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Basement alchemy: Yannis & The Yaw sees Foals' Yannis Philippakis and Afrobeat legend Tony Allen forge a treasure with 'Walk Through Fire'

The lead track from YANNIS PHILIPPAKIS’ posthumous collaboration with Afrobeat drumming legend TONY ALLEN captures the electrifying spark that ignited during their global musical meeting, weaving a tapestry of sound that reflects the cultural touchstones of Lagos, Paris, and London. Read our latest Dork Mixtape cover feature now.

Words: Martyn Young.

Photos: Kit Monteith, Rishi Salujah.

“It’s about serendipity and coming together with someone.” There’s always something amazing when you get to meet your heroes, but for Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis, the opportunity to not only meet but work with legendary Afrobeat pioneering drummer Tony Allen was a truly special experience. Tragically, Tony passed away during the pandemic, leaving the work that they started in flux, but seven years after they first met, Yannis has now put together a beautiful EP documenting their time and the music they made together as a special project under the name Yannis And The Yaw. ‘Lagos Paris London’ is a reflection of a moment in time and two generations meeting and creating a little bit of magic.

With Foals riding high on the wild success of their fourth album ‘What Went Down’, a call offering an intriguing opportunity came following two years of hard touring. “I got a call when we were deep in a Foals tour. We were touring ‘What Went Down’ so it was quite a few years ago now. I got a call from a mutual friend who said, do you want to go and write with Tony Allen in Paris?” says Yannis.

The mention of Tony Allen’s name immediately conjured excitement as he remembered the pivotal role Tony and his work as drummer for Fela Kuti, as well as his long and winding career, played in the genesis and evolution of Foals. “A lot of our formative musical years were spent listening to Fela Kuti,” he explains. “Especially this one compilation of Tony Allen’s that I think is just called ‘The Best Of’. It’s a quadruple vinyl. We used to hammer it when we were writing ‘Antidotes’ and ‘Total Life Forever’. I was a huge fan.”

He was immediately hooked on the unique skill of his drumming. “Another song that we loved that he played on was ‘La Ritournelle’ by Sebastian Tellier; that was a song we all obsessed over. His drumming is a huge part of why that song is great.”

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While the opportunity sounded exciting, a “no brainer”, as Yannis explains it, the reality of actually making it work became more of an issue. “I got home, and I hadn’t been home for a couple of months, and I collapsed into a puddle the moment the keys were thrown on the table. I was like, fuck, I don’t know if I’ve got the energy to get up and get to Paris the next day,” says Yannis as he describes his exhaustion after a punishing Foals tour. “I almost put it off, but my friend at the time encouraged me and said, look, you’ve got to go there for two days. It might be the experience of a lifetime, then you can come home and rest.”

For the experience of a lifetime, Yannis recounts the details in a refreshingly simple and down-to-earth style. “So, I trotted off with my guitar to the Eurostar and I got there in the morning,” he begins. “It was a basement studio. Very French and very 70s. Full of cigarette smoke and bad carpet and mirrors in weird places. It was basically Tony’s home, in a way. His drums were permanently set up in the live room.”

For the music icon that is Tony Allen, he had seen and experienced everything there is to experience and had worked with a who’s who of musical legends, “What was funny about the first encounter was he wasn’t particularly phased or that excited that I was there. He was just in his own vibe,” laughs Yannis. “I don’t think he knew of my work. It was set up, and he was in a place where he was very open to collaborating with people. He was doing some stuff with Jeff Mills. Tony, in general, collaborated a lot. He approached it like a jazz drummer. The producers and the other musicians that were around Tony knew me; they helped me set up and were very welcoming.”

Was there a sense of trepidation, though, and having to prove yourself and prove your musical chops? “It wasn’t that Tony wasn’t welcoming, but he was waiting to see what it was going to be like. Who’s this little punk?” he laughs.

Almost instantly, though, the musical alchemy bubbled up, and from their first jam together came the project’s first track with the heavy groove of ‘Walk Through Fire’. “It’s a simple song,” he explains. “It largely revolves around this one riff. We played it round a couple of times, and some of these other French guys in the studio who knew Tony played along and were either helping out on bass or percussion. We kinda had it there. The moment that that had happened we were getting on like a house on fire after that. The room changed.”

As they played more and more, Yannis discovered at close quarters what he loved about Tony’s artistry and even discovered new things. “I was surprised at how quietly he played,” he says with deep reverence. “Coming from proper big arena rock shows on this Foals tour and playing songs like ‘What Went Down’ and ‘Snakeoil’ was a total pivot into this much more deft style of playing. Just being in a room with him and hearing him in the moment playing his drums that I had become so familiar with, the texture and the rhythm of the way he played and that being on something that I was writing live on the spot and that we were inhabiting the same moment of creativity together in a room was just electrifying.”

