Within the twenty years since hoovering up Brits and the Mercury Prize with their debut LP, Franz Ferdinand have remained energetic and excitable, in love with the chances of what a band ought to be. Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy be a part of us in Monterrey to elucidate pop’s holy grail, making an attempt 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 twenty 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 chances of music.
However, with their sixth album entitled The Human Concern, it’s pure to get darker and ask what they’re afraid of. The pair’s responses reveal the Franz Ferdinand hivemind: they’re each scared 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 pretend zoo, full of fashions of animals,” shudders the normally 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: “After I see a snake, I freeze uncontrollably.” Typically holidaying along 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 timber one morning.
“I paused, flip-flop in mid-air, to see a snake beneath my foot,” he grimaces. “It was a kind of moments that lasted seconds however appears 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 advised me: ‘You’ll have been lifeless if it had bitten you.’ That freaked me out much more. So, yeah, I’ve received the identical worry as Bob.”
The motivating thrill derived from being scared is a theme of The Human Concern, 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 Concern isn’t a doomy goth file to make you’re feeling afraid.”
Propulsive Pop
It definitely isn’t, however it’s an album to make you’re feeling alive. Franz Ferdinand’s first LP since All the time Ascending in 2018, it’s filled with 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 All the time Ascending. It follows the departures of Nick McCarthy in 2016 and Paul Thomson 5 years later.
“I really like the dynamic of the band in the intervening time,” beams Kapranos. “What I really like on a file is the sound of 5 folks in a room taking part in collectively. If you get an excellent efficiency, you’re taking part in 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 show you how to alongside the best way. Audrey is a large fan of pop music, Dino loves 70s prog and Julian brings musical idea 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 fanatics who discuss at breakneck velocity, 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 an alternative 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 notably musical,” admits Hardy. “What excites me about being in a band is the potential of what it might do. The one cause I play bass is so I could be in a band. That was my entry price to becoming a member of the band: ‘I’ve received to study 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 vital than simply taking part in bass. Anybody can play bass – Bob is proof of that! The concepts to make the band nice: that’s one thing solely Bob might have achieved. 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 taking part in what, as long as it sounds good ultimately.”
That it’s taken so lengthy for The Human Concern to reach is all the way down to a mixture 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. Trying 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 taking part in 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 identification. In the event you pay attention to 3 seconds of a music, you understand it’s them: the Ramones, The Conflict, The Kinks. However then you definitely need to do one thing new, too. I used to be making an attempt to push these songs in new instructions, whereas all the time sounding like a Franz Ferdinand music.
“On this album, Hooked and particularly Black Eyelashes don’t sound like something we’ve achieved however, when folks hear it, I’d like to assume they instantly comprehend it’s us.”
The gonzo robodance of Hooked appears destined to be a dwell favorite, echoing Justice and electroclash in its frazzled riff. “I used to be making an attempt to play the dumbest heavy metallic riff I presumably might on a guitar, then put it by way of a synth,” Kapranos discloses. “I really like Black Sabbath and needed 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 music. Ralph had been the engineer on 2013’s Proper Ideas, Proper Phrases, Proper Motion album. He’s since produced a battalion of big 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 lots of of data. It was no shock he turned a celebrity 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 components 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 school 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 with no consideration.”
The frontman now lives in Paris along with his spouse, French singer Clara Luciani. The couple married in Could 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 normally erudite singer to get flustered. He tries providing a blancmange of a solution that “There’s a whole lot of love in all of the songs,” earlier than confessing: “I’m not excellent 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 Concern’s explosive finale, The Birds. A incredible prolonged cathartic holler, he says: “The Birds is about overcoming the worry of rejection from society. Having a younger little one, I’m notably conscious how youngsters endure from being outcast, because of social media. It’s simple to turn into an outcast, and the music hopefully captures the reduction and pleasure of being nameless again within the flock.”
Feline Good
The just about 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 alone. 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 snug behind the mic.
“Understanding 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 might get pleasure from it, moderately than feeling self-conscious.”
Shock Issue
Franz Ferdinand labored with one of many nice unselfconscious artists in 2015, once they teamed up with Sparks for a self-titled LP as FFS. “They nonetheless have an curiosity in what’s happening round them,” says Hardy. “We nonetheless share the occasional e mail they usually’ll get in contact once they’re in Glasgow.” Kapranos provides: “They confirmed music is a lifelong vocation and Sparks had been inspiring in displaying easy methods to be fully pushed by their work, thus far into their profession.”
A second FFS file is unlikely, nonetheless, as Hardy notes: “FFS was in regards to the shock issue. Quantity two wouldn’t have the identical affect or which means.” As an alternative, they’d like to make a file with The Treatment or Queen. Or each. Hardy laughs: “I’d like to ask Brian Could to do a solo for us, primarily simply so I might hang around with Brian Could.”
The brand new album’s first single, Audacious, “has particular influences of each Queen and The Treatment,” acknowledges Kapranos. “I learn an interview with Robert Smith saying how a lot he hates Queen. So I’d like to do a music with each Robert Smith and Brian Could.”
Persuading Robert Smith to beat his worry of Queen? That basically could be an audacious transfer.
For extra on Franz Ferdinand and The Human Concern, click on right here
