Being in a band, it's kind of like a cyclone
that picks up more and more speed
the deeper you get into it.
It can be the best time and it can be the worst time.
It can feel like you're literally
tearing pages out of On the Road by Kerouac,
and other times it can feel like
you are in a tiny little prison
that's being controlled by some faraway forces
who are just stuffing more and more inmates into the prison
until there's none of you left.
Thankfully, those feelings
are kind of definitely few and far between.
It's like a fucking end credits montage-like strobe effect
photographs of like backstage parties, and then shows,
and then people's faces, and then fucking drinks, and drugs,
and beaches, and hotels, and vomit.
You know, it's like everything.
It's like full exposure to life.
Being in the band's the weirdest, best thing in the world.
Shows can feel emotionally charged,
or you can feel absolutely nothing.
You an be tired all the time for a week,
and then you might have an absolute burst of energy,
and you will go on an adventure
somewhere that you've never been to before
and create some stories that you'll remember
for the rest of your life.
It's madness, and it's also rejoiceful.
It definitely makes you feel very alive and dead inside.
I mean, of course it's not sustainable.
I don't think anyone doubts that.
And it's quite easy to find stories of people
who toured hard and then have hit a wall.
It is a circus, isn't it?
You have all these different characters,
and like no one is normal.
No one who's been touring for 10 years
can describe themselves as being normal.
If you are in a band, like we are,
and most of your peers have decided to call it a day
for one reason or another,
why is it that you still do it?
Like how meaningful is it to be a musician in 2019?
Is there like a wider purpose to it?
And maybe there isn't, but like...
I'm gonna figure that out.
The writing was kind of the lowest point for me
in the band's history, because of Wally going,
I think was a catalyst.
It was pretty much my worst nightmare, and it happened.
And, you know, it happened ages ago,
so I was prepared for it, I think,
until we got into the writing room,
and I was just like, "Fuck.
"I really, really miss Wally's presence."
I was like, "Oh God, I'm alone with these guys."
You know?
It was like, "Where's the other guy?
"Where's the nice one?"
We all moved to be in the same area,
to be sort of centered around the studio place,
partly so we didn't have to travel that far,
but also kind of to hang out,
to be be sort of glued together socially.
We took a bit of a risk with producing it ourselves,
with Yannis taking the helm,
but it's really felt like we've breathed
some extra, fresh energy.
It was a period where the idea of making music
was the furthest thing from my mind.
I had never really felt like that before.
That period was the longest period
where I haven't made any music.
I just felt like I'd become a bit predictable to myself
in terms of what I was writing,
and I found the band in general, like the dynamic,
was very well-worn in the grooves
and the ways in which we work were predictable
and that we needed to undergo some sort of violent change.
♪ Don't look at me like that ♪
A day's just one big long frustration.
The amount of caffeine I've had
means I'm always getting tripped up by it.
Yeah.
I think it's time you had a chamomile tea.
I wrote every lyric on these records in a pub,
in a pub garden usually.
I wasn't aware of it at the time,
but looking back on it now,
I'm sure the record would have been very different
had I locked myself in a room upstairs
and written in isolation.
I think by writing surrounded by your peers
in a communal space, it only...
It propelled me into wanting to write
about themes that would connect us.
We're in this kind of perilous or precarious state,
facing these huge monolithic challenges,
and that society's going through this huge transformation
that we're not even aware of fully
the ramifications of it.
So I wanted to write about that sense of confusion
in the sense of being inside some sort of
M.C. Escher-like labyrinth of change and turmoil and threat
and for it to be set in the here and now,
and I wanted the songs to be understood.
I wanted them to be directly communicative
to the outside world.
Blen fire, blen fire, blen fire, blen fire, blen fire.
Blen fire, blen fire, blen fire
Holy shit!
Let's fucking bang it.
Let's bang it.
♪ I got to rip up the road ♪
♪ I got two nights in a row ♪
♪ Oh we gon' put on a show ♪
♪ With the black bull in tow ♪
♪ I'm in a Holy Ghost zone ♪
♪ I got a trunk full of gold ♪
♪ Don't look at me like that ♪
♪ Don't look at me like this ♪
♪ Can you remember my name ♪
♪ I swear you're all just the same ♪
♪ Oh tu parlais Anglais ♪
♪ Can of Stella fish filet ♪
♪ In a foreshortened future ♪
♪ I saw you drink your kombucha ♪
♪ And it really don't suit ya ♪
♪ And I'm not the waiter ♪
♪ Ooh ♪
♪ Black bull's in town ♪
♪ We not playing around ♪
♪ I call a wolf a wolf ♪
♪ This is for real ain't no spoof ♪
♪ I'm breaking bones on the roof ♪
♪ Who me I'm not aloof ♪
♪ Forsooth for shame ♪
♪ I done conquered where I came ♪
♪ And I'm a world away ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm a man of today ♪
♪ We not playing around ♪
♪ I got a black bull in town ♪
We've spent a long time prepping
for getting back into it.
We've put so much time into rehearsing it properly.
It felt pretty much like we were starting
as we left off in 2017.
I made sure that we had like two weeks
of keyboard rehearsals.
Keyboard club I called it,
which is something we've been responsible enough
to do before, and I'm so glad we did.
Jez had done all his homework, and instantly,
within a second, we're like, "Oh, he's really good.
"He fits in perfectly."
It was just there.
The energy was really, really good,
and it was like super fucking exciting
to star touring again.
Kit and Jeremy and Carly
all add such a high level of positivity to the group.
It was nice to take Kit and Jez to places
that they had never been before, especially Kit.
It was his first world tour.
The excitement that he brings about actual, like, you know,
differences in bread between different countries.
It's like, we were so used to it that we don't care anymore,
but seeing it through his eyes has been really nice.
The U.S. tour was pretty daunting at the beginning,
because we hadn't been on tour for a long time,
and just because it was so long.
And the U.S., obviously it's its own place.
It's very American.
America is really American.
So you know when you're going into it
that everything's gonna be different.
I decided to stop drinking,
because pretty much every reason to stop drinking
came up all at the same time.
