'An Immediate Success Which Took About 14 Years': Franz Ferdinand On Their Rise To Fame And Love Of Australia

When Franz Ferdinand first visited Australia back in the middle of 2004, it was in the middle of a massive love affair the country was cultivating with the Scottish rockers.

Though debut single Darts Of Pleasure had failed to chart upon its release in 2003, it was 2004's Take Me Out that sent things into the stratosphere. The tune would only reach #25 on the local charts, but the fervour of the ubiquitous song swelled to the point that Franz Ferdinand's debut visit was met with widespread excitement.

Months later, the track would top triple j's Hottest 100 countdown, beating out its closest competitor (Missy Higgins' Scar) by more than double the votes. Needless to say, it was a massive debut for the Scottish outfit who had seemingly come out of nowhere.

However, much like the events that befell their namesake 90 years prior, this success didn't come out of nowhere. In fact, vocalist and guitarist Alex Kapranos has been in the game for more than a decade prior, having performed in groups such as The Karelia and Yummy Fur, though it was Franz Ferdinand where everything clicked together.

But for a band who had managed to visit Australia just over a year from their debut single, this façade of a rapid ascent was backed by plenty of hard work behind the scenes.

"It was an immediate success which took about 14 years," Kapranos remembers over a Zoom call from Paris. "There's everything that came beforehand. I was 31 when the first album came out, and I'd been in several bands before that, toured in transit vans and slept on people's floors. But when Franz Ferdinand happened, it was extremely rapid and quite a shock to the system as well.

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"But my God, it was such a thrill. I can compare it to parachuting," he adds. "It's that kind of extreme sport-type thrill where it's also extremely addictive and you just want to keep doing it again and again until you're completely exhausted of all adrenaline and just drop down."

This adrenaline rush would have been necessary for the band to get through the gruelling tasks expected of them in those early years. After all, while 2004 alone comprised about 200 public gigs – and that's without all the other responsibilities faced by an in-demand group.

"I was thinking about it the other day 'cause that's the gigs, but that's not including things like adio sessions and acoustic performances," Kapranos remembers. "In 2004, we probably did something like over 400 gigs in that year. It was intense.

"But you know what? This has always been my thing, since I discovered it when I was like 10 or 11. I'm lucky I discovered my thing; the thing that makes me who I am and it's been an all-consuming obsession ever since then.

"For me to have the opportunity to completely indulge what I was obsessed with was quite a privilege," he adds. "And it still is, to still be doing it, to be coming back to Australia 21 years after that first time. It is an intense privilege and I don't forget that."

Ask any band about the impact that Australia has played on their career and the responses will frequently be similar, with artists talking about how stations such as triple j helped to play their music when no one else was, and how it was Australia that really connected with their earliest gear. Franz Ferdinand is, of course, no different, though Kapranos explains that his time in the country really affected him in ways he hadn't expected.

"The response that we had over there was so invigorating for me because I'd always had this sort of romanticised idea of Australia, and I think it was particularly romanticised because it is just so fucking hard to get to from Glasgow," he remembers. "One of my best friends at school was Australian and through talking to him, I had this idea of what Australia was and I guess some of that was met when I first went there.

"But the thing that struck me most of all was just the vividness of everything. It felt very exotic, yet familiar at the same time. One experience that I had which really resonated with me was when we played the Big Day Out in 2006, and I got a flat in Sydney, in Darlinghurst. I guess I had romantic ideas of, of Darlinghurst from the Go-Betweens and that kind thing.

"So I got this flat, went to the pawn brokers and bought a bike, and one for my girlfriend at the time, and we just cycled all around," he remembers. "I felt like I'd really absorbed something of Australia at that particular time. It wasn't the usual experience that you have when you go on tour, where you maybe have a couple of days in a place, so this felt a little bit more."

A lot has changed in the years since the band's 2004 debut and their 2006 return. They've returned to Australia four more times (their last visit being in 2018), and they've released just as many albums since. The most recent of these records, The Human Fear, arrived earlier this year after a seven-year gap.

The band themselves are older and wiser, and while a global pandemic appeared in the midst of this gap, so too did founding drummer Paul Thomson depart in 2021. But what was the root cause of this new album taking eight years to arrive?

"You could as well ask why did the first album take 14 years?" Kapranos counters. "There's lots of little reasons. Things like COVID, touring the previous album, certain life changes for different band members. To be honest, it's just boring shit that happened. But I am glad that it did take that long because I don't think that the album would've been that way if those things hadn't happened.

"I know that there were certain songs like Bar Lonely and Build It Up where early versions were written before the previous album, but they weren't released at that point becauseI didn't think they were ready yet. It was only after working on it and particularly getting this lineup together where it's like, 'Alright, I know how to deliver them. Now I know how to put them out into the world.'"

