Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos had fun with their new record, ‘
Always Ascending'. "Making the album was really enjoyable, it was quite a thrill," he says. It's their first full-length in four years, and in that time guitarist, Nick McCarthy left the band - it could have been quite different. "When we finished our last record it was ten years of the band's life there, and it felt with making this record it was the beginning of a new decade, and we had a choice. Did we either live in the decade we were in before, look back and say, ‘We're gonna stay there forever', or do you think we're gonna move into the next decade? I guess that was our decision."
"For me, the holy grail as an artist is to be able to make something original, which we haven't done before, which keeps our identity." They've certainly done that. ‘Always Ascending' takes them to places you wouldn't expect from the same group who wrote ‘
Take Me Out', but it retains that familiarity of a band now 15 years strong. Along the way, they've picked up new members Dino Bardot and Julian Corrie. "When we asked Julian to join the band he didn't play any of the old songs until we had a gig to play about six months later," says Alex. Rather than dwelling on years gone by, "we worked out our direction was always looking forward. We weren't looking to the past at all! We were looking to make something new."
That doesn't mean that they'll suddenly drop the hits, though. "I always write a set half thinking of what I like and half thinking of what I would like if I was coming to the gig. I've gotta put myself in the perspective of a fan as well as a performer." Alex does still drop older fan favourites, such as 2004 b-side ‘
Love and Destroy', however. "I enjoy putting in pretty obscure ones as well. Also sometimes you get people in the audience shouting out for songs you haven't played for years, so I turn to the band like, ‘Hey, you up for that one? That could be fun'. From time to time we will drop songs from the set if we're a little bit sick of them, so sometimes I'll say before a gig, 'Does anyone mind if we drop ‘
Michael' or something tonight? I don't know if I feel like it tonight'."
