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Whatever your views on the flimsy futures envisaged by seedy media tipsters – a sport that seems to have gone from ‘Rocket’ Ronnie Jepson to Cristiano Ronaldo in the space of 12 months – things are looking pretty rosy at the moment for Foals.

On the receiving end of wry nods from a nation of hacks, signed recently to Sub Pop in the US, down with the youngers (Skins), going up with the olds (Jools) and about to push forth their debut album Antidotes, it seems the only nag in Foals’ mind of late has been the storied dissatisfaction with the mixing efforts of producer Dave Sitek.

Keen to get to the bottom of the bother, DiS chaired an interview recently between frontman Yannis Philippakis and Youthmovies and former Foals member Andrew Mears. There was chitter, there was chatter, mostly about music, society and indie ‘fame’ but also about Rasta-chic leaf medallions and Adele, but we’ll leave all that ‘til the full interview’s published tomorrow; here’s what Yannis had to say about the TV On the Radio man.

Andrew Mears: Oh yeah, Bob [Weston] mastered our record. Bob’s really cheap!
Yannis Philippakis: And Dave [Sitek]’s really expensive, and both of us got fucked.
AM: Yeah… Bob was really cheap, and obviously we grew up on his bands, and I guess you did as well.
YP: Yep.
AM: And that kind of stuff resonates with people, doesn’t it?
YP: Yep.
AM: Because it’s Bob Weston, from Shellac. I don’t know… he did a good job, and he was cheap! We never met him, and never really spoke to him, because Ant did all of that organising, as things like mastering is way over our heads. Over your head?
YP: Pretty much. I went to a mastering session for the album and I didn’t understand what was going on.
AM: It’s having to understand compression and stuff like that… Wait, this is not good copy. Let’s stop this…
YP: But yeah, so... We had our album produced over there, obviously.
AM: It’s funny – everything I read recently seems to be saying about your ‘terrible’ experience with Dave Sitek, and stuff like that, but it was really only the last chapter that was bad, right?
YP: Exactly. The rest of it was a really positive thing.
AM: That’s exactly what I seemed to gauge from you. He sort of changed the way you thought about the band… Like, even down to how to behave as a band.
YP: He totally did. It’s weird for me reading these things, as I’ve tried not to divulge any of the problems that arose, because we do still admire him so much. But it’s weird reading that Dave Sitek did this, and we were dissatisfied with it… We’re not dissatisfied with the experience of working with him, just the mix that was originally produced. Everything he did with us while we were out there was just nuts. Properly nuts.

Nuts? Fingers X'd Yannis isn't hinting at another shift in musical direction.

Like we said, you can find the full interview here on Drowned in Sound tomorrow. Not a fan? The 'inevitable backlash' can be found here.