Home
sign up| features / music interview |
 content by: editor |
 foals sxsw tour diary
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Stumbling into the world. If expectation weighs heavily on the shoulders of young and frisky, pristine dance-pop five piece Foals, they’re not admitting to it. Having recently returned from South By South-West in Texas, where they both partied and played hard (two shows per day), vocalist/guitarist Yannis Philippakis reveals an admirable grasp of the realities of the annual industry beanfest, despite having good reason to be a bit giddy. Signed to Transgressive Records (home also to The Young Knives and Jeremy Warmsley), Foals are about to release their debut single, Hummer, a chunk of euphoric yet precise, disco-toned art-punk tuneage that will have fans of The Rapture in, well, rapture. While at SXSW, they bagged themselves an American agent and attracted several curious labels – Sub Pop among them – to the Transgressive showcase. For all of which Philippakis is very thankful, but as he explains philosophically, “Any band worth its salt should always be trying to get better, so the external commercial expectation isn’t really anything compared to what goes on within the band itself and our own creative expectations of ourselves.”  Foals rock the Transgressive showcase; SXSW at night. He reveals that rather than Transgressive pressuring Foals into playing SXSW, it was entirely the other way around. “Basically, we just wanted to get out of Britain! I’d never been to America and it was just something we thought would be fun to do. I didn’t realise how big a deal it was – how many bands play there and how industry-crazy it is – but we’re really glad we did it. We knew that there were industry people at the Transgressive showcase, of course,” he adds. “But the moment you start entertaining thoughts about what they’re thinking, you’re on a losing streak. If you’re in a band you should be concentrating on making music, nothing else. The industry stuff is a headf**k and, personally, I don’t find it a very pleasant world. That said, I particularly liked the energy of SXSW and the fact that you have big bands like The Fratellis playing one night and then some doom-noisecore band playing next door, to three people. It feels like a really democratic event.” And the highlights of Foals’ SXSW experience? “We got to travel, we got to eat a lot of waffles and there was a pool in the hotel. Those are really the reasons we did it.” Sharon O'Connell  Foals SXSW tour diaryby Yannis Flights + Lungs We arrive at the Atlanta terminal after eight hours, gasping for cigarettes. But having our lighters confiscated allows no option other than to ask a room full of marines for a light. I don't think any of us had felt more dweeby in our life. Anyway, after that brief pitstop team Foals, accompanied by tour manager Nick Eyegrode and soundman extraordinaire Paul Fyfe, continue their journey on to Austin, Texas. “Don't mess with Texas” Our hotel is weirdly plastic but everyone is friendly, which eases all eight of us into our cramped room. We then bunk up, watch rotations of Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air and MTV Exposed, while throwing our week-old pants around the room in careless abandon. Our first show, a heavily sponsored Levi’s party full of what looks like industry, is the next afternoon and it bombs. We forgot the need for power converters, leaving Edwin to half-mime and half-spasm his way bravely through the set while Jimmy and I were left pedal-less and grumpy. It seemed to go down OK, however, and spirits were soon lifted on the announcement of the free bar and complementary tight denim jackets. Mmm, tasty Texan fashion. Our shuttle driver, Virgil, proves to be one of the highlights of the week as he proceeds to sing a cappella renditions of Luther Vandross numbers while immaculately turned out in a banana-coloured suit. We salute you (and tip you accordingly). Ashby De La Zouch in the house The Transgressive Records party the next day is great, with awesome DJ sets from John Kennedy and Goldierocks. Highly abusive banter from uber-geek ageing rockers, The Young Knives, proves to us that we're not far from home. After that we go around 6th Street for the first time, and only then realise the true scale of SXSW.... the amount of bands, people and media is humbling, and sort of terrifying if you are as reclusive as us. The rest of the day is spent doing various radio interviews and one highly amusing television piece where the reporter seemed to be slowly moving away from the cameramen as she spoke to us. It was funny ha-ha-ha. Due to the amount of shows we were playing and the length of time spent eating our pancake breakfasts we didn't see many bands. However, Metronomy, The Mae-Shi, Hot Club De Paris, Mew and These Arms are Snakes all blew us away. By now the weather is scorching and playing shows is more of a sweat bath than a live musical communication. Our clammy and pallid Oxford frames struggle to compete with the more burly bulk of the natives, with the exception of The Meat Puppets who looked hurriedly resurrected from the grave. Bands beware, this fate awaits you. And on the third day... The third day is spent playing to one man at a Vice Party. Then, before we knew it, we were being whisked away to our official showcase: a BBC6 night which was well attended and air-conditioned. By now, Jack's suitcase, which had been carrying all his drum bits and things, was falling apart, and tensions were running high due to the lack of corndog dispensaries in the area. The show went swimmingly, though, and people applauded. Team Foals returned to the hotel happy and slightly drunk. Hurrah! Saturday, our last full day, saw us leaving central Austin for a suburban radio session on WOXY Online. The studio had been lovingly built and it was real fun to talk to an American on-air, disproving the long held belief that they lack a sense of irony. As we waited for Virgil to pitch up we realised that we were in a parallel universe, one where the film Gummo is REAL life and where what you had always held as being objective truth was scripted by a lonely Canadian prankster with a sticky lung. Things got a bit weird here, so we won't delve much further. Anyway, Virgil did eventually arrive and we played the MOJO party, which was our favourite of the festival largely due to the amount of friendly faces, cool beer and the one tweaker who seemed to be doing interpretive dancing to our songs. “Can you dig it ?!” The next day we awoke bleary-eyed with Nick Eyegrode screaming like a commandant that we were gonna miss our flight if we didn't “buck up”. We did, in fact, arrive on time only to be told that the flight had been overbooked, splitting the touring party in two - those who got home and those who, as far as I'm aware, are still in the urban wastes of Atlanta. Good luck boys. See you in practice. Foals – Hummer / Astronauts And All, released 16 April 07 on Transgressive Records.
 comments
Read members' comments related to this music.
|
 |
related info
 useful links
note: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
music  music archive Watch music sessions and interviews from 2002 to 2008. books  books and comics archive Author interviews and reviews from 2002 to 2008. |
send to a friend
young knives
access 1000s of articles