Foals’ singer Yannis Philippakis has the perfect Brexit analogy

Foals’ Yannis Philippakis wants kids, hates Brexit and is adamant their live show is the best it’s ever been.

Vertically-challenged rockstars. There’s just something about them.

Kylie, Prince, Samuel T Herring from Future Islands, Angry Anderson, Elton John. All tiny dancers.

There are more than you think — it’s just a little hard to see them. And so we have Foals’ leader Yannis Barnabus Emanuel Philippakis. 170cms. 5 foot 7. Same height as Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day.

Philippakis is an imposing figure whose had an “eff you” chip on his shoulder since the Oxford band began 15 years ago. Diminutive and dangerous.

We’re lucky Philippakis hasn’t been smashed to smithereens. Yannis regularly goes out into the crowd to press the flesh. Only a few weeks ago he became a French fly, stage-diving at a venue with a tragic history.

Lucky he’s a little tacker.

“In terms of gnarly, we played the Bataclan a few weeks ago and I jumped off the balcony there and it was … high,” he says with a sexy confidence.

“The promoters said they’d never seen anyone do that before.”

How much did he build it up before he leapt?

“Just enough so it was safe. It’s like wrestling, you’ve gotta go off the high rope at the right time.

Foals have a new album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1 and will dive right into an Australian tour.

“It’s not going to happen every night by any means but I just feel now that the shows get that intense that they need an appropriate physical ending. That’s how the show makes me feel.”

He’s a small dude who talks up a big game.

“This new stuff’s going to decimate venues,” he offers of fifth album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1. The record deals with themes of climate change, media fury and potential parenthood.

I’m chatting to him as he prepares a pot of coffee in his home in metropolitan Peckham.

“I don’t have kids but I’d like to. I’d like to have children that can run around a forest that’s populated with animals. I’m thinking about the future a lot.”

Foals — UK rock band with new album Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1

Foals’ big-game intensity has seen them scale festival bills, creeping up to headliner status. The art-rock quintet have been nominated for Mercury Prize and Brit Awards, been on the front covers of all the music mags and stayed ahead of the indie rock pack.

They’re returning for Splendour In the Grass and sideshows. “The Splendour shows are always euphoric. I remember the first time we played we had a great show then I went and watched the Grizzly Bear side-stage after buying a knock-off Christian Dior pink hoodie.

“It was raining and I was hanging with the guys from Jagwar Ma and it was an idyllic experience. That hoodie is my favourite festival purchase of all time.”

Foals lost an original member, Walter Gervers, hiding directly behind them to the left.

“The last time we weren’t meant to play and we got a call a few weeks beforehand and we were on the main stage. And because it came out of the blue it made it even more special.”

Yannis is happy to give a few lines about Foals’ contemporaries on the bill.

“Tame Impala are incredible. I saw them a few weeks ago. Their live show is one of the best I’ve seen in a really long time, it’s going to be a great homecoming show for them,” he says.

“Childish Gambino I’ve never met, everyone’s watched This Is America, it’s a genius piece of work. I really like Courtney Barnett, I’ve hung out with her at a festival, she’s amazing.” What about your countrymen? Lay back and think of England.

“James Blake’s gonna be bringing that voice all the way over from London with a juicy sub.

Catfish and The Bottlemen? I’ve never seen them play, I’m, um, excited to hear some distorted guitars.”

Frequent visitors to our shores, Foals have had a slight line-up change. Original bassist Walter Gervers decided being in the band wasn’t his total life forever.

“It’s more difficult than you think to find a bass player that can sing falsetto,” says Philippakis. Everything Everything’s Jeremy Pritchard was chosen.

“The main job with that was trying to persuade Everything Everything that we wouldn’t steal Jeremy forever. We had to sign lots of binding legal documents. We had to promise on a menagerie of crystals.

“Jeremy’s a proper musician too; he knows note names. He’ll be like ‘That’s a G-Sharp,’ and we’ll be scratching our heads.

“I was doing improv jams and he just innately slotted in, he’s got a great sense of rhythm. He complements our drummer Jack Bevan and the show is better than it’s ever been.”

Foals’ nightly set-lists were already bursting at the seams with jams My Number, What Went Down, Inhaler, Spanish Sahara etc. Now, Foals have a slew of new bangers vying for team selection: Exits, White Onions, In Degrees, Cafe D’Athens.

“The show is fresh off the grill at the moment. The new songs are sounding great.

“We’ve brought in old songs like Black Gold that we haven’t played for years. At the moment we’re squeezing the most out of the new material and finding older cuts that complement that.”

On The Luna has a feminine energy reminiscent of Mick Jagger. Philippakis considers the assessment.

“Yeah, I think there’s a feminine energy coming through subconsciously. When I would sing it full voice at the top of my range it felt a bit heavy handed. It was trial and error.

“This whole album was about trying to find the cross section between contrasts. On the most euphoric songs often the lyrics are at their darkest. I wanted there to be a sense of humour in the song, some wordplay and a bounce and levity.”

The Rapture meets Rage Against The Machine groove of Exits is about you-know-what.

“Brexit informed the album, it couldn’t not. I’ve been glad to be on tour for the last few years. The vibe here in the UK is not good. The country (England) and the world is having to face an identity crisis. It’s pulling in three different directions at the same time,” he says, before coming up with a salient observation.

“The UK has felt like you’ve been stuck in a household where your parents are headed for divorce but they’re still stuck in the arguing phase. I’ve managed to escape that teenage hellhole for a while.”

Exits came from jamming. “We were playing around in the room and Jeff flipped the beat, he cut it to a half speed thing. Then we became transfixed by this groove and played it for hours and hours and I was throwing up lyric ideas. I’d been writing poems separately in a journal and I was trying to write about being trapped and having the exits covered. In my mind the song Exits is a subterranean labyrinth.

“It was about being in a path difficult to navigate, it taps into the problems were constantly confronted with in the news that you end up thinking about when you’re on your own. It’s a physical space for the problems we all face.

“We’ve ruined the habitable world and it’s an apology for future generations and an expression of the guilt we all feel and the lack of action.”

Newbie White Onions and oldie Cassius have a similar cathartic kick.

“Definitely! I had the loop and the high guitar part and the bass riff for White Onions. We were playing it with a bass drum. We were all commenting that it felt like a song we could have written in 2008 but we didn’t want to overcook it or over-complicate it. We wanted to keep it as this firecracker of energy. And that’s what that song is; it has a slight menace to it and it’s less calculated. It’s the best of both worlds. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part Two is more like White Onions.”

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Finally, before we let him have some me-time with that coffee, I ask for some acquired wisdom from Foals’ chief nutter. Just a little one.

He smirks.

“Never trust a pistachio out of its shell.”

SEE: Margaret Court Arena, Olympic Blvd, city. Jul 15; Splendour in the Grass, Jul 19-21. sold out. ticketek.com.au

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