Franz Album Delayed

The band put back their album release to January 2009

11 June 2008 - Speaking exclusively to 6 Music, Franz Ferdinand’s frontman Alex Kapranos has said that the band’s new album won’t be released until next year.

Despite showcasing six new songs at their 300 capacity intimate gig at the Macbeth pub in Hoxton on 9 June, Kapranos told Steve Lemacq that work on the album with producer Dan Carey is not yet complete.

“We’ve still got quite a bit of mixing to do,” he explained, “but because we don’t really know how long it’s going to take we’re going to put the release date back a bit.

“I can’t see it coming out this year, I think it’s more likely to come out in January or something like that.”

And as to whether they have found a title yet, Kapranos explained that one or two were being considered but have since been dropped, saying:

“We were gonna call it Bite Hard at one point because there was a song called Bite Hard and we weren’t gonna use that as a song, but liked the phrase.

“It’s quite suggestive but apparently in the States if you say something ‘bites’ it means it sucks, so if something bites hard, it sucks really badly. So we thought; ‘No we’ll choose another title.’”

"We don’t really know how long it’s going to take so we’re going to put the release date back a bit."
Alex Kapranos

New Material

One new track that they have been previewing at recent shows is called New Thrill, which Kapranos claims is closest to their trademark Franz Ferdinand sound.

“Of all the new songs that’s the most kinda old school Franz song. Its got that very up beat, intense energy that you’d maybe get from Darts Of Pleasure.”

Kapranos also told Lemacq how New Thrill has developed since being road-tested in their live shows.

“It’s one of the older songs of the current batch and it has evolved a bit, it’s shorter and tighter than it was when we it started out.

“In fact a lot of the songs are, and it’s fantastic playing new songs live like that because you cut away all the excess bits - where you get to have bit of a guitar solo and you play it live and go; ‘No that’s really self-indulgent, let’s drop that bit.’  So that stuff is always good for the band.”

Another new song that they played at the Macbeth pub is titled What She Came For and marks a departure from their usual sound.

Lemacq described the track as having a rhythmic start which then builds into a Blur-style thrash at the end.

“We really wanted to go from one extreme to the other,” the Franz Ferdinand frontman explained.

“At the beginning there’s this very loose bass and open drum rhythm and by the end it’s certainly louder and more intense than we’ve ever been as a band before.

“I suppose it’s that idea of pushing your self to extremes, getting new ideas and going in different directions with your sound.”

Georgie Rogers