Foals find legs on Holy Fire

The indie darlings hit their stride on latest album. Guitarist Jimmy Smith talks to Ed Power

FOALS’ Jimmy Smith is worried. “Everybody seems to like our new songs,” he says. “The response has been overwhelmingly positive. I keep expecting to wake up one morning to a backlash. You find yourself thinking, ‘this is way too good to be true’.” He speaks from experience. Seven years ago, Foals were the hot thing in British independent music. The NME adored their zeitgeist punk funk (this was when the magazine’s endorsement counted), MTV and the BBC radio were cheerleaders. The hype was clamorous.

But Foals never wanted to be one of ‘those’ bands, the sort you hear non-stop in Topshop for six months, then forget. So they played hard to get. Interviews were refused, television offers rejected. Sometimes, says Smith, it’s smarter to move away from the spotlight.