Franz Ferdinand Write-up

Franz Ferdinand are an indie rock band that formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 2001. Named after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the band comprises Alex Kapranos (lead vocals and guitar), Bob Hardy (bass guitar), Nick McCarthy (rhythm guitar, keyboards and backing vocals), and Paul Thomson (drums, percussion and backing vocals).

The band first experienced chart success when their second single "Take Me Out" reached #3 in the UK Charts, followed by their debut album Franz Ferdinand which debuted on the UK album chart at #3. The band went on to win the 2004 Mercury Music Prize and two BRIT Awards in 2005 for Best British Group and Best British Rock Act. NME named Franz Ferdinand as their Album of the Year. From the album, four top-ten singles were released, "Take Me Out", "The Dark of the Matinée", "This Fire" and "Michael".

The band's second album, You Could Have It So Much Better, charted at #1 in the UK, selling 101,884 copies in its first week, yielding the top ten hit "Do You Want To" and other hits such as "Walk Away" and "The Fallen".

History

Formation

The members of Franz Ferdinand had played previously in various bands during the 1990s including The Karelia, Yummy Fur, 10p Invaders and Embryo. Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson had played together in Yummy Fur and subsequently teamed up to write songs. Around the same time Kapranos taught his friend Bob Hardy how to play bass. Kapranos met co-guitarist Nick McCarthy in 2001 who had returned to Scotland after studying jazz bass in Germany.

In May 2003, the band signed to Laurence Bell's independent record label, Domino Records. The band had recorded an EP which they intended to release themselves, instead it was released by Domino as Darts of Pleasure, in the latter part of 2003. The cover art was designed by Thomson. It reached #43 in the UK chart.. The band won the "Phillip Hall Radar Award" at the NME Awards of 2004, announced in late 2003.

Debut album and mainstream success

The band moved to Gula Studios in Malmö, Sweden with Cardigans producer Tore Johansson to record their debut album. In January 2004 the single "Take Me Out" reached #3 in the UK charts. The album, Franz Ferdinand, was released in early 2004, debuting at #3 in the UK Albums Chart in February 2004 and at #12 in the Australian album charts in April 2004. The album only reached the lowest levels of the Billboard 200 album charts in the US as of early 2004, but reached the top 5 of the indie rock chart and the Heatseeker chart for debut artists. After a couple of North American tours and heavy rotation of the "Take Me Out" video on MTV, the album eventually reached #32 on the Billboard 200 later in 2004 and sold over a million copies in the United States.

Franz Ferdinand received a generally strong positive response from critics. NME said that the band was the latest in the line of art school rock bands featuring Duran Duran, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, Wire, Travis and Blur. It rated the album as 9 out of 10 and said: "This album is the latest and most intoxicating example of the wonderful pushing its way up between the ugly slabs of Pop Idol, nu metal and Britons aping American bands. What these blossoming bands have in common is the absolute conviction that rock ‘n’ roll is more than a career option."

The BBC's review of the album said: "At only 38 minutes long Franz Ferdinand may not be a particularly long album, but it is a masterpiece of funky, punky, suave cool from the first track to the last." The All Music Guide rated the album as four out of five stars and said "Franz Ferdinand ends up being rewarding in different ways than the band's previous work was, but it's apparent that they're still one of the more exciting groups to come out of the garage-rock / post-punk revival."

On September 7, 2004 the album was awarded the 2004 Mercury Music Prize. Take Me Out gained first place in the Australian Triple J Hottest 100 for 2004, winning more than twice the votes of the second-place entry. Franz Ferdinand proceeded to win an Ivor Novello Award in 2004 and two BRIT Awards in 2005. The avant-garde music video for Take Me Out earned them a Breakthrough Video MTV Award. The NME named Franz Ferdinand the best album of 2004, and also placed it 38th on their 100 Best Albums of All Time list. The band performed at the Grammy Awards of 2005 where they performed "Take Me Out" as a live medley with Los Lonely Boys, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas and Gwen Stefani.

You Could Have It So Much Better

The band spent much of 2005 in the studio in Scotland working on their follow-up album, You Could Have It So Much Better, which was released on 3 October 2005. The band initially intended to leave the album self-titled like their debut, but they changed it to You Could Have It So Much Better...With Franz Ferdinand before settling on the final title. The album's cover design was modelled on Alexander Rodchenko's 1924 portrait of Lilya Brik. The band attempted to broaden its musical range on the album; Hardy said, "There's more to life than disco-beat guitar music". After the critical acclaim of their debut, some reviews towards the new album became more polarised, with some complaints that the recording was rushed. However, it was generally well-received in the press and seen as an album equal to, or better than their first by most critics, including the NME. It entered the UK Album Charts at Number 1 and the US charts at Number 8.

