The folks in the good ol’ U.S. of A may not be aware that one of the hottest acts in the UK are about to hit our shores – and for once they aren’t a pre-packaged collection of pretty boys or girls. They even write their own songs and have more than one local touchstone in their sound (and I don’t mean Marvin Gaye.) Their record is wrought with controversy (band takes over final mix from acclaimed producer!) as it crashes into the British charts. Foals, in all their young bravado and frenetic yet precise playing are here to introduce America to the next big thing. Refreshingly, they are more bite than bark… well, maybe even amounts. BYT had a chance to play e-catch up with novice keyboardist and the group’s techno aficionado, Edwin Congreave, as they touched down, and seconds before their show at RNR tonight.

How different do you expect it to be touring in the U.S. with a lower profile as opposed to back home where you are on the cover of all the music papers and selling out Dublin etc..?

Very different: The shows will be quieter! We expect to work a lot harder, with much more cynical audiences. Audiences are I think spoilt for choice in the US. We’re influenced by a lot of legendary US bands, and whereas in the UK I think we stand out musically in the indie scene the bar is raised considerably when we cross over the Atlantic. I’d expect a lot of people to distrust us, and I’d expect a lot of people to just not give a shit. That’s all very healthy.

Do you feel like it will provide a little relief from the pressure building behind you back home?

It’s a relief, but not a light one. The pressure building behind us at home is pressure for us to become a huge pop success, and we’re not really into that, so it doesn’t really bother us. We’re going to disappoint a lot of people this year, including people at our label–but that’s not our fault, we didn’t ask for it, this whole thing becomes a self-perpetuating money machine once you get to a certain point, and you can see everyone’s eyes lighting up with dollar signs, so we’re just ignoring that and focusing on touring. The real pressure is to play to audiences around the world who have different musical backgrounds and different expectations. Touring as just another British indie band made good is very easy in a lot of ways, as some people just lap it up, but it’s also very hard to get away from that expectation, as it’s pretty limited and I don’t think there’s much future for it. Obviously we’ve read the pitchfork review of our record, and that highlights how I think a lot of people will look at our band because of how we’ve come out of the UK, so we have that to fight against. Fortunately we really like fighting.

What should Foals fans expect from the upcoming release of unreleased tracks from The Edmund Fitzgerald?

Are they being released? Try Harder have been saying they’re releasing them for ages. Well, good; A lot of Foals fans won’t like them at all. It’s really heavy, intense, and meandering, and it’s mostly instrumental. I actually saw them play in Oxford before I ever met Yannis and I thought they were really awesome, really, really awesome considering the bands I was seeing around in Oxford at the time, but also totally up themselves. Things have definitely changed since then. He and jack were 16 when they started that band, you know, and in thrall to various hardcore and math bands, and they’re both older and with much more perspective now.

What caused you to discard Dave Sitek’s (TV on the Radio) mix of Antidotes?

We had a great time with Dave in the studio making the album, and we were really happy with what we’d done when we left, but when we did leave we envisaged the mixed product staying relatively faithful to what we’d done together, only with some added percussion–Talking Heads style layered stuff–and keyboards and things that we’d talked about. But when we listened to it not only did it sound flatter than the rough mix that the engineer had done but he’d turned into this reverb-laden cosmic thing that we just couldn’t get into. It lost so much of the brightness that we’d loved about it, and there was no extra percussion. We’d been stressed enough about making an album that was different to our early singles and quite a way away from what lots of people were expecting of us, and Dave just took it further and further away from that.

How did recording in the U.S. effect the process?

We had an amazing time in Brooklyn, so there was a lot of good feeling invested in the record, and because we separated ourselves from the UK scene–like for example all the “in” producers that were suggested to us that made all of the “in” records–we were able to make something that at least to us sounds to us as other to that world. I dunno if that translate, though, it might just be in our heads.

Didn’t he tell you in advance to expect him to make an offbeat sounding record? How disappointing was/is it to end what seems like a fruitful experience on a divisive note?