In terms of touring, everyone else
is living a very different life.
Towards the end of touring in the states,
I wasn't feeling fatigued in any way.
I started to feel like a kind of witch doctor on stage.
I just felt powerful in a way that was almost dangerous.
Yeah, the balcony thing,
it can be a total highlight,
but there were so many times where
I'd genuinely be worried that someone's gonna die.
You know, Yannis is this big hairy
Greek bowling bowl coming off the top.
You've got to make sure the ground's
gonna not collapse when it lands.
It's just a way of breaking out of oneself,
taking the show right to the edge.
It's Saturday night, let's do it!
Saturday night in London, best city in the world!
Put your dancing shoes on.
We're gonna go out after this one.
♪ We're caught up in silence ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ See you through the glass doors ♪
♪ I've looked all up and down now ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ Come back around my way again ♪
♪ Leave me if you please ♪
♪ I'm tongue tied in silence ♪
♪ My words lost on the breeze ♪
♪ Caught up in your orbit still ♪
♪ Release me if you please ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ Don't leave me on my knees ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ Don't leave me on my knees ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ Don't leave me on my knees ♪
♪ I lose you in degrees ♪
♪ Around again ♪
♪ I waste my days ♪
♪ Around again ♪
♪ Oh I know I've wasted time ♪
♪ When I've tried to please yeah ♪
♪ How did I end up here ♪
♪ Where I've come to be yeah ♪
♪ Oh I know I've wasted time ♪
♪ When I've tried to please yeah ♪
♪ Release me when I waste my time ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ Am I wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
♪ No point wasting my time ♪
♪ I could not persevere ♪
Latin America is one of my favorite places
to tour in the world.
I like the expressiveness of the culture in general.
I like how colorful it is, I like the cuisine.
I like the chaos.
You feel the music has a proper power there,
and it has the power to change lives, almost,
and it really means something.
And you get that from the fans.
If your context has hardship in it,
then music can become a kind of beacon.
Even in a small way, like it can just improve your day,
and it can be somewhere where you can take refuge in,
and I think that that's felt more keenly
in places that perhaps have a more troubled context
or where life's not as easy.
I remember I used to write in my journal
stuff about wanting to try and make the band like a body
where the drums are the skeleton,
the bass is like the muscle,
and the guitars are the flesh,
and then the voice is the could and the spirit,
and trying to view it in a kind of...
as a body.
And the best show is when the five of us come together
and we form this larger creature,
and it's effortless and it's telepathic,
and we just become this kind of ruthless, efficient
musical machine that's totally potent and can just
ignite venues, and we just do that night after night.
I just felt like, as a group, we were just untouchable
and obliterating places with this positive energy.
♪ You don't have my number ♪
♪ We don't need each other now ♪
♪ We don't need the city ♪
♪ The creed or the culture now ♪
♪ 'Cause I feel well I feel alive ♪
♪ I feel well I feel alive ♪
♪ I feel the streets are not pulling me down ♪
♪ So people of the city ♪
♪ I don't need your counsel now ♪
♪ And I don't need your good advice ♪
♪ 'Cause you don't have my lover's touch ♪
♪ You don't have my number ♪
♪ We don't need each other now ♪
♪ The creed or the culture ♪
♪ We can move beyond it now ♪
♪ The wolf is knocking at my door ♪
♪ Bang bang it asks for more ♪
♪ Stand here we stand tall ♪
♪ We can move beyond these walls ♪
♪ And I don't need your counsel ♪
♪ And I don't need that good advice ♪
♪ And I don't need to know what now ♪
♪ 'Cause you don't have my lover's touch ♪
♪ You don't have my number ♪
♪ We don't need each other now ♪
♪ The creed or the culture ♪
♪ We can move beyond it now ♪
♪ Can you even hear me ♪
♪ Do you even know my name ♪
♪ Can you see the ocean there ♪
♪ You don't have my lover's touch ♪
♪ I wonder can you hear me ♪
♪ And are you even listening now ♪
♪ 'Cause you don't have my number ♪
♪ And we don't need each other now ♪
♪ The creed or the culture ♪
♪ We can move beyond it now ♪
I think we are, as a band, at our most exciting
when it's more intimate and when you're like
the secret band and when you're playing a secret set.
Even though it's still important,
and you've still gotta play really well,
at the back of your head you're kinda like,
"Well, you know, we're like the bonus features.
"We're like DVD bonus features."
And if they're great, that's amazing.
Also, if they're not, who gives a shit?
It's probably the only time where we'll get
to play Glastonbury without pressure of a sort.
Like we can just come in, play a show,
there's no expectation, none of the nerves that you get
when you play after a bit slot at Glastoso.
Like last time we played when we did The Pyramid,
it was like, "Oh, this is a big deal."
And it is a big deal, but this time it's not a big deal.
It's just a joke.
Introduced my mom to Lars Ulrich and Bradley Cooper,
and she had no idea who either of them were,
which was great.
I was like, "Mom, Lars Ulrich from Metallica."
And she's like, "Cool."
What's gone wrong now?
Oh, just like the one fucking, the one thing
that I asked for is to have pastas in coats of cheese
and mayonnaise, and it's every fucking...
Basically white foods.
Like, if it's got a sauce element to it,
like I would genuinely would rather drink...
If I had a spider in one hand and a bowl of cream
in another, you had to deal with one of them,
what would you deal with?
Well, I mean, I'm not scared to touch the cream.
I just don't want to eat it.
Honestly, if you pissed into that glass there,
well that cup, to the top, I would rather drink that
than a pint of milk, 100%, genuinely.
All right, we'll sort that out for later, shall we?
I'm really glad I went to the pub last night.
At the point where he really should have gone home,
I said, "Oh, one more mate!"
And then he's like, "All right,
"I'll have a half and a whiskey."
And I came back, I was like, "Oh, they've run out
"of half glasses, so you've had to have a pint."
I walked home shit-faced.
And I ordered Lebanese at midnight,
and then I had to change the bedsheets and stuff and do...
I kept being like, "I've got to get back
"to water the cujete."
'Cause it was just so hot today.
