The first in a new series of short interviews on Qthemusic.com, Q catches up with Foals mainman Yannis Philipakis for a quick chat about their recent Ivor Novello nomination (for their seven minute epic, Spanish Sahara), playing in Japan and their upcoming festival appearances.
Congratulations on the nomination. How did you feel when you found out?
We were overjoyed and quite surprised. There's not many music awards out there really look at the lyrical content and things like that, so it was nice to be noticed in that way.
Did you feel it was sort of deserved after being beaten by The xx for the Mercury Music Prize?
Not really to be honest. It was a great year for us, and the nomination was more like a pat on the back from and older cousin, you know? It was cool to be acknowledged like that.
Do the accolades and good reception from the record make you feel like you have more freedom from the label with the next record?
We never really felt that way about the label. It was more after we put out Antidotes that we got a little nervous. We always have to progress, that's the challenge. It's easy to stay in your comfort zone. Eventually we want to get to a point where we don't even need to really discuss what's coming next, we can just tell between us.
A lot of people would've heard the radio edit of Spanish Sahara and perhaps not the full track. How do you feel about that?
It never really occurred to me as an issue. I don't think that many people will have heard the radio edit without having heard the full track. But yeah, you spend 6 months or so creating this piece of music, only for it to be cut down and edited for commerce - because that's the only reason, commerce. In a way, though, it's good, because it exposes more people to it.
You were in Japan touring recently. How did you find it?
It was great. We've been a few times before, and we really enjoy playing there. The culture makes it a pretty memorable experience. It's quite pleasantly alienating, because the fans there are so fanatical.
And are you looking forward to your UK festival shows this year?
Yeah, we're really excited about playing the festivals this year. Particularly Wireless, to see Pulp. We're quite excited about Latitude, too. It'll be good to play in the UK again after a while away.
Any news on the new record?
I think it's too early to tell at this point. I'm not really confident enough to say. We're not the sort of band to sit at the back of the tour bus with acoustic guitars and write like that. It's a longer process, more like an accumulation of experiences that then kind of translate into the songwriting. Substance is really important, and if you have no experiences to go on, nothing to write about, then we won't be able to create the sound we really want.
Interview: Joe Bishop
4:23 PM | 04/05/2011
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