‘Walk Through Fire’ was the spark that ignited the whole project. “It was the first thing. It’s immediate in the same way that it was immediate in the room on that day,” enthuses Yannis. “The lyrics are pretty resonant with the time we’re living in. Tony encouraged this in me. He wanted the lyrics to be engaged with the social fabric. A lot of Tony’s music, and the lineage of Fela Kuti and Afrobeat, is often very political with protest songs. In discussing with Tony about the lyrics, he wanted it to mine the social discord. It resonates today. It’s got this fresh energy. It feels like a more garagey or bluesy song. It’s quite rough and freeing and fun. It was a good entry point to the project but also makes sense chronologically.”

The jamming session in Paris was intended to lead to work beginning on a full album, but events got in the way firstly with scheduling issues and then Covid before Tony’s sad passing, which ultimately gave Yannis the impetus to turn those special moments into something real and tangible. “Covid really scuppered us because he was based in Paris. It was impossible for so long,” he explains. “As is the way with collaborations, once you’ve captured the lighting in the bottle, sometimes you don’t complete it when you should. You know that it’s there, so you get slightly complacent about it. I had a lot of stuff with Foals and he was busy as well doing The Good, The Bad and The Queen. He was really busy, and between us we couldn’t get together. Sadly and tragically, he passed away during Covid. It strangely was a massive motivation to try to finish it. Largely out of guilt that we hadn’t done it while he was alive and realising that it had been such a special experience in my life creatively, but just as a person, it was such a unique moment for us to have not completed it and played shows together. Out of bittersweet guilt, I really wanted to finish it. We needed to put them out to do it justice.”

The EP is a beautiful tribute to the enduring legacy of Tony Allen and the creative spirit he represents. “His music will live on forever,” says Yannis passionately. “The drums will play on. He had such an incredible and unique style of playing. He was the originator. He was the source. There’s an untappable well that will continue to inspire people for generations.”

The record is also an example of his dexterity as a musician and willingness to still try new things. “This release is an interesting perspective on Tony’s writing,” says Yannis. “It’s definitely a different project than Tony’s worked on before. It’s the heaviest stuff he was involved in. For me, it’s obviously the most inspired by jazz and Afrobeat. For people coming to the EP, it’s an interesting prism that we were both put in and thrust together to write this.”

Even more remarkable is that it almost never happened. “Had I not gone to Paris that day and further along, had we not kept it up and had we not finished it, through these chance meetings and happenings, you can end up with something that’s precious and is permanent,” he continues. “When so much of life is impermanent, that’s a really important lesson that I learned. I feel protective over the record. It’s a treasure and a document of two people who came together. He was in his seventies when I met him, and I was in my twenties. There’s something amazing about two people from different cultures and backgrounds and generations being thrust together unknowingly without knowing each other and through music very quickly bonding and forming and creating something that will last.”

This collaborative project comes at a time when Foals are able to take a pause and reflect on a triumphant couple of years following their euphoric 2022 album ‘Life Is Yours’ which cemented them firmly at the top of the UK band pantheon after almost two decades of innovation. “We’ve been smashing it for so many years; it’s been such a constant focus of our lives,” says Yannis, explaining the band’s desire to take stock. “It has been incredible to devote yourself to something so absorbing, but I think every now and then you just have to come up for air and remind yourself what life looks like above the parapet. For self-preservation and the preservation of the band, it’s important to occasionally stop and assess what exactly we want to do next rather than just automatically make another record without consideration. This time, we want to think about what we’re going to do next, and I think that’s natural after having put out quite a few records; it’s important for us to decide what we want to do.”

In the meantime, Yannis And The Yaw offers the opportunity to have some fun and do something a little different. Certainly not a solo project, but just a different kind of creative expression. “I’ve left it open-ended,” he says excitedly. “The idea behind the Yaw part is that it could be a rotating collaborative project. The title, ‘Lagos Paris London’, is the cultural touchstones for the EP, and it’s a musical postcard from these locations. If there was to be another project with the Yaw again, it would be three different locations and a different cultural mix. It’s not meant to be a solo expression. This EP is an archive of time recording with Tony and French musicians Vincent Taeger and Vincent Tuarelle, who were really important and produced it. I would imagine they might be part of the Yaw. It’s important to make the distinction. If I were to do a solo record, it would sound a lot different. This is led by Tony and the group of his musicians in France. If I was to do another one, it would sound quite different. There are no plans for that right now. I want to leave it open-ended and let this EP have its time in the sun, and let’s see what happens later on.”

With the EP arriving at the end of the summer, there’s a tantalising opportunity for perhaps some gigs as Yannis looks to continue to honour the legacy of one of his all-time heroes. “I think we will,” he smiles when asked if he’s planning to bring these songs to life on stage. “Not an extensive tour, but a couple of shows to give the record a good release and a good send-off and honour Tony.”

#yannis philippakis #yannis & the yaw #interview #lagos paris london

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