Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis: 'Sometimes I feel like I don’t understand the world anymore'

"It was definitely make or break at one point.” Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis is reflecting on what has been a tumultuous but affirming time for the band. At the start of last year, the Oxford group announced the amicable but fairly unexpected departure of bassist, Walter Gervers.

It forced a radical change to band dynamics but preceded what Philippakis describes as a “special and crazy time”. They continued to write and self-produce their new record, later embarking on a tour that included two sold-out nights at Alexandra Palace this summer. In March, they released Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part One, the first instalment of an ambitious double album. It presented a planet ravaged by ecological disaster and twitched with a nervous energy.

Part Two, released last week, is a defiant pushback against the despair of its predecessor. After an ambient palette-cleanser on the opening track, we’re hit by a salvo of hulking guitar riffs.

“This second part is to do with wanting to escape the complexities and confusions of the time and that frustration of not being able to solve problems that are larger than yourself,” Philippakis, 33, explains. “You end up releasing that through visceral songs.”

The album arrives in a time of environmental turmoil — in the weeks leading up to its release, parts of London were brought to a standstill by Extinction Rebellion demonstrations. Foals made their own statement, unfurling a banner at the Mercury Prize ceremony in September that read: “No music on a dead planet.” On the album, there are lyrics about a world in which there are “no birds left to fly”.

Philippakis hardly considers himself a protest singer — “sloganeering just doesn’t come naturally to me as a lyricist” — but feels compelled to confront the climate crisis.

“I think the responsibility is on the individual,” he says. “If you feel you should use your platform, then you should. But there’s also another contingent of people who tell you to stay in your f***ing lane.”

Foals carbon-offset their travel while touring and Philippakis has joined the climate campaign group Music Declares Emergency. But aside from that, he claims singing about these critical subjects cements the band’s creativity, too. “It makes being in a band more fulfilling because it’s not just about you and creating music that, particularly in this day, feels more and more ephemeral,” he says. “It lends a weight to what you’re actually doing.

“I wouldn’t have said these things 10 years ago. We came up in an era where people would shy away from being direct politically or imbuing their songs with any type of political message.

“But I think that’s now what is demanded of us, to try to communicate more directly, because we are living in a time that’s different to how it was 10 years ago.”

The public conversation has shifted dramatically since 2009 and so has Foals’ place in the musical world. Back then, they were building on a reputation as a lively math-rock band, sprung from Oxford’s house-party scene. Now, they stand as veterans of British guitar music, six albums deep and labelled as possible headliners of a certain Somerset festival. Philippakis seems both perplexed and assured by it all.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t understand the world anymore,” he says. “It might be an age thing. Growing up, a lot of the ways that I would feel connected to music but also understand where we were in the musical landscape, a lot of those signifiers aren’t there anymore.

“I don’t look outside as much anymore. I just concentrate on how the chemistry feels in the group and whether we feel like we’re doing the correct thing.”

There are moments when it all comes back into sharp focus though — like at Glastonbury this summer, when Philippakis witnessed the frenzied crowd response to their secret set on the Park stage. “That was one of those moments where you go, ‘Oh, the appetite for the band is bigger than ever and we mean something to people’.”

So, where next? What does a band do after releasing a grand, conceptual double album? First, there’s another big tour, but after that?

“We always want to do the unexpected. Anything could happen,” Philippakis says. “The answer definitely isn’t to go bigger and bigger.”

He adds: “Maybe the things that will be good for us to do will be outside of the band. Maybe it will be about other types of creative expression or subverting and surprising ourselves in ways that we wouldn’t expect right now.”

Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part Two (Warner Records) is out now