Foals: 'We're Not Reining It In Anymore’

"You don't have my number,” Foals toyed on Holy Fire's second single (unsurprisingly titled My Number), but as the Oxford five are fast finding out, more and more people are dialling in. Since the release of their third long-player earlier this year, the band have swiftly – if somewhat nonchalantly – become a serious touring drawcard. Music that was once seen as complicated math rock has straightened out and simplified. Yes, the songwriting intelligence still prevails – that's never going to change – but Foals have managed to chalk up a musical equation that anyone can solve.

Holy Fire sees the five-piece stretching their sonic spectrum to the edges of their abilities. Digestible art pop, relentless rock force, stuttering angular riffs – undulation after undulation. It's a record of extremes, a statement that their bass player Walter Gervers is quick to agree with.

“I think there was definitely a feeling of not holding back,” he begins, speaking of the sessions. “If a certain song had an identity we weren't about to rein it in too much and change it. In fact it was quite nice not making a song that was definitely heading in a different direction and sort of smothering it and making it more 'Foals'. What we actually did do was not do that and not add too many layers and make it safe – [we] just let it go in the direction that it went. That leads to having songs, like Moon, which are very naked and soulful and quiet, and then something like Inhaler, which is obviously the product of five guys playing big riffs together and really enjoying it. It definitely lent itself to that.”

Foals have just arrived at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an iconic venue that has hosted everyone from Metallica and Bob Dylan to Kings Of Leon and Snoop Dogg. The guys are taking shelter from the brutal summer heat outside, enjoying their second stint touring the States since Holy Fire's release, and the 29-year-old Gervers has broken away from his bandmates – Yannis Philippakis [vocals, guitar], Jimmy Smith [guitar], Edwin Congreave [keys] and Jack Bevan [drums] – to open up further about the group's most successful record.

“There wasn't really a specific thing that we wanted to achieve [with Holy Fire], so that in itself is quite a pleasure, going into writing and recording because you have that clean slate again – we really enjoyed writing it. We were back home in Oxford, and after all the touring it felt real refreshing to be writing new music again. There was no briefing, like, 'This is what this record is going to be about, this is what it's going to sound like.' It really did naturally evolve, which means that for its strengths it has this big palate of songs which are wildly different. To get that spread and not be going over the same ground was something that when we started recording we were really conscious of.”

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