Franz Ferdinand vocalist/guitarist Alex Kapranos sounds very chipper down the line from Paris – and with good reason. He describes the making of the band’s new album, The Human Fear, as one of the most life-affirming experiences he’s ever had.
“I think any artist feels like that when you feel you’re making something good, and particularly if what you’re making is a collaborative process and you’re doing it with people who you enjoy being in the room with as well, and they’re really great people,” he happily tells Tone Deaf.
“It’s not even if you’re an artist – if you’re doing anything in life, whether it’s playing a local football team or if it’s a job, if you’re doing it with people whose company you really appreciate, then it becomes a life-affirming, uplifting experience.
“I remember some of the jobs I had before Franz Ferdinand, some of the theoretically worst jobs were actually the most fun. I remember washing dishes in a kitchen restaurant but having an amazing laugh, because the people I worked with were brilliant, they were a great craic, you know? So that became a life-affirming experience.”
The first taste of Franz Ferdinand’s multi-faceted new album came recently with the single “Audacious”, a track inflected with twists and offbeat turns in a manner that has become a band trademark. Far from it being simply a track title, it seems that for Kapranos a good degree of audacity is a life choice and one that has impacted the creative decisions on the new album.
“I guess all of the songs are about kind of like overcoming fears in one way or another,” he says. “As I was writing that song I was thinking we all have that feeling sometimes that life is unraveling around about us. And as you acknowledge that to yourself, you say, ‘Well, what’s my response?’ A particular time when I was sitting down at the piano writing, I thought that I’m going to be as audacious as I possibly can be. And I love audacity!
“If I’m watching a football game and I see a player being particularly audacious in the way that they play, then it’s the most rewarding moment in the game. I love when I see my friends doing something audacious, and also some of the greatest moments in my life have required a degree of audacity to do them. Even getting on stage, I feel you should do it in the most audacious way you possibly can.”
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A title such as The Human Fear may conjure up notions of darkness and dread for many, but from everything Kapranos says the preoccupation is more about the thrill of feeling alive.
“The greatest achievements and moments that we have in our life usually involve some degree of overcoming fear. Whether it’s asking somebody out on a date or passing your driving test. The events which mark our lives usually require some degree of overcoming fear,” he says.
“And not only that, we actually actively seek out fear in our lives too. Horror films wouldn’t exist if humans didn’t enjoy seeking out fear and overcoming it. When you feel fear, it reminds you that you’re alive. It makes you feel that you’re alive and also the way that we respond to fear is how we understand what our characters are, what our personalities are, because the fears are universal. We all have the same fears, but what’s not universal is our response to fear. That’s very much a personal thing. So we all respond to the same fears in our own individual ways and that’s how we find out who we are.”
The Human Fear saw Franz Ferdinand team up again with Mark Ralph, the producer of 2013’s Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions. It also marked the first studio appearance by newest members, guitarist Dino Bardot and drummer Audrey Tait.
The merge of past and present was also complemented by the fact that tracks on The Human Fear were written around the time of their career retrospective album, 2022’s Hits to the Head. Having to prepare the release by listening to mixes of tracks in their back catalogue made for an interesting psychological dynamic as they contemplated the past in such a focused way, while simultaneously adding to their creative future.
“I had very mixed feelings about doing the Hits to the Head album,” Kapranos admits. “Ultimately, it was a good thing to do, but at the time I hated it, because I’m not a very nostalgic person. I don’t like the past and I certainly don’t like the idea of living in the past, and so I wasn’t really enjoying going back and going, ‘Damn, I want to do something new. I don’t want to listen to the bloody old songs.’
“But it really helped me understand what it was that made the band good, just listening to all those songs together, and particularly the songs that are the most striking. So, because putting it together, obviously you’re choosing the boldest, most audacious, striking songs that you’ve written, like ‘Oh yeah, God, that really works when we do that.’ Some of it is subliminal, some of it you’re actually noticing it actively.
“So I guess I wanted to make an album that would [be] better than the Hits to the Head record. In a way it was because I strongly feel that an artist stays living, or a band stays living because of the new material that they make. And I didn’t want to turn into one of these bands that becomes like a covers band of themselves, where they’re just playing their old material again for the rest of their existence. It felt like a challenge – ‘Right, here you go. You’ve made this thing, now better it.’ There’s nothing more inspiring than a challenge.”
Kapranos says that there’s a good chance of Franz Ferdinand returning to Australia in 2025, marking their first visit since 2018’s Splendour in the Grass.
He notes anything that happened pre-COVID feels as though it was last century. “It does, doesn’t it? It’s funny because I always feel that there are certain events which can mark the beginning of a century more than the actual date of a century. Like the 20th century really began, funnily enough, with the death of Franz Ferdinand. Archduke Franz Ferdinand dies, that’s when the 20th century truly began, because everything changed at that point.
“I think COVID was one of those events as well, and the events leading up to COVID seem to be almost like a continuation of the 20th century. It’s like everything has changed after COVID. It really feels like a very, very different world now for the better and for the worse in many ways, but I don’t even measure it in better ‘worlds’. It’s different. It’s just different.”
Franz Ferdinand’s The Human Fear is out January 10th via Domino (pre-order here).
