Perdita
23-01-2009, 08:04
After capturing our imagination with their self-titled debut in 2004 and introducing us to their "oh so arty" friends on 2005's You Could Have It So Much Better, Franz Ferdinand opted to disappear from public view. Thankfully, the Glasgow band are now back with album number three, which promises to be their most outlandish to date. We called drummer Paul Thompson - the one who bonded with Cheryl Cole over tattoos - to find out what took them so long.
It's been over three years since your last album. Do you think the break was worthwhile?
"A break out of the public eye was worthwhile. We never really stopped working - though we did have four months off after touring the second album. By then we'd been around the world for 18 months and needed the break. Some of us have families, so we needed to practise our parenting! Apart from that, we spent one-and-half years in our new studio in Glasgow, which is in an old Victorian town hall that Nick [McCarthy, guitarist] found. We were building the studio, getting the decks shipped in from the States and writing these new songs."
Is the new album a deliberate reaction the frantic, rocky sound of your last one?
"That was one thought we had. When you're making music, you don't want to make a record that sounds like your last one. Apart from that, we decided what we didn't want to do, rather than what we did want to do. What we did want to do came on an unconscious level. We'd try not to think about it too much because we rely on spontaneity. We jam endlessly and see what happens. As musicians, I think we're playing pretty well at the moment and we're exploring new territories."
Reports from the recording sessions suggested you were really trying to experiment on this album. Would you say that's accurate?
"We're all interested in the processes of recording. We'd sit about and say, 'I wonder how you can make a guitar sound like it's flying past your head'. Then we'd put the amps on the back of a guitar and swing it through this big town hall. Then Nick would be climbing up to the ceiling and messing around trying to achieve the "Doppler Effect" - like when an ambulance goes past you and the pitch bends the further away it gets. We tried that for about five hours - and discovered it doesn't. But it does sound like a guitar swinging past your head and we used that on a song called 'What She Came For'. You can spend five hours doing these sort of things and achieve nowt, but you have to go down these blind alleys and set up camp there for a while."
Early reviews of the album have been mixed. Do you still care what people write about the band?
"I try not to care, but sometimes the negativity seeps through! We're only human. We put a lot of time, energy and ourselves into making these records, so when someone dismisses what we've done, it hurts a little bit. You just have to dust yourself off though and get right back on that treadmill. It was a fun record to make and hopefully people will pick that up when they listen to it. It's just Franz Ferdinand let loose in a big building!"
You've been gigging at a lot of small venues recently. How do you think these songs will transport to arenas and festivals?
"Well, we're sort of building up to that. Over the last few years, while we've been recording, we've stuck to the smaller venues because that's what we enjoy doing - playing those sweaty clubs. Plus, the record was made to be heard in places like [London nightclub] Heaven. But as we build up to festival season, it will hopefully be a natural progression. We're quite intuitive as players and we always try to play to the size of the room, but it should be a challenge every night."
One of your new songs, 'Lucid Dreams', is almost acid-house at certain points. How will you be playing it live?
"We're still working it out at the moment. We don't have the technology to do it yet. That track is the apex of the album, so I'd like it to be the apex of the live shows as well. The last section, which is purely electronic and percussive, has the potential to become quite a spectacle. But there is always the danger, with it being electronic, that we may start playing and tweaking in the middle of the set and never stop!"
You could just ditch 'The Hits' and play an hour of techno music!
"I'd love that personally, but I'm not sure if anyone else would!"
Why did you ditch your recording sessions with Brian Higgins and Xenomania?
"Working with Xenomania was just so wrong that we thought it may be right. Brian Higgins is a guy who's used to working with manufactured pop groups, and the process of working with his team of ten or so people was just too messy. They have specific staff in their organisation working on areas like lyrics and we operate the same way with our Franz Ferdinand organisation. The result was a case of too many cooks. I'm not disappointed because I think it worked out best for everyone in the end."
Franz Ferdinand's single 'Ulysses' is out now. The album Tonight follows on Monday.
It's been over three years since your last album. Do you think the break was worthwhile?
"A break out of the public eye was worthwhile. We never really stopped working - though we did have four months off after touring the second album. By then we'd been around the world for 18 months and needed the break. Some of us have families, so we needed to practise our parenting! Apart from that, we spent one-and-half years in our new studio in Glasgow, which is in an old Victorian town hall that Nick [McCarthy, guitarist] found. We were building the studio, getting the decks shipped in from the States and writing these new songs."
Is the new album a deliberate reaction the frantic, rocky sound of your last one?
"That was one thought we had. When you're making music, you don't want to make a record that sounds like your last one. Apart from that, we decided what we didn't want to do, rather than what we did want to do. What we did want to do came on an unconscious level. We'd try not to think about it too much because we rely on spontaneity. We jam endlessly and see what happens. As musicians, I think we're playing pretty well at the moment and we're exploring new territories."
Reports from the recording sessions suggested you were really trying to experiment on this album. Would you say that's accurate?
"We're all interested in the processes of recording. We'd sit about and say, 'I wonder how you can make a guitar sound like it's flying past your head'. Then we'd put the amps on the back of a guitar and swing it through this big town hall. Then Nick would be climbing up to the ceiling and messing around trying to achieve the "Doppler Effect" - like when an ambulance goes past you and the pitch bends the further away it gets. We tried that for about five hours - and discovered it doesn't. But it does sound like a guitar swinging past your head and we used that on a song called 'What She Came For'. You can spend five hours doing these sort of things and achieve nowt, but you have to go down these blind alleys and set up camp there for a while."
Early reviews of the album have been mixed. Do you still care what people write about the band?
"I try not to care, but sometimes the negativity seeps through! We're only human. We put a lot of time, energy and ourselves into making these records, so when someone dismisses what we've done, it hurts a little bit. You just have to dust yourself off though and get right back on that treadmill. It was a fun record to make and hopefully people will pick that up when they listen to it. It's just Franz Ferdinand let loose in a big building!"
You've been gigging at a lot of small venues recently. How do you think these songs will transport to arenas and festivals?
"Well, we're sort of building up to that. Over the last few years, while we've been recording, we've stuck to the smaller venues because that's what we enjoy doing - playing those sweaty clubs. Plus, the record was made to be heard in places like [London nightclub] Heaven. But as we build up to festival season, it will hopefully be a natural progression. We're quite intuitive as players and we always try to play to the size of the room, but it should be a challenge every night."
One of your new songs, 'Lucid Dreams', is almost acid-house at certain points. How will you be playing it live?
"We're still working it out at the moment. We don't have the technology to do it yet. That track is the apex of the album, so I'd like it to be the apex of the live shows as well. The last section, which is purely electronic and percussive, has the potential to become quite a spectacle. But there is always the danger, with it being electronic, that we may start playing and tweaking in the middle of the set and never stop!"
You could just ditch 'The Hits' and play an hour of techno music!
"I'd love that personally, but I'm not sure if anyone else would!"
Why did you ditch your recording sessions with Brian Higgins and Xenomania?
"Working with Xenomania was just so wrong that we thought it may be right. Brian Higgins is a guy who's used to working with manufactured pop groups, and the process of working with his team of ten or so people was just too messy. They have specific staff in their organisation working on areas like lyrics and we operate the same way with our Franz Ferdinand organisation. The result was a case of too many cooks. I'm not disappointed because I think it worked out best for everyone in the end."
Franz Ferdinand's single 'Ulysses' is out now. The album Tonight follows on Monday.