Within the 20 years since hoovering up Brits and the Mercury Prize with their debut LP, Franz Ferdinand have remained energetic and excitable, in love with the probabilities of what a band ought to be. Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy be part of us in Monterrey to elucidate pop’s holy grail, attempting to emulate Black Sabbath and feeling feline. Simply don’t point out snakes…
Franz Ferdinand mainstays Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy are so in tune with one another that they even share the identical phobia. Over 20 years since Take Me Out and The Darkish Of The Matinée launched the Glasgow-based literate pop powerhouses, the pair have remained in thrall to the probabilities of music.
However, with their sixth album entitled The Human Worry, it’s pure to get darker and ask what they’re frightened of. The pair’s responses reveal the Franz Ferdinand hivemind: they’re each petrified of snakes. Hardy’s most vivid childhood reminiscence is of going to Noah’s Ark, an exhibit on Morecambe seashore, aged three. “It was a faux zoo, full of fashions of animals,” shudders the often amiable bassist.“The flooring and partitions had been each glass, and one room was stuffed with snakes. I misplaced it and needed to be carried out of there. I can’t stand snakes; I can’t take a look at them.”
Snake Charmer
Nodding sympathetically at his bandmate’s story, Kapranos takes up the theme: “Once I see a snake, I freeze uncontrollably.” Typically holidaying together with his Greek grandfather on the island of Salamis, close to Athens, the younger Alex walked all the way down to his grandad’s pistachio bushes one morning.
“I paused, flip-flop in mid-air, to see a snake beneath my foot,” he grimaces. “It was a type of moments that lasted seconds however looks like hours, me and the snake taking a look at one another. It realised I wasn’t going to face on it and left me alone. My grandfather informed me: ‘You’ll have been lifeless if it had bitten you.’ That freaked me out much more. So, yeah, I’ve acquired the identical worry as Bob.”
The motivating thrill derived from being scared is a theme of The Human Worry, as Kapranos explains: “Overcoming fears can result in your best achievements, like asking somebody out on a date. We get your hands on worry to make us really feel alive, however The Human Worry isn’t a doomy goth file to make you are feeling afraid.”
Propulsive Pop
It actually isn’t, however it’s an album to make you are feeling alive. Franz Ferdinand’s first LP since At all times Ascending in 2018, it’s full of the propulsive pop that’s been their trademark since debut single Darts Of Pleasure in 2003. It’s additionally the expanded five-piece’s first album with guitarist Dino Bardot and drummer Audrey Tait, whereas keyboardist Julian Corrie had joined the band for At all times Ascending. It follows the departures of Nick McCarthy in 2016 and Paul Thomson 5 years later.
“I really like the dynamic of the band for the time being,” beams Kapranos. “What I really like on a file is the sound of 5 individuals in a room enjoying collectively. While you get a very good efficiency, you’re enjoying in a method that’s nearly telepathic. Bob and I’ve performed collectively for over 20 years, however we’ve actually developed with the opposite three.”
Hardy likens the present line-up’s relationship to role-playing video games, reasoning: “Every character has particular person traits that enable you alongside the best way. Audrey is a large fan of pop music, Dino loves 70s prog and Julian brings musical concept and manufacturing skills. When it comes collectively, we create one thing distinctive, like we’re a robust gang on a quest.”
Mission Assertion
Each nice fans who speak at breakneck pace, the pair appear to have lasted so lengthy collectively by being as excitable as their music. Kapranos believes it goes again to how Franz Ferdinand started: “Most individuals begin bands by jamming collectively. Bob and I as a substitute began by speaking about what a band ought to be and what we love about bands. As a listener, that’s how we strategy music, too. All of us need to perceive what’s good about our favorite bands.”
“I’m not significantly musical,” admits Hardy. “What excites me about being in a band is the potential of what it might probably do. The one cause I play bass is so I could be in a band. That was my entry payment to becoming a member of the band: ‘I’ve acquired to be taught to play this? Okay, I’ll do my finest.’”
Kapranos laughs at his pal’s admission, persevering with: “Bob’s function in Franz Ferdinand is far more essential than simply enjoying bass. Anybody can play bass – Bob is proof of that! The concepts to make the band nice: that’s one thing solely Bob may have carried out. So many musicians get caught up in silly shit, like how loud they’re within the combine or how briskly they’ll play a keyboard. Bob and I don’t care who’s enjoying what, as long as it sounds good in the long run.”
That it’s taken so lengthy for The Human Worry to reach is all the way down to a mix of the pandemic, getting the band’s line-up resolved and selling 2022’s singles compilation, Hits To The Head. Specializing in their singles proved invaluable, as Hardy reveals: “Taking part in a hits set boiled down what the essence of Franz Ferdinand is for us. Wanting again at our physique of labor made me fairly emotional. We’d been writing songs earlier than the compilation, however they didn’t fairly sound like Franz Ferdinand. Going again to the brand new materials, it was: ‘What was it about these previous singles that we liked?’ and enjoying them had made me realise: ‘These are all actually enjoyable.’”
Sound Identification
The tour noticed Kapranos admire the similarities between his personal band and his heroes, as he considers: “The holy grail for a band is to retain your id. For those who hear to 3 seconds of a tune, it’s them: the Ramones, The Conflict, The Kinks. However you then need to do one thing new, too. I used to be attempting to push these songs in new instructions, whereas all the time sounding like a Franz Ferdinand tune.
