The group was named after the Austro-Hungarian Archduke, whose assassination sparked World War I, Franz Ferdinand. In some way, this reference helped the musicians to create a unique sound. Namely, to combine the canons of music of the 2000s and 2010s with artistic rock, dance music, dubstep and many other styles.
In late 2001, singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos and bassist Bob Hardy began working together. They later met Nick McCarthy, a classically trained pianist and double bass player. The musician originally played drums in the band. Despite the fact that he had never been a drummer before.
The trio rehearsed at McCarthy's house for a while. Then they met and started playing with Paul Thomson. Former drummer for Yummy Fur wanted to replace drums with guitar. In the end, McCarthy and Thomson played. The band itself found a new place to rehearse. They became an abandoned warehouse, which they called Chateau (that is, a castle).
The first full-fledged works of the Franz Ferdinand group
The castle became the headquarters for Franz Ferdinand. There they rehearsed and held events similar to rave parties. The events included not only music, but also other forms of art. Hardy graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, and Thomson also acted as a model there.
The band members were in need of a new rehearsal space once the police discovered their illegal art parties. And they found one in the Victorian courthouse and prison.
By the summer of 2002, they had recorded material for an EP that they were going to release themselves, but word of mouth spread about this group, so soon (more precisely in the summer of 2003) Franz Ferdinand signed a contract with Domino.
The band's EP "Darts of Pleasure" was released in the autumn of the same year.
The band spent the rest of the year working with other acts such as Hot Hot Heat and Interpol.
The second single from Franz Ferdinand, Take Me Out, appeared in early 2004. This single gave them great popularity in the UK and laid the foundation for the band's debut album.
The album titled "Franz Ferdinand" was released in February 2004 in the UK and a month later in the US.
In September of the same year, the album won the Mercury Prize. Franz Ferdinand's competitors included the Streets, Basement Jaxx and Keane. The album also received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album in 2005. "Take Me Out" received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Duo Performance.
The band spent most of 2004 working on their more eclectic second album You Could Have It. Work went better and more productive with producer Rich Bones. Upon release in October 2005, the album was also nominated for "Best Alternative Album". The single "Do You Want To" won the award for Best Rock Duo Performance.
Search for a new sound
Franz Ferdinand started writing songs for their third album in 2005. But the tracks ended up in their new work, which the band planned to turn into a "dirty pop" concept album.
The band collaborated with several producers to help them develop into a more danceable and pop oriented sound. It was Erol Alkan and Xenomania, the production team behind many of Girls Aloud's hits, that were the first choice to produce before Franz Ferdinand chose Dan Carey, who had worked with Kylie Minogue, CSS, Hot Chip and Lily Allen.
The song "Lucid Dreams" appeared as the soundtrack for the Madden NFL 09 video game. The composition was released in the fall of 2008.
In early 2009, the single "Ulysses" was released. It appeared a week before the release of Franz Ferdinand's third album, Tonight.
That summer, the band released the album Blood, which was inspired by remixes of songs from Tonight.
In 2011, Franz Ferdinand released the EP Covers which featured versions of the songs "Tonight" from artists such as LCD Soundsystem, ESG and Peaches.
The band's fourth album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, featured collaborations with Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, Alexis Taylor, Peter Bjorn and John Björt Ittling, Veronica Falls' Roxanne Clifford and DJ Todd Terrier. It came out in August 2013. The album gave listeners a bold, offbeat sound reminiscent of the band's earliest work.
In 2015, Franz Ferdinand collaborated with Sparks and released their self-titled album in June. McCarthy left the group the following year. Franz Ferdinand added guitarist Dino Bardo (a former member of the band from the 1990s) and Miaoux Miaoux keyboardist Julian Corry to their lineup. So they debuted as a quintet in 2017.
Later that year, they released the title track from their fifth album Always Ascending. Recorded with producer Philip Zdar, the single was released in February 2018. He combined the band's aesthetic with electronic experimentation.
Franz Ferdinand: interesting facts:
Their songs have been remixed by several celebrities from the world of electronic music. Among them Daft Punk, Hot Chip and Erol Alkan.
About the band's track "The Fallen", Alex Kapranos said: "This song is about someone I know coming back as the reincarnation of Christ and imagining what people would do. In this case, I turn water into wine together with Mary Magdalene.”
Alex Kapranos worked as a welder and chef before getting his first foray into the music industry with the band Franz Ferdinand.
Alex Kapranos on the band's name: "He [Franz Ferdinand] was also an incredible figure. His life, or at least its end, was the catalyst for a complete transformation of the world. That's what we want: our music to be the same. But I don't want to overuse this name. In general, the name should just sound good... like music. “
Kapranos told the Daily Mail in an interview that performing in front of a large audience is like "going to bed with a woman". He continued, “To perform well, you need to lose all self-awareness.”
Refusal to perform at Buckingham Palace
Franz Ferdinand turned down Prince William's offer to host a royal team performance at the Queen's Christmas reception at Buckingham Palace in 2004. “Ideally, musicians should be freelancers. When they cross that line, it's like something has died in them," Alex explained.
Kapranos gave a speech at a lecture in Edinburgh in which he called for government support for rock music, campaigning to make scholarships available to bands as well.
Nick McCarthy was dressed as 80s man Adam Ant at the party where he and Kapranos first met. Later they became friends.
"Tonight" contains the sounds of a human skeleton bought for £12 ("it seemed too good a deal to ignore, even if the skeleton had no head," Alex stated.) The band then broke the bones and used them to play on drums - which, in their opinion, gives the album an unusual sound.