And no one's at my house for a few days,
and I've got to water the garden.
But I'll I remember is I just kept repeating,
"I've got to go back and water my cujete."
I have worked myself up
into a quite nervous frenzy.
I sort of had to talk myself down
from quite a lot of stress in the loo a minute ago.
I don't know what it is about Glastonbury.
Last time we did it was maybe the most nervous
I've ever been before a show.
I paced around the dressing by myself for four hours.
I think it's jut the responsibility,
like the pressure that you feel to give the festival
what you feel like it deserves.
I need a lighter.
Lighter.
All right.
Fucking Old Testament.
We should do it.
One last shift!
Anything not saved will be lost.
Good live music can be a force that is bigger
than most other things out there.
And if you have one of those seminal moments
where there's a gig that does just a little bit more,
it felt like something like that
was happening at Glastonbury this year,
where it just felt more important
and bigger than we were expecting it.
And I think we realized quite soon after we were on stage
by how many people had shown up.
I don't know, there was just something
in the air at that show.
Looking out at that sea of people, that felt...
You know, that felt really, really powerful.
It felt like one of the shows that,
if, at the end of the band's career,
I was to look back and be like,
"Right, top 10 shows," that will be up there.
One more song!
We'll just do a bottle of vodka and a cigarette.
My string broke and just went,
and like cut my finger...
so brutally.
I mean, look at the state of that.
It's like I've been fucking murdered.
The keyboards!
Also, it's like my fucking pick
just was stuck to my finger and it kept turning.
Joe, get me in.
It was an E man!
Rock and roll, baby. You all right?
Fuckin' 'ell, man!
Wow! Tshirt!
Wow!
You should see the state of my guitar.
The guitar looked incredible.
My keyboards.
Also, I managed to draw a bloody X
on the Glastonbury cameras.
When the guy was wiping, I was like,
"Yeah, that was good that."
Yes!
Get away!
Glastonbury is an amazing festival.
The sheer amount of different experiences
you can have there, there's no other festival
in the world that does that.
It's by far the best festival in the world.
Nothing else compares.
A lot rules of society kind of fall away for a few days.
That's why people like it so much.
There's a positive energy there
that feels deeper than just a festival.
There's just so much to see and so many places
to get lost in and so many experiences to be had.
It's like being confronted with every possible avenue
of the future all in one go.
And that's quite a rare experience,
to feel like you could end up in any type of scenario
depending on the decision you make about next minute,
and all of them will be great and life-affirming.
Who else is in the van?
Jimmy.
Yeah, who else?
Abby.
Yeah, but they're comatose, that lot.
Where's the rest?
Where are the lively people?
Where's Jack?
Where's Beaky?
I think there's a respect that everyone has
for the festival and for each other you don't get
at any other festival, really.
There's like this huge ball of positive energy
that everybody feeds off and comes back like destroyed
but enriched by that collective human experience.
It feels like you're gonna bump into Pan
running around with his cloven hooves
and this massive erection, playing a flute in a forest
while dousing himself in wine.
I was just high on life that evening,
just high on the euphoria of having played
to a packed out crowd in the park stadium.
What a time.
It was incredible.
As I'm saying this, I know that this will be
narrating clips of like me pushing people over
and pulling their pants down
and slapping them on the ass and stuff.
It feels like a release from a lot of the pressures
and a lot of the restrictiveness of British society
and the kind of insular nature of life in Britain.
It's the antithesis to all of that,
and it's like an antidote where people get to go
for a weekend and talk to strangers and to feel
and show empathy and show instant connection.
What's he doing?
Nothing's happening!
Who?
Nothing is happening.
Weird mixture of high and exhaustion.
Not sure which one's gonna prevail.
Yannis!
Has somebody spiked your drink?
Get in the car.
Have you trimmed your beard since the show?
No.
Maybe you should just be thankful
I picked up your white T-shirt.
Did you?
Yes, I did, you little ginger person.
Tik tok, mate.
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Now the sea eats the sky ♪
♪ But they say it's a lie ♪
♪ There's no birds left to fly ♪
♪ We'll hide out ♪
♪ Oh the weather's against us ♪
♪ Houses underground ♪
♪ The flowers upside down ♪
♪ In our dreams ♪
♪ In the eye of the storm ♪
♪ The land where you were born ♪
♪ You try to make no sound ♪
♪ You hide out ♪
♪ 'Cause they watch us in sleep ♪
♪ The language that we speak ♪
♪ And the secrets that we keep ♪
♪ To ourselves ♪
♪ In our dreams ♪
♪ I said I'm so sorry ♪
♪ To have kept you waiting around ♪
♪ I wish I could've come up ♪
♪ I could've shouted out loud ♪
♪ They got exits covered ♪
♪ All the exits underground ♪
♪ I wish I could figure it out ♪
♪ But the world's upside down ♪
♪ I said I'm so sorry ♪
♪ That the world has fallen down ♪
♪ I wish I could do something more ♪
♪ I could shout it out loud ♪
♪ They got exits covered ♪
♪ The exits underground ♪
♪ I wish I could figure it out ♪
♪ But the world's upside down ♪
♪ In a world upside down ♪
♪ Back to the days of yore ♪
♪ When we were sure of a good long summer ♪
♪ I hope you could be found out of ground ♪
♪ Our long lost brother ♪
Thank you!
So I love flying.
I just enjoy being able to kind of sit
and just kind of observe the world
from different perspectives.
Don't understand why people don't do window seats,
but apparently people are different.
I love being part of the sort of machine,
like the actual sort of Foals juggernaut,
dare I call it a juggernaut,
kind of rambling around the world.
It's definitely exciting just to be part
of something that's bigger than yourself.
I like the fact that you can live
like a sort of modern age pirate.
To be able to just wheel around
and do whatever the fuck you want.
There's something about endless movement and relocation
and that alone, the endless movement and traveling
and always being in a different place
is fantastic on one level, 'cause you're just,
it never gets old, nothing's ever boring.
You can play in a city one night and completely destroy it
and then wake up in a brand-new city,
and then you just hit repeat.
