Mojo - The Music Magazine

How did the LCD Soundsystem cover come about?

Alex Kapranos: Well, I got an email from James Murphy, asking if we were be up for it and I thought, Of course, what a great idea! There are so many bands who ask fellers like James to do remixes of their music so why not the other way around? A remix is just a cover version anyway. Just because you create that reinterpretation electronically doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is any different from a band reinterpreting a song. We did it with [Trash DJ/remixer] Erol Alkan, then just took a few parts of the song and jammed them in a room together. Remixes should be ruthless and disrespectful. With our covers, whether the Fire Engines or the Beatles, we’ll completely change the song, almost to the point that it’s unrecognisable. The original LCD track is extremely linear, built around a kind of Steve Reich piano line, and this long, stream of consciousness lyric. I just thought; ‘Great, I’m gonna tear that apart’, being truly respectful and disrespectful at the same time. That’s what appealed to us about the approach. A lot of our songs tend to be built around these hooks or lines or riffs. Pretty straight to the point. I like a strong melody line, and we wanted to bring something like that to the song. Pretty blunt.

What are Franz up to at the moment?

AK: Well we’re just meeting up and writing songs and having a great time with it as well. I remember when we first got the band together you would run to get down and meet the others because it was the best thing you could possibly be doing with your time and that’s what it feels like again.

Did you lose a little bit of that with the last album?

AK: I hate to say it, but you kind of do sometimes. The worst thing for music is when it feels like a chore. If it’s a chore for you to play it then it’s almost certainly going to be a chore to listen to it.

Any obvious changes in the Franz sound for the next album?

AK: Well I’m obviously the worst person to ask about this but I remember when we did the second record, I guess we’d been touring for a year and we’d been playing big stages for the first times in our lives, with amplifiers on full and playing to these big rooms, and somehow we’d adjusted our sound to this rock sound and I think you can hear that on the second record. I suppose what we’re writing about at the moment is a reaction to that. We’ve always been contrary buggers as a band and suppose we’ve always wanted to go against the flow of what going on about us - indie rock bands singing about standing around in the chip shop queue. I cannot be arsed with that, I just think it’s so fucking boring. The best music for me has always been the strange combination of evil melancholia and something intensely uplifting and euphoric. I feel that I have absolutely nothing to prove by conforming to what people expect and absolutely nothing to gain from that either. For us I can reduce it to the most simple test for the music and that is if I see the other guys grinning then I know its good.

Have you got any set release dates?

AK: Totally not! We worked towards targets on the second album and I’m not very good at doing that sort of thing. When we wrote the first album, there were no grand schemes or themes behind it. It was not premeditated. We’re at the initial stage which is laying out this sprawling, tangled mess of ideas, and random streams of consciousness and thoughts: untangling the huge knot.

So the first new thing we’ll hear from you will be the LCD Soundsystem single. Do you think that will hint at where the new Franz stuff is going?

AK: Ummm… Yes, I think there are a couple of songs that we are doing that definitely have that hypnotic, mesmerising feel which has a slower build, which draws you in. I suppose up until now we’ve been writing songs for people with short attention spans. I can’t think of the word to describe it, I can give examples… I Wanna Be Your Dog by the Stooges has it, Fela Kuti has it, that quality which draws you in and it’s almost pharmaceutical. That’s something we’ve been experimenting with, with the guitar playing some great harmonics and the bass was playing a great riff…

That sounds great. So, shall I go away and write “Franz’s new sound is Fela Kuti meets The Stooges”?

AK: Thank you very much. I know I can trust you not to. I don’t need to watch my mouth too much with MOJO. You haven’t asked whether we’re gonna have some punch-up with Kasabian or whatever, and for that I thank you.

LCD Soundsystem’s All My Friends, featuring covers by Franz Ferdinand and John Cale will be released on May 21st on DFA/EMI Records