On the tour that followed the album release, Franz broke the record for the longest run at the Alexandra Palace, North London, by playing 4 sold out nights during November-December 2005. To support the album, four singles were released. Included in that set is a double A-side single that contained a video-clip only single as well (both the AA-side "L. Wells" and the video-clip "Jeremy Fraser" are not featured on the album, recorded in early 2006 during the band's tour of Australia in support of the album). Also included is another video-clip-only single called "Wine In the Afternoon" which is the B-side to Eleanor Put Your Boots On, and was also not featured on the album, but recorded on tour in Michigan. "Do You Want To" made it to number 4, while "Walk Away" and "The Fallen" / "L. Wells" entered the top 15 of the UK Singles Chart. The 4th and final single from the second album, "Eleanor Put Your Boots On" peaked at number 30.

Third album

According to NME in 2005, the band had no intentions to stop and continued to record at a relentless pace. The band began new recording sessions in January 2006, coinciding with some live dates in Australia and New Zealand.

The band revealed in early September 2006 that they were going to take a break after headlining the Carling Weekend and playing two shows in Brazil.

As of March 8, 2007, the band finally began meeting to work on their third album and March 13, 2007, Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy spoke exclusively to Xfm about their next album. Alex had this to say regarding the next album.

"Nick and I are writing some more tunes. We’ve got a wee place in Glasgow where we’re doing some new songs. Its a wee bit different from last stuff but still very danceable, that’s the main thing. It’s always pop. Franz Ferdinand has always been pop".

On February 14, 2007, Bonnaroo released the initial 2007 lineup, which included Franz Ferdinand, the two confirmed that this would be the only festival they'll perform in that year, despite initial plans to not perform live at all that year. In the same interview held with XFM discussing the next album, Alex said this to XFM.

"We’re gonna play Bonnaroo [in the US alongside The Police, White Stripes and Flaming Lips], but no British festivals. We don’t really want to play any British festivals until we’ve written a bunch of new songs for people to hear. I don’t really see the point of keeping on going out and playing the same old stuff again and again. You wanna come back with something exciting".

Despite what Alex said, on September 22nd Franz Ferdinand headlined at Loopallu, a festival which at the time was in its third year, held in the village of Ullapool in the north west Highlands. They played a mix of old and new tracks in a tent by the side of Loch Broom.

It was in December, 2006 that the actual band members took control of their own MySpace page, they used it as an advantage to upload video updates and on March 26, 2007, a video of them recording an instrumental song dubbed Flight of the Galvatron was uploaded. On May 9, 2007, Alex updated the band's MySpace blog with brief mentions of two songs, entitled A New Thrill and English Goodbye. Alex clarifies, "The latter is about the expression 'saying an English goodbye', not a call for Scottish independence." The band actually debuted the two songs in Spring 2007 in a live show in Glasgow. In addition, they played "Favourite Lie", "Turn It On", and "Anyone In Love". On May 30, 2007, Rock'n Coke Festival in Istanbul released the lineup, which included Franz Ferdinand.

Alex Kapranos once again updated the bands MySpace blog to inform that at the Hey You Get Off My Pavement show, that they were playing in front of Glasgow's Mono featured three brand new songs. Their working titles were "Live Alone," "Kathrine Kiss Me," and "Ulysses."

At The Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 15, 2007, (the premiere of the movie Hallam Foe) Nick and Alex performed a short acoustic set. They performed a new song entitled "Kathrine Kiss Me" along with "Hallam Foe, Dandelion Blow" and crowd favorites, "Dark of the Matinee" and "Jacqueline."

In late August 2007, the Official Site was simply a black background with "Not Yet" in grey letters at the bottom right. This has prompted plenty of speculation that the third album would be coming soon and some also believed that "Not Yet" may indeed have turned out to be the title of the third album, however as of October 22nd, FranzFerdinand.co.uk took off the words Not Yet and featured instead an image of the band against a brick wall in black and white. The website was still titled "Not Yet".

On November 24, drummer Paul Thomson was featured in the NME as he was at the Hauser and Wirth. He spoke of a song from the next album called "Ulysses" and confirmed that it featured a collaboration from Anri Sala. Paul said, "I liked the idea that the song wasn't out yet, and that it's being taken apart and put back together again by someone who hasn't even heard the original. It will be on the album and may well be a single too, maybe as multiple B-sides... We've recorded a couple of songs with different producers. We're doing a song at a time. Hopefully we'll start recording around December and get it out before the summer. The last album was very much a well-oiled live unit going in and writing a record. This time we've had a chance to reconvene after having six months off and learnt to play our instruments a bit differently."

The next day Alex Kapranos was interviewed by the Daily Record where he spoke more about the next album. "We've been recording a couple of songs in the last two weeks. We'll keep on recording until Christmas and will have the album out in the new year. The strangest instrument we've been using is an old Russian synthesiser built from spare parts in the Cold War. This guy couldn't get synthesisers in Russia but heard about them and decided to build one from what he heard they were like. He used whatever components he could get hold of. It sounds like a normal synthesiser, only a lot weirder."

