Interview: Foals

The UK’s alt-rock favourites Foals are back with their seventh studio album Life Is Yours, but their first as a three-piece outfit.

Created through London lockdowns, Yannis Philippakis, Jack Bevan and Jimmy Smith transported themselves and now listeners to a utopian place for escapism.

“Personally speaking, I was stuck in London for a year away from my girlfriend, so it was like, it could have been unbelievably bleak. You know, the setting was awful and it was like winter in London for most of it. It was just absolutely heinous,” said guitarist Jimmy Smith.

“We’re like, let’s just play all the stuff that feels really good to play because that’s all we want to do right now. I couldn’t listen or want to listen to long heavy songs with deep emotional impact. I just really pulled away from all heavy music, emotionally. And it was like, come on. Can we just do like a, just a fun album?”

It’s also the first album the 17-year-old band has used multiple producers on, a 180 from Yannis taking the production lead on their previous two collections.

“Yannis this time was like, ‘You know what? I think I might give that a break for a minute.’ Cause it’s quite a lot of work, especially when he decided to do a double album,” Jimmy said.

You can hear across the record that an enjoyable journey was equally as important as the outcome, both sonically and thematically.

The band is currently touring the album with audiences experiencing this intimately-woven pleasure in real life, including crowds at Glastonbury, Europe and fingers-crossed, soon Australia.

Catch our full chat with Jimmy Smith below:

Life Is Yours by Foals is OUT NOW.

This article was originally published by The AU Review.