying to work without anyone outside. We have benefited a lot from working with a producer in the past but we are five albums in — it was time.
“I’m really thankful that Jack pushed me to do it, even though it was double the work for me, because it has made for a better record.”
Final track I’m Done With The World (And It’s Done With Me) is what Philippakis describes as “getting p***ed off with the news”.
He explains: “There is a sense of confrontation in the lyrics and an energy to the song that is us blowing off steam. I want it to be like, I am actually just exhausted by it.
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“And that track leads into the second album, which is a response to that track. It kicks off with a lot of energy and a lot of urgency but it flips around. There is a sense of perseverance in the songs at the start of album two.”
After a few low-key fan shows the band heads out on tour across the US in two weeks and returns to Europe in May including a big UK tour in June.
Philippakis says the shows are going to be something special.
“We are working with lighting designer Tobias Rylander [who worked with The 1975 on their latest tour]. We are designing a whole new type of stage to go with the album artwork, which is about red. While we are on tour, the second album drops so the colour scheme changes.”
Alex Knowles
Heading back inside the pub, Philippakis says: “Taking a break and getting away meant we have returned hungrier than ever to a different world than it was making the last album. It’s been an important, productive time making these two albums and shows why music is important in these times.
“I think songwriters and artists have a responsibility in general to grapple with the here and now at a political and social level because s**t is f***ed up.
“It’s important for creativity to step up to that level and engage with it.”
FOALS Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1
★★★★★
- Moonlight
- Exits
- White Onions
- In Degrees
- Syrups
- On The Luna
- Cafe d’Athens
- Surf, Part 1
- Sunday
- I’m Done With The World (And It’s Done With Me)
- Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 is out today, followed by Part 2 in the autumn.