Waiheke's just like a...
It's just so beautiful.
Like it reminds me of Devon and Cornwall.
There's like nice craggy coastlines and little coves.
But it's tropical, and it's very, very peaceful.
And the people there are lovely.
They wave at you when you drive past.
And you're like, "Fuck off, mate."
I have to try and get in the sea
every time I possibly can.
I think it's from my grandfather,
like going on holidays with him.
He'd always go swimming, rain or shine,
whether it's freezing or boiling,
he'd always have to go in the sea.
So it just like, I don't know, salt water,
especially cold salt water, it just makes you feel alive.
It's so intense.
It's just lovely, especially when you're on tour
and the madness starts setting in.
It's like, to go somewhere so very different
and just replenish yourself.
Jack, this is your nemesis.
It's easy to let yourself become
completely taken care of on tour.
Certainly your brain devolves
into a sort of primitive state.
The way the tour is designed
is it kind of infantilizes you.
You voluntarily infantilize yourself,
'cause everything's pre-organized for you.
You behave like a baby, basically,
behave like a little baby.
Like a boozy one.
Touring is being stunting for some us, like in the band.
I used to be able to read books on tour.
I felt that my brain was less of a dormant organ.
And nowadays, I just feel like
my creative and intellectual interior life,
it feels like I've neglected it.
I feel like I'm not becoming a better or bigger a person,
becoming less through touring.
And sometimes I'd see Edwin, and I think, like,
how amazing it is that he can continue to pursue...
like his intellectual curiosity and his education
at the same time as being on tour.
It's like, I have tremendous respect for his desire to do it
but also his discipline in being able to do it.
Oh, I've been doing maths degree for a few years now.
And that fills up a lot of my time.
I've been reading a lot.
It's sort of an obvious thing to say,
but as soon as you remove the hangovers
and just the drinking, then all of your motivation
and desire to learn about the world
comes sort of flooding back.
So this year we offset our carbon emissions
for the first time.
The problem I have is that, because I sort of know how...
irrelevant it is.
And also, all of the emissions and the impact we have
on a sort of secondary basis.
So, we travel to Australia,
and obviously there's the emissions from flying there,
but just in terms of the show and people
traveling to the show, there's all these elements to it.
The problem is, as soon as you start thinking about it
and getting into it, the worse it gets
and the more kind of insurmountable the problem become.
Obviously, ideally there'd be like a carbon tax basically,
and everyone would be compelled
to pay for the real cost of travel.
Once again, welcome aboard.
I mean, it's not hugely rational,
because, without going into it too much,
the actual flying side of our lives
isn't that big of a deal compared to
other aspects of the economy.
But, I guess I became...
I think on that tour that was like
a sort of low point of irrationality
for trying to work out how to live my life within a tour.
One thing about touring, you just cannot fight it.
Whatever you're feeling, whether it's super bummed out
or like super excited to be caught up
in this relentless momentum,
the worst thing you can do is fight it.
When you get to that point of exhaustion
from just being jet lagged and tired
and not eating well and not sleeping well,
you switch your expectations from having an amazing time
to just getting through everything.
I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I mean, there's nothing left.
There's nothing left.
There's just an empty, screaming void
that my brain used to be.
I think because they all drink,
like party quite a lot, I think a lot of it
is just like a cumulative hangover.
Jimmy will regularly just be like, "I'm so tired.
"Oh my god, I'm so tired."
It's two o'clock in the afternoon,
it's just like, "I've never felt tired, I'm so tired."
You know, like, well, I think maybe you need
to take some time off; that's why you're tired.
Give it a try.
There's a lot of nice lime in there, a lot of ice.
What's this called?
Fruity.
Just give it a go.
Oh my god.
It's nice, but it's very strong.
Why is it such a hedonistic atmosphere?
There's your...
Jez has got this thing where, what is it?
There's your "you've arrived" mood.
Oh yeah, this is something my partner says.
Right, so she's like, "Yours is the only job in the world
"where it's like, 'Well done, you've come to work'
"'Have some booze.
"'Here's your before you do the job booze.
"'Here's your during the job booze.
"'Here's your after the job booze.
"'Here's your bus booze, here's your going to bed booze.'"
That systemic indulgence is...
Cheap.
Endemic, yeah.
We don't, you know...
We don't have to indulge in all of that,
but being surrounded by it all the time
means that we basically do.
Everything on tour becomes about the show.
So like, the show is this hour and a half of your life
every day that is paramount that it goes well.
Sometimes when I'm...
Let's saying doing BB..
When I'm yelling into Jez's mic
'cause I've got nothing else to do,
I'll sometimes put subliminal satanic messages
into "Two Steps."
Might do it tonight.
What kind of messaging?
Just like, "Satan, Satan, Satan lives."
Wow.
Really...
Sort of gone a bit Lars Von Trier.
The best Foals shows are ones where
they're like an out-of-body experience.
You don't feel a sense of the end of yourself.
You feel like you're just a part of this chaotic,
crazed, intense burst of electricity in a room,
and it's a communion between the crowd
and the five of us on stage.
And the volume of the show, and the lights,
it all just turns into this strange,
transcendent experience.
It's hard to put into words; you just sort of know.
Usually, when you've reached this higher state
where it's just like sound and audience and energy
and you're totally out of the more workmanlike aspects
of playing the instrument or singing the songs
where it just becomes like a bigger thing.
But we chase that thing.
That's worse.
That's the propeller for the shows being good,
is always chasing that.
It's like, knowing that it's possible
and having experienced it
but also knowing that it can't be like that every night,
but nevertheless going onto the stage every night
like it's gonna be like that.
The bad shows are where people go in on themselves
and Yannis is in between songs shouting at monitor lens,
Jimmy's not really coming out of his area,
I've got my head down.
Everyone starts shouting at each other
and blaming everyone for fucking up.
The energy that can be so invigorating
becomes really, really negative.
It's a horrible feeling 'cause you're like
everyone's still putting in the exact same amount of effort.
It's just like, I don't know,
it's like you've built this beautiful new boat,
and you take it out and it starts fucking sinking.