Yeah, he did, and, you know, we might have been stupid or naive about it, thinking that it wasn’t going to be that far out, but in the end it wasn’t really about that. We just felt it could have sounded a lot better–you know, the quality of the mixing, things as simple as the kick drum sound, the reverb he added to guitars that were supposed to be staccato, etc. the record is still very much his artistic statement. It sounds like a Dave Sitek record, I think. He put so much of his own identity into it, and he deserves full credit for it. He brought the brass to it, he brought the ambience, he changed a lot of the keyboards for the better, and, on top of all of that, he made us all feel really good not only about making a record, but about being in a band and doing our own thing. He’s a pretty inspirational guy. For that reason we found it really hard to go to him and say we didn’t like his mix. Naturally he was pretty difficult about it. But I think we’re all okay now. Certainly noone’s still disappointed. We learnt so much from him - and he got paid.

How did the label react when they learned that was taking place?

Not all that badly. I think they were panicked by it, as they have been by a few things. Tim and Toby at Transgressive are really awesome people, and they’ve made a lot happen for us, and so they worry a lot, particularly about our judgment, as we are quite impetuous and grumpy people, and all perfectionists. They actually had a pretty bad experience with Dave when he treated them as if they were suits come down to New York to interfere with the record, when really they just wanted to hear how it was going and to experience some of those summertime Brooklyn vibes. He basically flipped out at them and told them to fuck off. Considering they’re the same age as us and have been working as hard as us for basically no financial gain (Warners screws them hard), and considering how patient and respectful they are towards us, it was totally uncalled for. Mixing the record ourselves and bringing it back to something that we were happy with wasn’t a very hard decision for them to agree with, and as we had to pay for the extra mixing out of our own money it was even less of a difficult decision to make.

What inspired the boys in the band to play guitar so far up on the neck and wear it in a jazz-like fashion?

I’m not a guitarist, though I’ve played bass guitar previously, so I can only really say that in my experience it is a lot easier to pay with a tight strap far up the neck, particularly when playing high up and fast on the fret board, as our guitarists do. It’s more comfortable, primarily. I don’t understand why some people take issue with this, as if it could be for style above anything else, when, you know, it’s just a guitar strap. It seems sort of self-evident. Jazz guitarists are totally unpretentious people most of the time, so their fashion, if you want to call it that, is unlikely to be anything other than functional.

How did you all arrive at the band name? Foals, seems ideal for your sound in such an odd way.

A friend of ours named Andrew Mears who plays in Youth Movies and who used to sing with us thought up the name. He likes small animals, and is quite the romantic. Coincidentally, Yannis’ surname means lover of little horses in Greek - or little lover of horses - both of which apply, in an odd way.

Somehow Dave Ma’s minimal videos for the band and Tinhead’s busy artwork for the sleeves are perfect fits - why do you think this is and what draws you to such different visual approaches for differing mediums?

Mmm. good question. We don’t get asked that enough. It’s coincidental, to an extent, though both of them are interpreting our music, and so maybe it’s not surprising that their work is complementary. Tinhead works very much in his own world, and we work with him because we like his art, rather than the other way round, whereas Dave has been into us as a band longer than we’ve known about his ability to make videos (which only really came about recently, after we decided that we weren’t happy with our previous videos and wanted to work with someone we love and trust) and has been making stuff very much for us rather than for himself. He’s an amateur, you know, but he’s very recently afforded the opportunity to quit his job and go professional, so I think his output is going to increase and become something that even we don’t expect. He is a fantastic artistic visionary as well as an excellent friend, and he’s just going to blossom over the next couple of years.

The sparse lyrics seem integrated into the musical layout of the songs - at what point in the song writing process do the vocals take shape?

At the end. We write most of our music together instrumentally. Yannis usually finishes the vocals at the last minute in the studio. I think that might change in the future as he gains confidence as a song writer.

What is your favorite record produced from 1980-85?

Uh… there’s a lot. I know the early eighties has been done to death recently, but I can’t get enough of it. “Closer” is a perfect record, I’ll never get bored of it. I love all of the Cure’s cold records made in that time, especially “Pornography,” and then there’s REM’s “Murmur,” which we listen to as a band more than pretty much any other record, on repeat, all of the time, and “vs.,” by Mission of Burma, and “Remain in Light,” which probably goes without saying. I still listen to “Thirty Seconds on the Dime” a lot as well. Okay, I’m not answering this question very well.

What should fans of the organic brass touches and measured pacing of the record expect when the danctastic explosion of your live act begins?

Yeah, good question. To this point we’ve been known for our live show first and our record last, and they’re pretty different. The songs are more or the less the same, but we play faster and louder live. Maybe something is lost there, but I think something is gained too, even if that does sound like a self-serving cliché. I don’t have a proper answer I’m afraid. When we tour in America we’re playing without brass, basically because we can’t afford to bring brass players with us, and that is a shame, but the songs were all originally written without brass, so it’s not a huge loss.