“On this album, Hooked and particularly Black Eyelashes don’t sound like something we’ve carried out however, when individuals hear it, I’d like to suppose they instantly understand it’s us.”
The gonzo robodance of Hooked appears destined to be a reside favorite, echoing Justice and electroclash in its frazzled riff. “I used to be attempting to play the dumbest heavy metallic riff I presumably may on a guitar, then put it by a synth,” Kapranos discloses. “I really like Black Sabbath and wished a few of that. However for 3 years, it was only a riff.”
The band’s producer, Mark Ralph, helped flip it into a correct tune. Ralph had been the engineer on 2013’s Proper Ideas, Proper Phrases, Proper Motion album. He’s since produced a battalion of giant names, together with Years And Years, Becky Hill, Rag’n’Bone Man and Jess Glynne.
“Mark is a machine,” raves Hardy. “Even speaking to him on Proper Ideas…, Mark had labored on tons of of information. It was no shock he turned a famous person producer quickly after.” Kapranos provides: “Some producers get caught up within the recording course of and mainly love smelling their very own farts.
“Mark is instinctive, he can see the aim of what the album ought to be and he doesn’t have an ego. Some massive parts of this album got here from the demos, and Mark wasn’t afraid to depart these in there.”
Love Illumination
Becoming a member of Traditional Pop over Zoom from their lodge rooms in Monterrey earlier than a present supporting The Killers, Kapranos and Hardy are nonetheless seemingly obsessed with touring. Earlier than the band, Kapranos was a part-time faculty lecturer. He remembers: “There was a globe within the lecture room. I’d take a look at it and daydream: ‘Think about sooner or later going to Tokyo! Or Los Angeles!’ A yr later, the band took off, and I’ve been so fortunate to see these locations for actual. I by no means take this as a right.”
The frontman now lives in Paris together with his spouse, French singer Clara Luciani. The couple married in Might 2023, 4 months earlier than their son was born. Asking if Luciani impressed Hooked’s ecstatic line: “I believed I knew what love was – after which I met you” causes the often erudite singer to get flustered. He tries providing a blancmange of a solution that “There’s a number of love in all of the songs,” earlier than confessing: “I’m not superb at speaking about my private life. It’s simpler to speak about within the context of lyrics, however very troublesome in regular dialog. Songs talk issues that I can’t in regular dialog, which is one cause I write songs within the first place.”
That’s honest sufficient, and Kapranos later reveals how turning into a father impressed The Human Worry’s explosive finale, The Birds. A implausible prolonged cathartic holler, he says: “The Birds is about overcoming the worry of rejection from society. Having a younger baby, I’m significantly conscious how kids endure from being outcast, because of social media. It’s straightforward to change into an outcast, and the tune hopefully captures the aid and pleasure of being nameless again within the flock.”
Feline Good
The virtually languid Cats’ inspiration was extra prosaic, as he laughs: “I loved imagining myself feeling like a cat. I wrote it simply after my son was born, when there was no alternative to prowl the town at night time by myself. There’s a sure diploma of escapism there.”
That the album achieves Franz Ferdinand’s aim of all the time sounding like Franz Ferdinand is partly because of Alex Kapranos’ vocals. His voice is ever extra expressive, but it’s additionally immediately acquainted. That wasn’t all the time the case, because it took him a number of years to really feel comfy behind the mic.
“Figuring out what my voice was, it was a sudden second,” he recollects. “All through my twenties, I used to be afraid of singing, as a result of I used to be afraid of being perceived as not cool. Then one night time, I used to be out with Bob and my then-girlfriend, doing karaoke at a membership in Glasgow.”
Singing Be-Bop-A-Lula, Kapranos “completely let rip”. He goes on: “It was the primary time I’d let go as a singer. I believed: ‘Oh! That’s the way you do it!’ From that second on, I realised I may take pleasure in it, fairly than feeling self-conscious.”
Shock Issue
Franz Ferdinand labored with one of many nice unselfconscious artists in 2015, after they teamed up with Sparks for a self-titled LP as FFS. “They nonetheless have an curiosity in what’s occurring round them,” says Hardy. “We nonetheless share the occasional e-mail and so they’ll get in contact after they’re in Glasgow.” Kapranos provides: “They confirmed music is a lifelong vocation and Sparks had been inspiring in exhibiting tips on how to be fully pushed by their work, to this point into their profession.”
A second FFS file is unlikely, nonetheless, as Hardy notes: “FFS was concerning the shock issue. Quantity two wouldn’t have the identical influence or that means.” As an alternative, they’d like to make a file with The Remedy or Queen. Or each. Hardy laughs: “I’d like to ask Brian Might to do a solo for us, primarily simply so I may hang around with Brian Might.”
The brand new album’s first single, Audacious, “has particular influences of each Queen and The Remedy,” acknowledges Kapranos. “I learn an interview with Robert Smith saying how a lot he hates Queen. So I’d like to do a tune with each Robert Smith and Brian Might.”
Persuading Robert Smith to beat his worry of Queen? That basically can be an audacious transfer.
For extra on Franz Ferdinand and The Human Worry, click on right here