It's like, "Christ!"
And you're still sailing it,
and it's like you're half underwater.
We love you!
See you next time!
Drive safe!
Thank you!
Fuck it!
That was like an Event Horizon version of the gig.
Gone to hell and back.
It was just totally flat.
The drums crapped out.
But also my guitar was so loud in every scene.
It's like some was just leant on a knob by mistake.
Those overhead lights.
Don't know about you, but all I see
when I look at my fret board is just reflections
across the top, and I can't see what I'm playing.
Bright white light, bright white light, oh my God.
Just like a shit Christmas tree.
Twatted the light on my side at the end.
Kicked it, and it went thuh-dung!
It's like, you've gotta have them for arenas,
but it's like, well, let's just not play arenas.
♪ Sticks and stones ♪
♪ Don't break my bones ♪
♪ You make believe ♪
♪ It's lock and load ♪
♪ Dead end road ♪
♪ To you and me ♪
♪ You know what's to go ♪
♪ I'm strict for soul ♪
♪ You make believe ♪
♪ And I'm off the rent ♪
♪ I haven't spent ♪
♪ I guarantee ♪
♪ Can you not go away ♪
♪ Just for one day ♪
♪ Impossible possible ♪
♪ How would you do know how'd you do now ♪
♪ Run away war sounds in you ♪
♪ Don't throw your fortune away ♪
♪ And I can't get enough space ♪
♪ Space ♪
We're gonna fuckin' do it now!
All right, I want every single person in here.
This isn't a request.
Everyone get down on the ground.
Everyone get onto your knees down on the ground.
It's gonna be worth it, trust me.
All right, and once we build it back up,
when you know we're gonna kick in, you jump back up.
It's simple.
Stay down.
Gonna blow this place away.
♪ Space ♪
That's the spirit.
Jack.
What?
♪ Take me to the place I love ♪
Okay, I guess the drinks are on other people then.
Oh my God.
Repeat, hold the lift, hold the lift.
You dropped your key.
That's not my key.
That's a a different hotel.
You dropped your elastic band.
Oh yes.
We got all the way tot eh ground floor!
Fucking punished in there.
There were two guys in there that were like
the ultimate in strength and punishers.
"You a bit tired?
"You can't lie."
It was just like, "Wow, you keep calling me a cunt."
"Cunt!"
And it's like, when you're knackered
and you're like, "Yeah, thanks man."
They're like, "Oh, sorry mate.
"Didn't mean to put you out or anything."
Cunt.
Cunt, yeah.
You know what?
It's someone's birthday tomorrow isn't it?
Somebody might be getting a new cap.
People seem to think that you live
in like absolute comfort the whole time
and that it's really easy and it's a dream to do it.
Sometimes that's true but, like, it's brutal.
Any one of our friends who's tried to come on tour with us
will testify that they can only last about three days.
Because it's so cool what we do, but no one ever wants
to hear the fact that it might not be that great.
I want to qualify this, because this is the problem
with doing the interview at the moment.
It's like, if you asked me in four month's time,
I would be like, "Touring's amazing.
"Touring's incredible.
"You'll have the best time with your friends.
"I miss playing shows.
"I'm feeling restless.
"I want to go see the world.
"And I want to be on stage again."
And the problem is, with doing this interview now, I guess,
is that we're at the end of quite a long year,
and I'm really at that point where I'm craving time at home
and wanting to have a break.
All right, man.
Are you going barefoot?
Yeah.
I've quite leathery feet.
Oh, look, there's one of those turkey things.
There was a dog on the beach that was like
one of the coolest dudes I've ever met.
Very attentive to the ball and a great sense of humor.
So, that dog, top marks.
Fuck!
Oh, he's gotta got at this one.
Fuck!
All the pressure!
Get in, get in!
Oh!
Happy birthday!
♪ Happy birthday do messieurs ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
Let's ride!
Lizard!
All right.
You all right?
What happened?
Oh, the set list.
Set list was funky.
Set list fucked me up.
Tightness, or just vibe?
No, no, just the vibe.
Like, we shouldn't be fucking with that shit.
We're too long in the game to just be like
getting insecure and changing the set list before a gib.
It's bullshit.
I don't think it really makes a difference.
It makes a huge difference!
What for?
Like the flow of the set,
like the way I felt during the gig.
I don't know if you felt the same but just like...
I definitely felt when went into "Exes,"
it was like, "I wish my number was in front of me."
But then I just also felt like...
It just felt like, yeah, rock music is on its way out.
No matter how hard we went, it just felt like
it wasn't reciprocated in the same way that we're used to.
The way that records are consumed now
and the way that all kind of output is consumed,
the appetite is...
so fast-moving that, if you spend two years of your life
making a record and it seems old to people
within three months or four months,
and that's not to do with the quality of the record,
but it's more to do with the way that people consume art,
then the question is like, "What are you doing
"spending two years of your life on something
"that only has oxygen for three months?"
We had that great bonfire on the beach at night
with Jenn from War Paint.
The moonlight was incredible.
I've never seen anything like it.
It was so blue.
It's that kind of thing where you're like,
"I feel so good and so cosmic
"and so in the right place to be this
"that I didn't want it to end at all."
