News Foals on 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize nod: “We cracked some drinks!”

We’d be lying if we didn’t say this is one of the noms we’re especially chuffed about. Oxford legends and firm DIY faves Foals have been shortlisted for this year’s Hyundai Mercury Prize for their fifth studio album ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1’. “We cracked some drinks when we found out!” Frontman Yannis Philippakis told us at the announcement this morning. “I think when the event comes in September, that’s going to be the big celebration.”

“It feels great the fact that essentially we made one body of work and split it in two and for the first part to be valued and to be nominated on the shortlist feels great,” he continued. “Obviously we spent a lot of time trying to make them two separate coherent bodies of work but there was always a chance that they would be viewed as one overarching thing, so yeah it feels great.”

Their third Mercury nod following 2010’s ‘Total Life Forever’ and 2013’s ‘Holy Fire’, when we spoke to Foals for our March 2019 issue about the record Yannis told us how they wanted to push themselves in its creation. “We wanted to have a more wildly creative experience and experiment more, take more time over the music, really try and push ourselves to make a record that we would feel was the defining expression of the band, where in 20 years time we’d look back and hopefully it would be our favourite. And then we ended up with two.”

And how’s ‘Part 2’ coming along? “’Part 2’’s great! It’s all finished. We’re shooting some videos for it now. We’re gonna have some music out soon and then mid-October will be when it’s actually being released. The fact that we’ve got ‘Part 2’ coming out is just that bit extra, and it feels great.”

TLDR: Foals feel great.