Franz Ferdinand finds its edge on new album
By Jonathan Cohen
NEW YORK (Billboard) – Scottish rock band Franz Ferdinandis about a week away from locking down the track list for itssecond album, which will be released Oct. 4, according to leadsinger Alex Kapranos.
The group, whose self-titled debut album yielded the hitsingle “Take Me Out” — one of the more ubiquitous tracks ofthe past year — hopes the follow-up will capture “more of theenergy we have as a live band,” he added.
“I like the first record and the sound of it, but I’m notsure it completely captured that kind of unpredictability andrawness you have at a live concert,” Kapranos toldBillboard.com by phone from a studio in Britain.
He also said the band experimented with a lot of differentrhythms. “We still want to make people dance, but we didn’twant to repeat the same beats.”
To that end, on the new track “Outsiders,” the group piledinto one room around drummer Paul Thomson. “He had this weirdcontraption of a drum kit where he was playing half with atambourine in one hand and the floor tom between his legs –just to experiment with different ways of setting up,” Kapranosrecalled.
The new album, released via Epic Records, will most likelynot have a title, and will be distinguishable from its 2004predecessor only by its color scheme.
“There’s so many albums I have that I don’t refer to bytheir real titles,” Kapranos said. “The second Specials albumis called ‘More Specials,’ but I always just call it ‘thesecond Specials album.’ I’m also quite interested to see whatwill happen, because I know people will choose their own namefor it. It’s a little bit of an experiment.”
From a selection of about 25 songs, Franz Ferdinand ismixing 15 songs, 12 or 13 of which will make the final cut.
The first single will likely be “Do You Want To?” Othertracks expected to make the album include “Walk Away,” “Turn ItOn,” “I’m Your Villain,” “Evil and a Heathen,” “This Boy,”"Well, That Was Easy,” and “You Could Have It So Much Better.”
He noted that a handful of cuts needed more attention thanothers, particularly “Walk Away.”
“I wrote it on an acoustic guitar, just chords and a vocalmelody,” he said. “We arranged it in so many different ways. Wehad some versions with just me sitting with a guitar, otherswith a full-on rock group like the sound of the first record. Ieven re-wrote the whole chord progression for the beginning ofthe song. But in the end, we came back to what was pretty muchthe original version we were working on when we went into thestudio.”
“I’m Your Villain” was also “completely re-arranged. Weeven re-wrote the bass line and the chord progression.”
Kapranos said he’d like to release these alternate versionssomeday, since “I always find it interesting to hear bandsgoing off on different tangents.”
Franz Ferdinand’s first album reached No. 32 on TheBillboard 200 and has sold 941,000 copies in the United States,according to Nielsen SoundScan. “Take Me Out” hit No. 3 onBillboard’s airplay-based Modern Rock chart.
“You don’t have ‘neds’ in America, but across the U.K.,they’re young, vaguely loutish teenage kids who dress up intrack suits and like causing a bit of a riot,” Kapranos said byway of introducing one of his favorite stories about the song’spopularity.
“A friend of mine was on a train in Glasgow and there was agang of neds running up and down the train, smashing stuff upand singing ‘Take Me Out.’ She was actually a bit stoned at thetime as well, and she thought they were singing it directly ather! She felt extremely paranoid, like, how do they know (FranzFerdinand are) my pals?”
The group will begin a North American tour in lateSeptember, one of the first few dates of which will be anappearance at the Austin City Limits festival (Sept. 23-25).
Reuters/Billboard