♪ So I walked through to the haze ♪
♪ And a million dirty waves ♪
♪ Now I see you lying there ♪
♪ Like a lilo losing air ♪
♪ Air ♪
♪ Black rocks and shoreline sand ♪
♪ Still dead summer I cannot bear ♪
♪ And so wipe the sand from my arms ♪
♪ The Spanish Sahara ♪
♪ The place that you'd wanna ♪
♪ Leave the horror here ♪
♪ Forget the horror here ♪
♪ Leave it all down here ♪
♪ It's future rust and it's future dust ♪
♪ Forget the horror here ♪
♪ Leave it all down here ♪
♪ It's future rust and it's future dust ♪
♪ Now the waves they drag you down ♪
♪ Carry you to broken ground ♪
♪ Though I'll find you in the sand ♪
♪ Wipe you clean with my dirty hands ♪
♪ So god damn this boiling space ♪
♪ The Spanish Sahara ♪
♪ The place that you'd wanna ♪
♪ Leave the horror here ♪
♪ Forget the horror here ♪
♪ Leave it all down here ♪
♪ It's future rust and it's future dust ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your head ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your bed ♪
♪ I'm the ghost in the back of your head ♪
♪ 'Cause I am ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your head ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your bed ♪
♪ I'm the ghost in the back of your head ♪
♪ 'Cause I am ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your head ♪
♪ I'm the fury in your bed ♪
♪ I'm the ghost in the back of your head ♪
♪ 'Cause I am ♪
♪ Forget the horror here ♪
♪ Leave it all down here ♪
♪ It's future rust and it's future dust ♪
♪ Choir of furies in your head ♪
♪ Choir of furies in your bed ♪
♪ I'm the ghost in the back of your head ♪
♪ 'Cause I am ♪
♪ The choir of furies in your head ♪
♪ Choir of furies in your bed ♪
♪ I'm the ghost in the back of your head ♪
♪ 'Cause I am ♪
We are in Bangkok.
In a van.
As usual.
First impressions, very vibrant.
The food is insanely good.
Bangkok we'd never been to before.
So anywhere new in this stage in our career
is definitely intriguing and abuzz and keeps things fresh.
There was an element of us only getting there
after 10 years of being a band,
and I think that that was powerful.
I like cities where things
aren't pristine and overly ordered.
It's got a lot of energy to it.
There's a lot of hustle and bustle.
It's chaotic, it's quite dirty.
It feels really clean.
It just keeps firing.
Don't fire it like that you fucking plunker!
I feel like Jack starts to turn into
a type of mythological creature,
like a griffin or a banshee.
Something of the pterodactyl about it right before a show.
I don't know how much it was to do with his bare feet,
but yeah, he gets pretty hyped up.
They were a great crowd.
They were like super bouncy, very receptive.
Also heard that a lot of people
had flown in from Malaysia and Singapore.
So, lots of people singing along.
There was a Pigeon Forever handmade poster
right at the front.
So it was good, there was definitely a lot of hardcore fans.
When you come to a new place
and you're experiencing new things for the first time,
it's like it just breaks that,
the kind of predictable nature of the circuit,
and you have that reciprocal energy
coming back at you from the crowd,
and you see that what you're doing is meaningful
and the music affects people, and that becomes more poignant
in a place that you haven't played before.
Thank you.
Hi.
Jack!
Lives here!
Welcome home, mate.
This is fucking sweet!
We've being going on some sort of crazy adventure.
Seeing Bangkok, seeing the sights, hustle and bustle.
Watching many eggs.
Definitely thought that that was one of the best things
on tour of this whole album campaign, for sure,
if not one of the best days ever.
We haven't been here for a few, like five years now.
We were told that kind of like rock music's
on the decline in a way out here, like quite rapidly,
and also that the foreign music market
shrunk massively in general as well.
That's why we're here now, to turn it around.
Yeah, turn it around, and just, yeah,
two steps forward, three steps back.
We're just out here saving rock music.
Do you know what I mean?
♪ Time has come and time is done ♪
♪ Cities burn we've got youth to spend ♪
♪ And life to live and time to waste again my friend ♪
♪ Through the flames and through the fire ♪
♪ Cities burn but we don't give a damn ♪
♪ 'Cause we've got all our friends right here ♪
♪ We've got youth to spend ♪
♪ Time away from me is what I need ♪
♪ To clear my sight and clear my head ♪
♪ I'm coming down over it ♪
♪ Coming down over it ♪
♪ Coming down over I'll be right there ♪
♪ I'm coming down over it ♪
♪ Coming down over again ♪
♪ Be right there ♪
♪ I'll be right there ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ The birds are singing it's the end of the world ♪
♪ The birds are singing the birds are singing ♪
♪ 'Cause time away from me is what I need ♪
♪ To clear my sight and clear my head ♪
♪ Clear my head ♪
Thank you.
Japan in particular, it's so different culturally.
Coming at it from a Western perspective,
it's an unintuitive place in certain ways,
which is quite rare.
I feel like the world is incredibly homogenous these days
and even when it isn't, you have signs and signifiers
in the way that the city operates that is quite familiar
even if the language might not be
and other cultural aspect won't be.
But Japan, you can't rely on intuition in the same way.
So that's just exciting, it's an exciting place.
The shows are different, the architecture's different,
and the fans are different.
Very thoughtful.
Often they come with beautifully made gifts,
like lots of time spent on really nice personalized
letters and presents that are just really thoughtful
and sweets as well.
They live to give sweets.
Very passionate.
How you doing?
Hi!
I like your shirt as well.
Oh, thank you.
Like Yannis.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, the Japanese crowds
are famously different, they're more respectful.
They're quieter.
They're kinda less rowdy I guess you'd put it in a way,
but it doesn't feel cold, it just feels like
the appreciation, the attentiveness
is manifest in a different way.
Also, on a personal level, I'm approaching the shows
slightly differently at this point in the tour.
The first show, the Osaka show, was great.
I really enjoyed that.
It was a good one for me to play it relatively sober
and still have a great show.
Japanese crowds are awesome, but between songs
it was like absolute, deathly silence.
No one had told us they were gonna do that,
so we were like, "Oh my God, they hate..."
You know, like, "They hate us."
And it's actually just like a show of respect, I think.
Can I take a picture of that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Her first time show in Osaka.
This is what 10 yeas of touring will do to you.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure.
Caffeinated.
Highly, highly caffeinated.
The caffeine's just a sort of slight veneer
on top of the exhaustion and the...
the general sense of impending doom.
Do you have a general sense of malaise?
Of course you don't,
'cause you're the chirpiest man ever made.
You're just a happy little hamster.
Is it 'cause I fall asleep smiling?
Yeah, have you heard about Kit's...
philosophy of sleep?
If you go to sleep with a silly little smile on your face,
it'll change your outlook on life.
The most futuristic, outdated country you'll ever go to.
Like, you'd go there and you'd think all the technology
would be like absolutely cutting edge.
