superlatives

The Greatest and Earwormiest of Franz Ferdinand, According to Alex Kapranos

"For me, the greatest feat is to experiment and pull something off and for the audition not to notice." Photo-Analogy: Vulture. Photo: Andy Willsher/Redferns/Getty Image

When I signed onto a Zoom call with Alex Kapranos a few weeks ago, I joked how his band put me in a dispiriting mood the day prior: I had long been in pursuit of a clean Franz Ferdinand vinyl to enhance my drove, only to go through the v stages of grief when a local store tried to pass off a scratched record as mint status. The nerve! I but want to finally listen to "The Dark of the Matinée" as our sonic overlords intended, you lot know? "Being a large record hunter, especially on tour in America, I always hunt out records," he responded with a laugh. "And that is admittedly one of the most frustrating feelings in the earth."

Franz Ferdinand — indie lads, not archduke — is now ii full decades into their history, enough so that Hits to the Head , a buoyant greatest-of album, volition exist released on March 11. Of course, you're going to observe their early triumphs "Take Me Out" and "Do Y'all Want To" nestled in at that place, when the classic lineup of Kapranos, Bob Hardy, Paul Thomson, and Nick McCarthy were crafting some of the sexiest, suavest earworms in the genre at the time. (Every bit well as making us perk up almost Russian constructivism with their accompanying visuals.) Only if yous move beyond 2004'due south Franz Ferdinand and 2005's You Could Have It So Much Improve, you'd know that the Glasgowians were a lot more innovative beyond a blanket "rock" classification: 2009'south Tonight shifted them to an electronics-leaning era, a louche surprise that followed them into 2013'south Right Thoughts, Correct Words, Right Action and 2018'due south E'er Ascending. To dear Franz Ferdinand is to dear the dance floor, whether that flooring has a disco ball above it or is covered in viscid film.

While the ring'south lost ii of its original members (and gained three newbies), Kapranos has remained Franz Ferdinand'southward frontman, guitarist, and primary songwriter since forming in 2002. This yr, they're gearing up to tour extensively throughout Europe and are currently "making arrangements" to striking the road in America, too. In the meantime, Kapranos was enthused to reminisce well-nigh the band for our Superlatives column, from the highs and lows to potential proper name alternatives.

It'south always been the same respond at different points in my life, even before Franz Ferdinand: The newest song. The new 1 right now is "Curious." That's the last thing we recorded and it feels similar information technology'southward where my ideas are at the moment. I love the way it is. Information technology feels like I'm singing in a manner that I haven't done however, and it sounds distinctly Franz Ferdinand. It really makes me want to dance. I promise it makes other people desire to trip the light fantastic toe as well.

The way that I sing the "Curious" chorus is really different, especially the phrasing and the rapidity of the syllables. Information technology's something that I would've institute intimidating when the band started off. I don't think I would've had the guts to try and sing like that. That's one of the good things of playing for so long — y'all do feel more than adventurous equally the years go by. It'due south kind of like, "Oh, yep. I've got the confidence to try another things now."

I would as well choose a song that's peradventure not a "striking," because personal favorites are non necessarily the songs that work as hits or that I enjoy playing alive. I'm going to choose a song that I've never played live before, which is "Fade Together" from our 2d tape. It'southward a very untypically Franz Ferdinand song. It'due south just vox, guitar, and piano. Information technology does what songs should do. It resonates with me emotionally. Even merely thinking about that song, I get a shiver of emotion because of what it feels and what it means to me. I'm feeling wistful. I have songs that work for me by other artists that have resonated at different points in my life, only, of course, there'southward zilch that tin quite practice it as a song you've written yourself.

Oh, gosh. I would say information technology'south probably everything on the beginning EP. It doesn't matter what the songs are. I remember at the fourth dimension when we were choosing the songs … nosotros wanted to do an EP before we recorded the album, and nosotros'd written all the songs for the first record. I call back we were having this discussion and we sort of said, "We're kind of damning whatever nosotros cull to be the songs that everybody will grade every bit the 'cool early stuff.' It doesn't thing which ones we choose, considering there's going to exist some asshole that thinks that this is the 'cool early stuff' considering we released them before the album." I know I'1000 that asshole about bands myself as well. [Laughs] And then, of course, the most overrated songs are the ones that you do offset, fifty-fifty though they were written at the same time as the others.

