Leave it to Foals to turn lockdown into a dance party. But not just any dance party—the kind where you’re moving your body while your brain replays every questionable decision from your youth, and maybe your eyes are getting a little misty but you blame it on the strobe lights.
Calling in from a taxi in the chaos of London, Yannis Philippakis is barely stationary long enough to explain how Life Is Yours came to be. Fitting, since the album never really sits still either. “We just wanted to stretch our legs,” Yannis says, which in Foals-speak means dismantling their rock band DNA and reconstructing it with drum machines, synthesizers, and a rotating door of producers egging them on to get weird.
But not too weird. “I wasn’t worried about it being bland,” he says about working with multiple producers. “I was worried it would just be all over the joint.” Spoiler: it’s not. Life Is Yours is tight, infectious, and surprisingly emotional for a record that could soundtrack both a basement rave and an existential crisis.
This is Foals in full experimental mode, but don’t call it a party record. “I don’t write superficial lyrics,” Yannis deadpans. “Some of the greatest music is uplifting sonically but counteracted by melancholy lyrics.” Enter “2am,” a deceptively simple track about the vicious cycles of self-destruction disguised as a synth-laced banger. “The music’s light, but the lyrics make it something more nuanced, more bitter-sweet.”
Foals have always balanced on that knife edge between euphoria and despair, but this time they’re dancing on it. “2001” dives headfirst into the nostalgia pool, recounting the band’s hedonistic early days in Brighton—a seaside town that’s equal parts charming and unhinged. “No parents, no responsibilities,” Yannis recalls. “We lived it to the max.” And now he’s reliving it in song, channeling frustration from lockdown into memories of teenage angst. “It’s especially visual,” he says, painting scenes of blue tongues from candy canes and soda pop highs.
If Life Is Yours has a ghost story, it’s “Looking High.” “It starts off optimistic,” Yannis explains, “but then you realize the people dancing are now ghosts.” The clubs have closed, the friends have scattered, and what’s left is the ache for nights that aren’t coming back. “It’s like someone showing you those amazing nights and then reminding you none of it exists anymore.”
And yet, there’s still room for hope—or at least escape. “Wake Me Up” was Yannis’ attempt to break free from the pandemic’s mental fog. “I was trying to transport myself out of a depressive place,” he says. “To wake me and my friends up from a dystopian dream.” Mission accomplished.
Then there’s “The Sound,” a late-album monster that nearly blows the roof off. It builds, and builds, and builds until you’re sure it’s the finale—only for “Wild Green” to come in and land the final punch. “Normally we’d let an album slope off at the end,” Yannis says, “but this time we wanted the climax late. We wanted it to hit hard.”
And just when you think Yannis might settle, he casually mentions his half-finished collab with Underworld’s Karl Hyde. “There’s maybe five or six tracks,” he says. One’s already out there—“The Gambler,” a banger buried in the true crime series The Jinx. The rest? “Maybe I’ll finish them at some point.”
Foals are headlining Glastonbury this year, opposite Billie Eilish, which doesn’t seem to faze Yannis at all. “That’s a good clash for us,” he shrugs. “If you’re headlining at Glastonbury, you’re clashing with somebody good.”
Good, but not better. Because Life Is Yours isn’t just about moving on from the past—it’s about dragging it onto the dancefloor, ghosts and all, and turning up the volume until you can’t hear your regrets anymore. Or at least until the next morning.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