Are you amused at reviewers having such difficulty finding references for your music (and oddly missing the post punk easy ones?) I find math rock lazy and off target and someone like English Beat having little connection.

Yeah, I’m always amused. Because are record has done so well in the UK we’ve had reviews come in from some very strange places, inlcuding Elle, Heat, which is basically just a trashy gossip thing, and a couple of men’s magazines, and they listen to the record in a very different way to that which we’d expect. It isn’t a problem, in fact it’s kind of cheering. People who have never even heard the term “math rock” have latched onto this idea that we are that, when as you probably agree we’re nothing like it, and as they don’t know where the term comes from and what it means they come out with these lines about protractors and geeky school boys and so on.

What has been your favorite so far?

We’ve been likened to Kasabian and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers before. Marie Claire said we were like Kylie kissing Radiohead. I can’t remember a lot of them, to be honest.

Who has the “artiest” haircut in the band currently.

We cut each others’ hair, usually while drunk, and often with cheerful spite, so I don’t think any of them are arty. Jack cuts his own, though, and has a lot of fun with it, so it’s probably the most obnoxious. Yannis likes to give himself terrible misshapen buzz cuts right before photo shoots and then immediately regret. Walter currently has a huge chunk missing from the back of his head where some random person buzzed him for jokes last night.

Don’t cheat on this next one - grab your ipod and list out the first five songs that shuffle through (and be honest about that Vanilla Ice track!)

Low - I Remember
Efdemin - Further Back
Boards of Canada - Rue the Whirl
Sonic Youth - (I Got a) Catholic Block
Hercules & Love Affair - Time Will

I don’t have much music on my laptop as I only just got it and have only copied some of my girlfriend’s records that I love and that I need on tour to keep me sane (i.e., Low, Boards of Canada, Sonic Youth), and downloaded a few other things. Efdemin is cold precise and kind of simple techno that I really like. I got the Hercules & Love Affair record recently and I’m not that into it, which is a shame as I absolutely love “Blind”.

I will do the same:

Bell & Sebastian “The Fox in the Snow”
Githead “Lifeloops”
The Posies “Everyone Moves Away”
The Langley School Music Project “To Know Him Is To Love Him”
The Chills “Don’t Be - Memory”

You can feel free to comment on my selections if you like. I am disappointed no funk showed up but I do adore that Chills song.

I don’t have much to say about your selections as I don’t know many of the songs! “Fox in the Snow”, however, is one of my least favourite songs ever. Whenever I think of how much I hate Belle & Sebastian I just have to recall that song and I almost make myself gag. I hope that doesn’t sound rude. It might be a different listening experience for a young British man…

You have been known to obsess on bands you enjoy and clearly are a fan of music first and foremost. With that in mind give us something we should all be listening to in DC that we aren’t currently:

Peverelist, an artist from Bristol: He runs a tiny record label called Punch Drunk that is doing well in the dubstep scene. But it isn’t really dubstep like all the cheesy bass drop stuff you hear around (I don’t know if you hear it in DC…). It’s delicate and intricate and built up mostly percussively, and rhythmically it fits the scene, but then he adds all these beautiful melodic Detroit-like touches, and it doesn’t sound like anything else. If you can find them online you should download “the grind” or “roll with the punches”.

Alternatively there’s a band from Glasgow called Dananananaykroyd from who I think are the best underground band in the UK at the moment–at least of those I’ve seen (I don’t get to see bands much anymore…). They’ve obviously grown up listening to Refused and Sonic Youth and At the Drive-In and so on but they sound totally themselves. Live they’re incredible. We’re touring with them in the UK this autumn, and they just got signed apparently, so hopefully they’ll be playing in the US soon. Get hold of their “Sissy Hits” EP on holy roar records if you can.

Is there any particular joy in playing DC and knowing the musical history here and it’s impact on other favorites of yours?

Yeah, of course; we’ve read the books and watched the DVDs. But we also know that the scene isn’t about idols or reverence or the past or whatever, so it’s not like we’re dribbling with moronic anticipation or anything. We’re more interesting in playing hard for ourselves, and trying our best to have a good time.

Join in on the good times tonight at the Rock and Roll Hotel!

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