I think "Jacqueline" is the strongest opener because it's a non sequitur. It starts off with this gentle audio-visual guitar and a very soft vocalisation, and that'south the only fourth dimension y'all hear an acoustic guitar for the residuum of the tape. It's pointing in ane direction and then the tape takes a completely different plow, and that'southward something I love doing with music. This may be an indication of what's going to happen not just in the rest of that record, but in the residual of the artistic arc of the history of Franz Ferdinand. I dearest setting up my expectations in one direction so taking it somewhere else — those shifts of what I call the "What the fuck" moments. Where you're listening to a song and go, "What the fuck was that? I wasn't expecting to get there." I even so love doing it in songs and I ever volition, and I dearest it when I hear some other artist doing that. When I was a kid, information technology would exist something crazy, like the middle-eight of the Beatles' "A 24-hour interval in the Life." It's similar, "Whoa! What globe are we in now?" Or I think of LCD Soundsystem with "Trip the light fantastic toe Yrself Clean" where y'all've got four minutes of this song and it finally hits after a long buildup. It's amazing.

Making Tonight was quite a hedonistic time in general, but I'm going to say "Black Tuesday," fifty-fifty though it hasn't actually been released on annihilation yet. We've recorded information technology and played information technology alive quite a few times. It'due south a song nigh hedonism. It's nearly what we would telephone call Black Tuesdays, which is when we used to get out on the weekends and have — how tin can I put this — let's just say very hedonistic times on a Sunday night. When you lot would come up downwardly from those hedonistic times, that come downwardly wouldn't necessarily be on the Monday. The real darkness of that would come down on the Tuesday afterwards. Those Blackness Tuesdays were some of the bleakest times. At that place's a sort of middle-viii in "Black Tuesday" that talks most this character I used to invent called Other Alex. The Other Alex would exit and it was the mode I would justify myself when I would call up nearly coming down from a particularly hedonistic moment. If I had things to exercise, I would say, "It doesn't matter how fucked upwards I get, because information technology'south not me who has to bargain with it. It'south Other Alex who has to bargain with it. That's not me. That'southward that other guy. The Alex of this moment, this Other Alex, is going to really enjoy this moment." And so that'south quite a hedonistic concept. Probably not a very healthy one.

We did a lot of experimenting sonically on the third album, Tonight , but I think nosotros're always experimenting and trying to do things. For me, the greatest feat is to experiment and pull something off and for the audience not to notice. And then I'm going to say "Take Me Out." Because to experiment with things similar the tempo switch, it's an experimental thing to do in the context of a song, just I honey the fact that people don't really discover because they just recollect of it every bit a big pop song. There are other ones. I'd say the album version of "Lucid Dreams" is quite experimental. It sonically went into places that we hadn't gone before. Most of Ever Ascending, the album, was pretty experimental as well. "Lazy Boy" uses really baroque time signatures and some weird things. I always similar experimenting. It'southward all a big experiment.

I kind of hate when bands denote their experimentation era. I hate when they're similar, "Oh, we're going to do something that'southward difficult for u.s. now." That's non experimenting. To me, experimenting is for u.s.a.. I don't need to prove anything. I'm very comfy with my own level of intelligence and I don't demand to practise anything through my art form for y'all to think I'one thousand more intelligent. When artists go for something really experimental, they're searching for affirmation of their status equally an intellectual and every bit an creative person.

We're very much a Glasgow band and a lot of songs are about the metropolis and its characters. I'd say the song that will always remind me of Glasgow is "Shopping for Blood" because information technology proper name-checks a lot of things. The showtime line is "I live in the Merchant City." The Merchant Metropolis is the former office of Glasgow where the sometime merchants used to alive, and that song is about characters in Glasgow. When I sing the chorus — "It's leather for leisure and Velcro for sport, a new suit for court" — it was virtually a friend of ours who was going to court. He'd been caught shoplifting, and it was about different characters in our lives at that fourth dimension and the people we would see around u.s.. That song is like a Polaroid of our life in Glasgow.

The offset reference in full is, "I live in the Merchant City, I drive a 4-by-4. I swallow 1000&S, it tastes of null." We'd had the band together for a piffling while and I used to have this sometime Mercedes Estate — those sometime, early '80s Mercedes, the ones with the track on the top. It looks a flake like a hearse. That'due south what I used to drive the band around in. I remember I bought it for £50. I fucking loved that motorcar so much, and this guy drove downwards into an unmarked junction and hitting me on the side and wrecked the auto. The song is kind of almost that. It was really our life at that fourth dimension. I immediately remember us driving around with all the gear in the back and that old Merc in Glasgow.

I beloved earworms. I really, really, really honey them. I like melodies that stick in your caput, and when I play the guitar I'chiliad often searching for them. I tin retrieve when nosotros were playing "Tell Her Tonight" on the first record and coming up with that little guitar riff and thinking, Aye, that's skillful! That's peradventure my earwormiest moment. The funny affair is, I always idea that song was going to be … well, when we first played alive as a band, nosotros always thought that vocal was going to be our most pop song. Because when nosotros played, that was always the 1 people sang dorsum to united states of america amongst our friends.