You know, even like things like the toilets
and the trains and stuff, they're all like
they were cutting edge, and they're still cutting edge
in a way, but they're like 20 years old.
What I'd love to happen tonight...
Is to have a mental ward.
Have a really big one.
Just go out and like...
Some saki.
Yeah, well there's like this area,
I want to find out where it is.
Is it the bit that's all covered?
Yeah.
Yeah, we used to walk there from our hotel.
Yeah, and there's like food stalls.
Yeah and I don't know if it has that
sort of like Oxford city center culture
where it's Friday night and you get...
No, it's the opposite of that, which is great.
Down the cellar.
Down the Fuggle and Firkin.
I mean, it's very universal.
People work nine to five from Monday to Friday,
so Friday night would be the night
that they'd probably go out and have a beer.
You're so jet lagged when you get there.
It's like Australian jet lag where it's like
it can be quite psychedelic.
It helps when you're somewhere so weird as Japan,
'cause you just fully immerse yourself in it
and go to all these tiny bars.
We've had some really, really good nights out there.
Sort of pointing at men with earpieces
kneeling outside clubs, and being like,
"Is that the Yakuza?"
Like our Warner's girl being like, "Uh, yes.
Like, "Fucking run."
Hey, Jez.
You're fired.
You're fired, mate.
Assholes.
See you later.
You make better friends
with the people you tour with
than you will ever have outside of tour.
Yeah!
It's beyond a traditional friendship.
It becomes a brotherhood.
You will never spend more time and be closer to anyone else.
♪ Fuckin' Sally used to work on the docks ♪
♪ Fuckin' union's been on strike ♪
♪ He's down on his luck ♪
♪ It's tough ♪
♪ So tough ♪
♪ Fuckin' Gina works the diner all day ♪
♪ Fuckin' working for a man ♪
♪ She brings home her pay for love ♪
♪ What a fuckin' legend ♪
♪ Fuckin' love ♪
♪ We've gotta hold on to what we've got ♪
♪ It fuckin' doesn't make a difference ♪
♪ If we make it or not ♪
♪ Fuckin' got each other and that's all right for love ♪
♪ Fuckin' give it a shot ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
♪ We're halfway there ♪
♪ Whoa ♪
♪ Fuckin' living on a prayer ♪
♪ Take my hand ♪
♪ We'll fucking make it I swear ♪
Playstation gamers.
I'm Yannis.
I'm Jack.
I'm Edwin.
I'm Jimmy.
And we're Foals.
And we're at Summer Sonic in Tokyo in...
Fuck!
We've selected a playlist.
Listen to it while you're gaming.
That sounds so sarcastic.
That does not sound...
That's just my voice.
Hey, we're Foals and this is Summer Sonic
20th anniversary on Wowow.
When you're in Japan, it's a cliche,
but it's like being in another world.
We haven't been for a while,
because they're not really as interested
in so-called Western music as they used to be.
Certainly when we did Antidotes,
I feel like you could rock up to Japan
if you had a record contract and you were British,
and a certain sector of the population would love you.
And that doesn't seem to exist in the same way anymore.
I think maybe they're a bit more busy
listening to Japanese music and Korean music.
Yeah, like sort of since 2008 people have been telling us
that guitar bands are coming back.
That like, just around the cor...
Particularly in America, like, "It'll be fine soon."
And it's obviously not happened,
and I don't think it's ever going to happen.
Being in a band's like...
It doesn't make much sort of business sense.
I don't know whether bands can actually do it anymore,
and it seems that bands release
one album and then disappear.
Because they'll get support from the record label
and they won't see any financial return.
You know, it's just like, "Oh well then, goodbye."
I just feel really fucking bad for young bands at the moment
or people who want to take that path,
the difficult path to making music.
I feel like it's never been more difficult,
and I feel like there's never been less support than now.
When you're making a record, it's kind of lonely
and daunting, and you don't know if it's good in a way.
You don't know what it means to other people.
And I feel like the more that you're making a record,
the more lyrics I write, the deeper I get into it,
by the end of it I'm basically empty.
Like I just feel like you've put so much into it
that there's nothing left inside you.
One of the great things about touring is that,
every night that you play a show,
you're slowly filled back up by the energy
coming from the crowd and the interactions
you have outside of the show.
Like when somebody comes up to you and tells you
that one of your songs is their favorite song
or helped them et through a hard time,
it's a deeply rewarding moment.
And cumulatively, those things fill you up.
The ability for what we're doing to endure
is under threat from the way that...
The way that music and culture are consumed.
I struggle with that, because obviously I want what we make
to live and breathe and communicate and be powerful.
I don't want to do it just to fill somebody's half an hour,
somebody's free time on their phone.
Like we were saying about feeling
that what you do with your life is meaningful.
Like, how meaningful is it to be a musician in 2019,
and in a band particularly?
It doesn't have the same cultural power
that it did 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
You don't have the feeling that you can penetrate society
and culture in the same way
or engage with it or form a dialogue with it.
So I think at the darker moments,
I kind of start to think, what's the point of it?
Beyond me just enjoying or needing
to express myself creatively,
is there a wide purpose to it?
I'm gonna figure that out in the next few years.
But in the interim, those interactions with fans
are the ones that make you feel like it's worth pursuing.