In the 3rd issue of the Franz Ferdinand Fan Cub, they put the lyrics of a new and yet unheard song 'Lucid Dreams'.

In an interview with The Sunday Mail, on 20 January 2008, Paul said; "We played four new songs at the Opry but we've ditched two of them.

"We're doing the last wee bit of songwriting and sometimes you get real nuggets at the last gasp. We got songs such as 40ft and This Fire after we'd prepared all the tracks."

Collaborations and Covers

• Franz Ferdinand covered the LCD Soundsystem song All My Friends which appeared as a B-side on the single.

• They have also covered Sexy Boy by Air and It Won't Be Long by The Beatles, Pulp's popular single Mis-Shapes, Gwen Stefani's top 5 hit What You Waiting For? and David Bowie's song Sound And Vision for a compilation disc marking the 40th anniversary of BBC Radio One along with other leading artists.

• Kapranos implied that the band was working with Xenomania on the new album, as Alex is a fan of their work with Girls Aloud.

• Franz Ferdinand have had remixes by major electronic artists Daft Punk, Hot Chip, Justice, and Erol Alkan.

• Franz Ferdinand recorded a cover of The Fire Engines song Get Up and Use Me. In return, the Fire Engines recorded a cover of Jacqueline.

• The band performed played and recorded with Jane Birkin, covering the Serge Gainsbourg song "Sorry Angel" for the 2005 album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited.

• Andy Knowles has served as a live support member of the band, as an auxiliary keyboardist and second drummer. Knowles has not appeared on an album, but drums on "Brown Onions," an instrumental B-side on The Fallen / L. Wells double A-Side single. He is also seen briefly in the video for Walk Away.

• The band 'met' Gorillaz in December 2005, and interviewed each other for a feature in Observer Music Monthly.

• The band is also working on an album of Sparks covers, collaborating with the group on the recordings.

• Franz re recorded the track Brown Onions for David Shringley's compilation album "Worried Noodles".The band kept instrumentation identical but used lyrics written by Shringley which include the consistent repetition of the word "No" and occasionally "No brains, no teeth, no legs, no eyes...". Hot Chip a band who, it is reported are a favourite of Franz Ferdinand also performed their own version of "No" on the same album.

Name

The name of the band was originally inspired by a racehorse called The Archduke. After seeing the horse run on television the band began to discuss Archduke Franz Ferdinand and thought it would be a good band name because of the sound of the name and the implications of the Archduke's death (his assassination was the most significant of many factors which led to World War I). They discussed it in a very early interview with the Scottish magazine Is This Music?

"Mainly we just liked the way it sounded," says Bob. "We liked the alliteration." "He was an incredible figure as well," continues Alex. "His life, or at least the ending of it, was the catalyst for the complete transformation of the world ... he was a pivot for history. But I don't want to over-intellectualise the name thing. Basically a name should just sound good ... like music." Paul has a much grander notion. "I like the idea that, if we become popular, maybe the words Franz Ferdinand will make people think of the band instead of the historical figure."

The song "Take Me Out", on the band's first album, was the second single to be released by the band. The single release of "Take Me Out" came with the B side, "All For You Sophia", based on the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, whose name was Sophie, not Sophia. The band changed the name Sophie to Sophia to give the song a better ring to it.

Art

The band is notable for its use of Russian avant-garde imagery in album and single covers. Examples include: "You Could Have It So Much Better," which references a 1924 portrait of Lilya Brik by Alexander Rodchenko; "Take Me Out," which references One-Sixth Part of the World, also by Alexander Rodchenko; "This Fire" which references Beat the white with the blue wedge by El Lissitzky; and "Michael", with single art based on A Proun by Lissitzky.

Also, in "Outsiders", the lyrics "In seventeen years will you still be Camille, Lee Miller, Gala or whatever" are a reference to the lovers of the artists Auguste Rodin, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí.

Videos

Many of the videos to promote the band's singles take inspiration from Russian avant-garde much like their CD sleeves.

The avant-garde music video for "Take Me Out", directed by Jonas Odell, was inspired by Dadaism, Busby Berkeley choreographies and Russian constructivist design. Alex Kapranos explained the many and varied influences behind the '30s-style promo for second single 'Take Me Out'.

"It's kind of two dimensional in a three dimensional style if that makes any sense. It's a montage of images; ourselves, pictures and things taken from other places and put together in a strange, abstract way. That's what gives the video that strange, jerky, style". The video for "This Fire" is similar to "Take Me Out" in style.

The lyrics of "Do You Want To" make reference to parties at the 'trendy' Glasgow art gallery Transmission and the video includes a variety of the work of contemporary artist Vanessa Beecroft.