I have lots of different ways of approaching earworms. I essentially rely on my instincts and often have to turn off my witting brain to observe them. It'south like when yous have a good conversation with a friend — when you're not thinking about the chat and things come out, that's when you come out with the really skillful stuff. But I have to mix that up with a certain methodology because I need to force myself into new patterns. I'll oftentimes practice things similar brand a loop of a song and force myself to come up upwards with 20 melodies without thinking about it quickly i after the other, and so that it has to be unconsidered and primal and instinctive.

It'due south difficult. I tin't think of an album that wasn't creatively fulfilling to tape and write. It's going to be a toss up between Ever Ascending and This night. It'south very difficult to cull betwixt those ii. Okay, I would say This night. I really felt that with that tape, I was exploring sounds in a way that I never did before. I felt we could effort anything and did try annihilation and thoroughly enjoyed it. We went to all sorts of weird places to exercise it. Nosotros recorded it in this edifice — information technology was an erstwhile government town hall in Glasgow, which was a semi-derelict building, and we ready in all of the different rooms. There was an erstwhile theater where we'd tape and use the reverb of the room. Nosotros were swinging the microphone from the ceiling to create the doppler effect. We recorded some of the songs in the basement, which had a strange pattering kind of sound. Nosotros really pushed things with the structures of songs and the arroyo to recording.

It felt similar a very obsessive tape. I remember reading virtually the recording of Trout Mask Replica and how absurdly caught up in their own world they were when they made that record. I ever wanted to make a record like that, and that's actually how Tonight felt. We had no windows at all. We had no thought what was going on in the outside world. We were just completely caught upward in the creation of this piece of music, and I loved that. It's full indulgence. What a great thing to be able to practice in your life.

They didn't really sit down and requite us communication, but you pick upwards something good and useful from collaborating with anybody. They gave me reassurance that your creative ambition demand never diminish with age. They are of a different generation from me and a bit older than me, but I saw in Ron and Russell the same desire that I feel myself. I always desire to exist looking for something new and I always want to never be satisfied. I sang about that in a song on our first record, actually. On "Come up On Dwelling," I go, "I'grand dissatisfied. I loved to satisfy." I was trying to sum up the feeling that I had as an artist, which was that I should e'er feel dissatisfied with my work because that way I'd be searching for something new. As shortly every bit yous experience satisfied, it'due south over, and that'southward how I felt working with Ron and Russell — they were nevertheless constantly searching for something new. That was very reassuring. I'thousand going to be l in a month'south fourth dimension, and that feels adept. It feels like, fuck, it'southward simply the get-go. That'south not even advice, that's example, which is the all-time type of advice yous can go.

I don't go back and listen to our music. Of course, I do in the sense that I perform information technology. The songs are alive because I'm ever performing them, but I e'er feel that when I stop a recording, it's done. Information technology's non for me, it's for the remainder of the earth at present. I experience consummate. What's the discussion always used in America? Closure! That's closure. Merely making this Hits to the Head record, I had to go dorsum and listen to all these songs again because we had to remaster the records. I only remember thinking a lot of the fourth dimension — and I think it'due south truthful for Franz Ferdinand generally — Fuck, these lyrics are dark, but information technology sounds so optimistic. Fifty-fifty a song as obvious as "Take Me Out." It's a song using a metaphor of an bump-off, like two snipers waiting to literally accept each other out. Or information technology could be talking most a romantic standoff. Information technology's a dark lyric.

At that place's ambiguity at that place, too. In that location's this space for people to overlay their interpretations of "Take Me Out." Is information technology a song well-nigh going out? Somebody told me that the Yankees play information technology sometimes when a pitcher strikes a thespian out. It's funny that it'south a sports song to some people. I love a degree of ambiguity in a song. I gauge that'south always been my favorite matter. I beloved a lyric that feels sinister and upbeat simultaneously. Look at a vocal similar "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." The opening of that song, fuck, information technology's so sinister and so dark. Then past the time you become to the end of information technology, you lot've got that ridiculous Bang, bang, shoot, shoot. I always presumed they were taking the piss out of the phallic imagery of weaponry in general. Similar, they were maxim a penis is a warm gun, or a warm gun is a penis. I don't know whether that'due south truthful or non. [Laughs] I thought that was them laughing at the kind of men who are attracted to guns.

When I think back on that, I don't feel very good about information technology. Peradventure it's all to do with the hedonism of that time. I was at an auction in Glasgow and I think I needed to become some chairs or something like that for the studio. At the auction, I saw there was a box of junk and in that box of junk was half a skeleton. I thought it could be a good decoration for the studio. It was a human being skeleton with a sheep skull on the top of it, and we hung it up off the wall in the studio. We were looking for percussion one day for "No You Girls" and wanted that clicky sort of audio. So I said, "Oh, allow's grab a couple of femurs," and nosotros were playing them in no time. It simply sounded good. Merely looking back on it, it's a pretty fucked-upwardly thing to do. We should have just buried information technology. Fuck knows where that skeleton came from. We should take put it back in the basis or something. That'due south how I experience in retrospect. Sons and Daughters inherited information technology when they used the studio space after us. They asked if they could have it, and so I said sure.

