Interviews with Foals often read like a local’s guide to south London watering holes. This is mostly thanks to frontman Yannis Philippakis, who has lived in the area since the rock band’s early, hedonistic days in a Peckham squat dubbed “Squallyoaks”. Pubs are where the 36-year-old seems most at home, and boy, did he miss them during lockdown. He’s even written a song about it.
“I was starting to go out of my mind, with the pubs not being open,” he tells me, nursing the first of a few lunchtime pints on a sun-dappled street outside a tavern in Camberwell. He’s dressed casually in a loose shirt and jeans, sporting his usual forest-thick beard and shock of jet-black hair. We’re speaking the day before the band – whittled down from a five-piece to a trio over the past few years – head out on the road for a string of pre-Glastonbury shows around Europe. Philippakis is joyous at the prospect of live music and a new album, Life is Yours, which is out next week. The beginning of lockdown was “fairly wholesome”, he says. “I was a healthier version of myself than on tour – I enjoyed being domestic.” Then, when it became clear the pandemic wasn’t going anywhere soon, he grew restless, and the band started to write.