"There have been times in the past where I've put things on a record when it wasn't ready yet," he admits. "I think of the way that we play Walk Away now, or Outsiders from the second album, I kind of think, 'Oh yeah, I hadn't quite got my head around those songs when I put them out on those albums.' Whereas I feel the songs that are on this record, and funnily enough, on the first record as well, I feel like 'Oh yeah, no, I knew how to do them, I knew what it was I needed to do to get them out there.'"

Most artists would agree with a sentiment like this. After all, countless bands continue to work on, improve, flesh out, or expand their songs well after the recording process is wrapped up. As they become more comfortable with the songs, the musicians find their groove and discover what it is that best serves the song.

One could use the analogy that it's almost as if they weren't quite done cooking by the time the meal was served.

"Do you know what it is? It's not even to do any cooking; it's to walk away from it," Kapranos offers. "For me it's often like you work on something, you can't get any further, you just don't touch it for ages and then you come back and you can see immediately what needs to be done to it.

"Maybe that's what I needed. I needed a bit of space to kind of clear out the detritus of my own mind so I could see what was actually going on."

The Human Fear is indeed an exceptional record from Franz Ferdinand, though its most notable representative quality is one that Kapranos and co. have strived for as long as the band has existed; brand recognition.

"Instantly, as soon as you hear the record, you know that it is us," he notes. "I guess that's the wonderful thing about human recognition, isn't it? You see your friend walking down the street, you know it's them. Immediately you hear, you overhear someone talking in a bar, you know it's them because you just recognise them.

"That's something that I'd always strived for as an artist, is having a strong enough identity that it doesn't matter what it is you're doing, if somebody hears it, they know it's you. On this record, there's quite a diverse range of sounds like, like Hooked, which is quite heavy electronic tinge song compared to Black Eyelashes, which has the sort of like Greek elements and the bouzouki, and Bar Lonely, which is a bit more punk rock compared to Tell Me I Should Stay, which is is a big pastoral piece.

"I think instantly you'd know it's a Franz Ferdinand song, even though they all sound very different from each other," he notes. "What does the record tell you? It tells you who Franz Ferdinand is."

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This year sees Franz Ferdinand finally making their way back to Australian shores after such a long time away. The band’s forthcoming tour will see them perform in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Thirroul, and Sydney, with additional dates scheduled for Melbourne’s Live At The Gardens series at the Royal Botanic Gardens on Friday, 28 November, and the On The Steps program at the Sydney Opera House Forecourt on Wednesday, 3 December.

More than 21 years since they first hit our shores, a lot has changed for the band, but how does Kapranos view the band of relatively fresh-faced youngsters that first visited Australia in 2004 as compared to the musicians who will grace us with their presence in November?

"You'll know it's Franz Ferdinand immediately. There's no question that it's Franz Ferdinand," he notes. "There's maybe a bit more depth, and a bit more complexity simply because we have a wider range of songs to draw upon.

"There's the evolution for me as a performer. I know that I have become more at ease on stage and more confident, and therefore able to be more vulnerable. I wish I could have performed then like I can now.

"Not to say that I didn't enjoy it, I loved it," he adds. "I think those shows were thrilling at the time, but I wish my version of myself could go back and give my version then a little bit of a pep talk to be loosened up a bit."

With all these years of refining their craft behind them, the result is a band that is performing at their peak and offering some of the best shows of their career.

"We just finished touring across the States, and we toured around Europe before that, and I think it's some of the best tours we've ever done," Kapranos explains. "It's been so thrilling and it is fascinating seeing the demographic change as well. The thing that freaks me out a little bit is how, with audiences, younger people come down to the front, and as people get older, they can move towards the back.

"When I look out at the audience now, I see you see the gradient of. It's not always completely true, but just as a general thing. So maybe the people who were the kids down at the front 21 years ago have slightly moved further back in the room. It just gives space for the young, but then when I look at the people down at the front, I kind of think, 'Shit, you weren't even born when the first album came out.'"

As Kapranos admits, one of the strangest experiences that he encounters now at live shows is how the fanbase will eagerly sing along to the new material without knowing the older songs. "I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign or just a sign," he laughs. "It's just an observation."

Most importantly though, the Franz Ferdinand of today is a band ready to show why they've carved out a reputation as one of the finest rock bands of the '00s era when they return to Australia this year.

"You'll be getting the band at a really good point as well, because by the time we get there, it's just like you're like a well-trained sports team," Kapranos notes. "There's a real magic that happens in a band when you tour together and you do it consistently, and what happens is you lose conscious thought, and you communicate in this way that's completely subliminal.

"Things happen where you don't say anything and you don't communicate anything. It's like how trees communicate with each other through the fungi under the ground. It is a bit like that.

"It's like you become this living form that just only exists from touring, and you only get that way from touring again and again," he concludes. "So I'm very happy to be taking that to Australia after all this time."

Tickets to Franz Ferdinand's upcoming Australian tour are on sale next week. Pre-sale tickets are available via the Frontier Members pre-sale on Monday, 12 May, from 10 am local time, followed by the general sale on Wednesday, 14 May, at 10 am local time. You can find tickets on the Frontier Touring website.