THE LAUNCH BOX: Foals

Foals are an English indie rock band from Oxford, England formed in 2005, consisting of lead vocalist and lead guitarist – Yannis Philippakis, drummer and percussionist – Jack Bevan, rhythm guitarist – Jimmy Smith, bassist – Walter Gervers, and keyboardist – Edwin Congreave.

Since the band’s formation, their line-up has remained constant.

They are currently signed to Warner Bros. Records, and have released four studio albums: Antidotes (2008), Total Life Forever (2010), Holy Fire (2013), What Went Down (2015), one video album, six extended plays and nineteen singles.

Here is one of their early videos, “Red Socks Pugie” from Antidotes (2008)

The band have toured internationally and have featured on Glastonbury, Coachella and Roskilde festivals. The band have won a number of awards, including best live act at the 2013 Q Awards while producers Alan Moulder and Flood were awarded ‘UK Producer Of The Year’ for their work on the album Holy Fire.

This is the video for “My Number” from their album Holy Fire (2013) – I love the way they play with the sound as the shot moves through the venue, slowly becoming muffled as the camera moves away from the stage… like sound of actually being at their concert. Just watch 🙂

They’ve been described as poppy, jittery, and upbeat with a “math rock/post-punk” sound. Some of their inspiration comes from voodoo and Haitian rhythms. At one point they collected cow and sheep bones from butchers – often with gristle and cartilage on them still – but once they boiled the flesh away, they used them as percussion! That’s so HARDCORE!

They began perfecting their sound by playing house parties, and soon the group was signed to Transgressive Records. They released the singles “Hummer” in April of 2007, and “Mathletics” in August of that same year.

Foals had picked up quite a buzz in the U.K., and in June 2007 they went to New York to record their debut album under the guidance of producer and guitarist of TV on the Radio, Dave Sitek. The sessions went well, but the band members ended up not being happy with the final mix, choosing instead to remix it themselves, and issuing the full-length album, Antidotes in March of 2008.  However, neither “Hummer” nor “Mathletics” made the cut, and were later released as bonus tracks on the U.S. release.

Two years later the band released the album Total Life,  and then in early 2013, released its third album, the expansive and more balanced Holy Fire. It was Foals’ first record to chart outside of Western Europe, cracking the Billboard 200 in the U.S. and topping the album chart in Australia.

Foals shared album track “Mountain at My Gates” on 20 June, and shortly after released an accompanying 3D video, filmed on a GoPro HERO. Picking up where Holy Fire left off, the album What Went Down arrived in August of 2015, with “Mountain at my Gates” as track 2.

You’ve head it on 106.3 Radio Lafayette – here’s the official video for “Mountain at my Gates”

This is the most recent video released by Foals on their YouTube channel. It’s also from the album What Went Down.

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