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" Foals make their much-anticipated return next month. Holy Fire will mark the Oxford band&amp;#039;s third record, following 2010&amp;#039;s Total Life Forever. Digital Spy caught up with frontman Yannis Philippakis to discuss the new album, the &amp;#039;return&amp;#039; of indie, &amp;quot;bulls**t&amp;quot; David Guetta-pop and why hip-hop isn&amp;#039;t what it used to be...  What can we expect from Holy Fire? &amp;quot;You can expect 11 new songs and a new progression in our recorded output. I don&amp;#039;t think either of the two singles (&amp;#039;Inhaler&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;My Number&amp;#039;) are definitive of what the record sounds like. This record has the greatest internal diversity within it; there are songs where it&amp;#039;s just Jimmy and I, no drums, and it&amp;#039;s essentially super stripped-back, almost ambient. And then there&amp;#039;s tracks like &amp;#039;Inhaler&amp;#039;. There are all sorts of different spaces on the record; it&amp;#039;s hard for me to quantify it all because my perspective on it is a bit warped. But it definitely feels like a record of many different colours.&amp;quot; Ever since &amp;#039;Spanish Sahara&amp;#039;, there&amp;#039;s now a real suspense before a new Foals single emerges. Do you enjoy the uncertainty amongst your fans? &amp;quot;Yeah, definitely. It&amp;#039;s nice to have a bit of drama still; things have become predictable, especially where guitar music has evolved. It&amp;#039;s like there&amp;#039;s this template to it that a lot of bands follow. It&amp;#039;s nice to curb it once in a while. We don&amp;#039;t know how things will come across. &amp;#039;Sahara&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;Inhaler&amp;#039; aren&amp;#039;t predictable moves so it&amp;#039;s nerve-wracking for us, and it keeps it exciting as we get bored quite quickly. It&amp;#039;s fun, isn&amp;#039;t it?&amp;quot; Yeah, there aren&amp;#039;t enough bands around where you&amp;#039;re so unsure as to what their new single will sound like. &amp;quot;Yeah, you can peg a band quite quickly usually.&amp;quot;      It&amp;#039;s been three years since Total Life Forever. Do you ever worry that music has moved on too much for there to be the same level of interest as before? &amp;quot;Yeah, in the same way when you put out a track, you fear people might not give a s**t. That is there in the background but it&amp;#039;s definitely not something that keeps me up at night. It encroaches in every musician&amp;#039;s career. Bowie just put out a track but even he&amp;#039;ll be wondering, &amp;#039;Will anyone care?&amp;#039; It&amp;#039;s the chilly touch of death for a musician when the public is not bothered, and you can&amp;#039;t even give tickets away at that point. But there needs to be that, otherwise everyone turns into a cryogenic Bono, and you don&amp;#039;t want that!&amp;quot; At the same time, though, I imagine it takes a band like Foals a while to gather their ideas and be happy with the finished product. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s also because we can&amp;#039;t write on tour that easily. We like taking our time over it and we enjoy the process of making a record. It&amp;#039;s not a job of work or, &amp;#039;Let&amp;#039;s get this record made so we can tour again&amp;#039;. It&amp;#039;s more the other way round; we prefer being in the studio to touring. We can&amp;#039;t [put out records] that quickly.&amp;quot; I initially thought the title &amp;#039;Holy Fire&amp;#039; was to do with war powered by religion, but Wikipedia says it&amp;#039;s an annual miracle within Orthodox Christianity. What does the title actually mean? &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s neither of those things for me but that&amp;#039;s why we liked it; they&amp;#039;re two big words that conjure up a lot of different things for different people. I guess the idea of cleansing and something of burning intensity was what we liked. It just seemed to suit the record, but it&amp;#039;s not a nod to orthodoxy!&amp;quot;      The artwork looks pretty cool. I can see camels or horses riding the ocean... [Laughs] &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re horses, not camels! Camels, I like that. People are riding on them and they&amp;#039;re predominantly women. I can&amp;#039;t tell if they&amp;#039;re clothed fully or not but they&amp;#039;re riding into the sea. I don&amp;#039;t really know anything about it, which is why I liked it. It was shot in 1968 in California, I know that. Maybe it&amp;#039;s about some strange hippy death cult or as pedestrian as a riding school, but it&amp;#039;s a beautiful shot.&amp;quot; You&amp;#039;re playing London&amp;#039;s Royal Albert Hall in March. Why did you choose this venue? &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve played places like Brixton and there&amp;#039;s a circuit to touring; you play the same venues as others. We wanted to do something a bit special and to be able to play in that kind of grand space is gonna be a night to remember. It&amp;#039;s not something we&amp;#039;ll do again. We want to play in these spaces because we can and I don&amp;#039;t want to play on a sticky floor forever.&amp;quot; According to some, we&amp;#039;re about to witness a guitar rock resurgence... &amp;quot;I think that statement is bulls**t. If drum &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; bass won&amp;#039;t die then guitar bands ain&amp;#039;t going nowhere. It&amp;#039;s just something that people say to try and add interest to what is essentially a very pedestrian thing to talk about. Nothing really changes; you&amp;#039;ve just got slight vacillations of progress in music. There&amp;#039;s always going to be guitar bands; it&amp;#039;s whether some programmer or media hobnob in West London decides to say whether it&amp;#039;s in or not. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just to do with the transparency of it rather than how exciting it is. Often the most exciting moments in guitar music are when there&amp;#039;s no attention on it. Burial was putting stuff out when there wasn&amp;#039;t this supposed dubstep/electronic monopoly. When people say, &amp;#039;It&amp;#039;s the reign of the guitar band&amp;#039;, that&amp;#039;s when the worst records get put out.&amp;quot;  What do you make of this supposed dubstep/electronic monopoly? Or even the poppier DJs like David Guetta? &amp;quot;David Guetta is basically... it&amp;#039;s not even something that really makes my blood boil because it is just bulls**t. It is an abomination but there needs to be bad music around. You need Jilly Cooper novels and pulp, trashy culture. Plus, some people like s**t music. I don&amp;#039;t like David Guetta and I don&amp;#039;t like that style. What bothers me more really is that a lot of hip-hop is being played over those backing tracks, and I find that a shame because I like hip-hop a lot. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t listen to current hip-hop because the MCing isn&amp;#039;t the skill of it anymore; it&amp;#039;s more putting it over super-garish club tracks. If you compare it to what DJ Premier was doing in the early &amp;#039;90s and Rza with Wu-Tang, that&amp;#039;s got real artistry and grit. When I don&amp;#039;t hear that, it feels like hip-hop has lost something rather than progressed.&amp;quot;  What new bands are you liking, given it&amp;#039;s the time for new band-tipping? &amp;quot;I quite like this guy Petite Noir, and also a band from Oxford called Solid Gold Dragons. I like what I&amp;#039;ve heard of Savages and Palma Violets; I&amp;#039;m interested to hear their albums. And Jagwar Ma from Australia.&amp;quot; Foals&amp;#039; new album Holy Fire is released on February 11. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/music/interviews/a450060/foals-interview-guitar-rock-revival-is-bullst/>