Foals: DIY’s September 2015 cover stars revealed!

It shouldn’t be rare for bands to improve with each record, but it’s a strange reality. Foals buck the trend. In the September 2015 issue of DIY, we track down our cover stars in Poland to find out how they’ve achieved it.

It’s been ten years since they trashed house parties, booked their own gigs and toured the world in a second-hand Royal Mail van. But it’s easy to connect those hungry teens to the band currently triumphing on stages ten times the size. “We grew up feeling like we were the underdogs,” claims Yannis Philippakis. Never shy of admitting “I definitely have a chip on my shoulder,” he’s the picture of a restless workaholic. “We had this feeling that we were coming up and fighting it out. That’s partly what’s kept us together. And I still feel like that,” he says. “The Maccabees - they’ve fought it out the old way and they’re number one. Arctic Monkeys, they’ve been successful on their own terms. But there are other bands that I feel have been given the cheat codes to life.”

From an outsider’s perspective, Foals’ journey to the top rode a wave. There was a demand from the start. Labels were on board, the attention never dipped. Momentum was always behind their backs. “Yeah, we had our fair share of good fortune,” agrees Philippakis. “But you’re competing with these highly slick, fabricated groups. There are a lot of groups pretending to be indie bands that kind of aren’t, I feel. Maybe I sound embittered but there’s some music out there occupying the same space that somebody else should. They’ve been given an unfair advantage because they have a slick marketing team and someone’s told them how to run their Instagram. There’s all these other aspects that you don’t think about when you’re fifteen and you pick up a guitar.

“That plump contentedness certain musicians start to show after a while - I just don’t think it’s going to happen to us,” he declares. “You notice it in other bands. People go through the motions. I’d rather not put a record out than have us get comfortable.” And Foals aren’t lording it up in Hollywood or purchasing penthouse apartments. “It’s not like all of a sudden we’re hanging out with people with nosejobs, or guys sleeping on lilos in Bali every day. I don’t feel that different to when I was younger. That’s probably a good thing.”

Read the full cover feature in September’s issue of DIY and online from Friday 11th September at 12pm GMT.