♪ I buried my heart in a hole in the ground ♪
♪ With the lights and the roses and the cowards downtown ♪
♪ They threw me a party there was no one around ♪
♪ They tried to call my girl but she could not be found ♪
♪ I buried my guilt in a pit in the sound ♪
♪ With the rust and the vultures and the trash downtown ♪
♪ So don't step to me kid you'll never be found ♪
♪ 'Cause while you were sleeping I took over your town ♪
♪ When I see a man I see a lion ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye of my eye ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye I want ya ♪
♪ I fell for a girl with a port wine stain ♪
♪ I knew her initials but never her name ♪
♪ I tried and I tried and I was never the same ♪
♪ It's no longer for love and I'm forever changed ♪
♪ When I see a man I see a lion ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye of my eye ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye I want ya ♪
♪ Give up my money give up my name take it away ♪
♪ I'll give it away I'll give it away I'll give it ♪
♪ When I see a man I see a lion ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye of my eye ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye I want ya ♪
♪ Give up my money give up my name take it away ♪
♪ I'll give it away I'll give it away I'll give it ♪
♪ I'm a sycophantic animal ♪
♪ I'm a sycophantic fool ♪
♪ Break up the chain I'll break up the chain I'll break it ♪
♪ Give it away I'll give it away I'll give it ♪
♪ When I see a man I see a lion ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye of my eye ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye I want ya ♪
♪ Give up my money give up my name take it away ♪
♪ I'll give it away I'll give it away I'll give it ♪
♪ See you again I'll see you again I'll see ya ♪
♪ Give it away I'll give it away I'll give it ♪
♪ When I see a man I see a lion ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye of my eye ♪
♪ You're the apple of my eye of my eye I want ya ♪
Thank you!
We love you, thank you so much!
You killed it.
The calming down after the show doesn't happen.
It's not a "how does it happen," it just doesn't happen.
Well, we're not fucking Navy Seals, you know what I mean?
All four member at the same place 1600 hours.
I'm talking about Yannis.
He usually amps things up.
I'm like a Tasmanian devil.
I'm like charged, I'm a spinning top.
And then it goes into the night,
and that's where the problem is.
He needs to actually accelerate, for whatever reason.
Let's open this drug den for business.
Well played.
Give us a bump.
We were literally the gospel out there this evening.
Who's everyone?
We were the Holy Ghost up there.
Leave it for...
Leave it for someone.
All right.
I'm in my Holy Ghost side.
You're like a math rock Komodo dragon.
Can you try and catch this cork with your bottom?
No, 'cause I know how you take corks out as well.
And I'll leave the viewer to...
I'm a gentleman.
I tell you what, though, were literally,
we were Old Testament tonight.
Our series has acquired fucking biblical...
Jimmy, do you want to try
and catch this with your bottom?
Marry your third cousins.
Yeah, fuck, man, I feel great, I feel great.
It felt like fucking Nirvana at Rock in Rio.
You know, and there's that guy on the soldiers.
It's like, "Eat my guitar!"
But apparently no one could see me
'cause there wasn't a spotlight on me.
Oh my god.
Oh, yes!
That is literally Ecclesiastes number two.
Yannis, Yannis.
Yannis.
Jokes aside, the gospel, all these jokes,
'cause they are obviously jokes,
but when you play a show like that with a crowd like that,
it is transcendental, it's spiritual.
It's like, since the dawn of man
people have got together and they made music.
Music's a prayer.
Original music started as a prayer.
And we make music that is a prayer.
And then we share it with people.
We share it with 10,000 people every two nights
in a bogged city of peeling bricks like London.
We sing our prayers out two nights in a row,
and then you end up like a madman at the end of it.
Everyone in the band has a slightly different idea
of what could possibly come next.
I just want to make...
the best Foals record of all time
and I'd like to make the best record of all time, I guess.
That sounds kind of slightly ridiculous,
but, I mean, that would be the loftiest desire,
would be to make a record that will never ever be forgotten.
I feel that the best song that we will ever write
is still ahead of us.
That's what I want us to achieve,
is to capture that elusive song or that elusive album
or that elusive best ever show.
And I think, like with any addiction as well,
we will probably attain those things,
but quite shortly afterwards we will feel
like we need the next hit.
That's the problem with being a musician or an artist
or whatever it is like.
You can spend a life doing that
and never really feeling satisfied.
You know, 'cause it's only a transitory
feeling of satisfaction.
The amount of experiences we've had over the years,
I do kind of just feel like...
I don't mean this in a morbid way
or in like a nihilistic way, but I just feel like,
if I did drop dead tomorrow,
I would have been proud of...
I would have led a good life.
And I don't believe that...
It hasn't had a chance to go sour.
But it's also the only thing I know now.
I mean, there's loads of experiences I've got from it
that would translate into doing something else,
but I can't really imagine doing something else.
I don't see it lasting forever,
but I also don't really see it ending.
If it was gonna end, I'd like to think
that we would all kind of...
We'd all be on the same page and we'd decide in advance
so it's not like a huge, big horrible shock to everyone.
Trying to keep it together, I think.
It's like realizing how fragile an ecosystem
a band really is and how vulnerable it can be sometimes
to external influences and protecting the precious core,
the gemstone that's lying at the heart of all of this,
and just protecting it with everything you've got,
and polishing it every now and then, and treating it nice.
You know, like the beatings, the heart,
not a fucking gemstone, it's a beating heart,
and it's like protecting that
and putting personal differences or ego
or money or anything aside in order to protect
what it is that's got you there
and what it is that everybody loves.
I think that there's something uniquely valuable
about forging deep ties with your friends
and creating something in unison together.
The most rewarding thing about being in a band
is that we've built something out of absolutely nothing,
pure love of making music.
Having this type of communal experience
and doing that with your friends
and experiencing those songs that you've worked on together
go into the world, and then meeting other people
through that, I think that it's...
It's a good way to spend a life.
Hey man.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Tobey, hurry up bro!
Holly, I'll text you.
It's been a long night.
How's your night been?
Bad or good?
This song's called "Two Steps Twice".
♪ Sun side sun dance step for two ♪
♪ Sun side dance step for two ♪
♪ Sun side dance step for two dance upon and sing ♪
♪ Dance upon and sing ♪
♪ Sun side sun dance step for two ♪
♪ Sun side dance step for ♪
♪ Sunset disco this is for you ♪
One more round then we're gonna fucking do this!
Saturday night!
It's coming!
♪ That's one step one step two step ♪
♪ That's one steps two steps speed bikes ♪
♪ That's one step one step two step ♪
♪ That's one step two speed bikes ♪
♪ That's one side one side one side ♪
♪ That's one side two steps speed bikes ♪
♪ Lets swim lets swim lets swim this song ♪
♪ That's one step one step two step ♪
♪ That's one step dance step speed bikes ♪
♪ One sound one sound one sound ♪
Yes!