It's definitely "Curious." In previous videos, the dancing and move was more like private free expression, by which I mean just making information technology up every bit we go along. In the video for "The Dark of the Matinée," we were kind of moving at the same time, merely things that people presume is choreography is usually just us making it upwards as we go. For "Curious," for the showtime fourth dimension nosotros did something that was really a proper choreographed piece of movement. It's like an quondam avant-garde art experimental trip the light fantastic toe. Information technology'due south something that I wanted to exercise for a long time. Bob and I were talking nigh it and nosotros agreed that we really wanted to have something that expressed ourselves in dance in a way that we hadn't earlier. We all felt a little bit nervous as to whether nosotros would pull information technology off, and the only reason we did was because everybody was completely committed to information technology.

Equally an artist, everything you do is an expression of your art, and peculiarly as a band or every bit a musician, aye, every part of it counts. The conversation nosotros're having now is an articulation of our fine art. The visual aspects are an articulation of our art. It's a communication of our ideas. The production that nosotros practise in the studio is an articulation of our fine art. Even when we're making this record, I decided to write the biography of it because I feel that's also an expression of our art. I don't want to pass that over to somebody else because that should come from u.s.a.; it'south our expression. The visual side has ever been a fun role. I mean, the idea of beingness able to make a video was so heady to me before I would make a video. I'm not going to pass that to somebody else to come up with an idea for us. And nosotros come up with the ideas for the album covers ourselves as well because, damn, what a bang-up opportunity. I'm going to relish every one of those moments.

Clockwise from left: Franz Ferdinand (2004) You Could Have Had Information technology So Much Better (2005) Tonight (2009)

Clockwise from left: Franz Ferdinand (2004) Tonight (2009) You Could Have Had It So Much Better (2005)

Nobody has ever asked me that before. That's astonishing. Well, let's go back to the reason why I liked Franz Ferdinand as a proper noun, and nosotros'll maybe detect the answer along the fashion. I wanted a name that was phonetically good, and Franz Ferdinand alliterates information technology as ii words. The rhythm is good with that double F. More than anything else, what appealed to u.s. was that there was a universal familiarity nearly the name — for us in Europe, anyway — because everybody at schoolhouse learned about the powder keg of Europe and the trigger that started World State of war I. As well, at that place was a significance of his proper noun considering when he was assassinated, information technology was a point in which history changed. Nix was the same later his assassination every bit before, and I've ever felt that's what you lot have to aspire to as a ring. You want to be one of those moments where zilch's quite the same after. The riffing in Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," the drum beat out in "Around the World" by Daft Punk, the guitar hook in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," or the manner Prince looked on stage. I love those moments.

Fuck. That'due south actually hard. There's not one that'southward coming to me obviously. Franz Ferdinand, I have no respect for him as a character. Maybe that's the key — it has to be a figure who I accept no respect for. I'1000 going to accept to give this some serious thought. In about 2 hours' time, I'1000 going to be making my dinner, and I'm going to become, "Of course, it'southward fucking …"

Two hours later, I indeed got an email with the subject line "Historical Figure" from Kapranos. It reads as the following:

As for the name of a historical figure, well, it's kind of obvious. The anti-affair to Franz Ferdinand. His assassinator. Maybe non Gavrilo Princip, only the Black Hand, which was the cloak-and-dagger guild that he was a part of. When nosotros have played secret shows in the past, nosotros have used that every bit our allonym. Black Mitt. It'south a skilful proper noun, simply not quite equally good as Franz Ferdinand. Actually, Clandestine Guild is non a bad proper name either. Perchance for our next incognito evidence?

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When I asked Kapranos if he would elaborate, he grinned and said, "Yep, I don't demand to say any more than." 2009's Tonight also served every bit a genre departure for the band, equally they adapted to a more synth- and electronics-driven sound. A delightfully eerie song. The section from two:02-2:43 is specially excellent. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band's 1969 masterpiece. Franz Ferdinand and Sparks formed an art-rock supergroup and released their cocky-titled album, FFS, in 2015. The record'due south 12 cheeky songs include "Collaborations Don't Work," "Dictator's Son," and "Piss Off." Some other sample stanza: "If I move, this could die / If eyes movement, this could die /
I desire yous to have me out." I tin't believe I'm typing this, but the femur sounds are virtually pronounced near the end of the vocal. A since-disbanded rock band, likewise from Glasgow.

The Best and Worst of Franz Ferdinand, by Alex Kapranos