“They’re a close-knit organisation and so are we, so for us it was just like opening ranks and welcoming more members.” Alex concludes “all bands are really made by the personalities combining and I think labels can work in the same way. “It’s about personalities as much as anything,” says Paul. He’s a great bloke that loves his music.” Some of the label people we encountered were real coked-up industry types, but he is as far from that as you can get. We spoke to a few really good labels but Lawrence is a special guy and that was what attracted us to Domino. We had a chat and it turned out we had a lot of common interests and liked similar things musically. “We played a gig in London and Lawrence Bell came to see us. So how did the move to Domino come about? Alex fills me in. Tor Johanssen, who’s worked with The Cardigans and St Etienne, is producing.” In a few weeks, we’ll get to work on an album. “It’s called Darts of Pleasure and should be out around July. “We’re recording a single soon”, says Alex. “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.” Discussions continue along the lines that nobody thinks about insects when beetles are mentioned and, unsure where it’s all leading, we move swiftly onto the band’s recording plans. Basically a name should just sound good – like music.” But I don’t want to over-intellectualise the name thing. “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. “He was an incredible figure as well,” continues Alex. So are our boys history buffs as well? “Mainly we just liked the way it sounded,” says Bob. Terms like ‘intelligent rock’ and ‘literate pop’ are thrown into the ring, though keyboard and guitars man Nick prefers the simpler description “we make pop music, but it’s quite raw.”įranz Ferdinand was, of course, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, whose murder supposedly lit the touch paper on the First World War. Music shouldn’t come from hearing a record and trying to reproduce it, it should come from a general absorption of everything around you.”įellow band members Bob and Paul try to describe what we can expect as the end result of these influences. They influence your music more than the last record you listened to. Those less direct influences are more important the films you watch, the conversations you have with your friends. Everything influences the way you make music, from whether you had a bath that morning to what the last book you read was. “Art influences our music,” says lead singer Alex Huntley, “but only in the same context as everything else. However, they’re not comfortable with being tagged highbrow arty rockers. We catch up with them in the suitably artistic surroundings of a cafe next to Glasgow’s Theatre Royal, where they are all about to attend the opera. The latest chapter is that they’ve just become Glasgow’s latest ‘signed’ band, putting pen to paper on a deal with Domino Records. Not too many bands take their name from historical figures and play in old prisons and derelict buildings surrounded by art installations, but that’s part of the story so far for Franz Ferdinand. This originally appeared in issue 6 of the print edition, and was the first interview, anywhere, with the soon-to-be-megastars. In the first of an irregular series, we republish classic itm? interviews.
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