Franz Ferdinand is a Scottish rock band, formed in 2002 and based in Glasgow. Named for the Austro-Hungarian Archduke whose murder sparked World War I, Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand became one of the key figures of the post-punk revival scene of the 2000s. In late 2001, singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos and bassist Bob Hardy began working on music together when they met Nick McCarthy, a classically trained pianist and double bass player who originally played drums for the group despite no prior experience as a drummer. The trio had rehearsed at McCarthy's house for a while when they met and started playing with Paul Thomson, a former drummer for the Yummy Fur who felt like playing guitar instead. Eventually, McCarthy and Thomson switched to guitar and drums, and the band switched practice spaces, moving to an abandoned warehouse that they named the Chateau. The Chateau became Franz Ferdinand's headquarters, where they rehearsed and held rave-like events incorporating music and art (Hardy graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, and Thomson also posed as a life model there). The bandmembers needed a new rehearsal space once their illicit art parties were discovered by the police, and they found one in a Victorian courthouse and jail. By summer 2002, they'd recorded an EP's worth of material that they intended to release themselves, but word of mouth about the band spread and Franz Ferdinand signed to Domino in the summer of 2003. The group's EP Darts of Pleasure was released that fall, and the band spent the rest of the year supporting groups such as Hot Hot Heat and Interpol. Franz Ferdinand's second single, Take Me Out, arrived in early 2004. The single propelled them to greater popularity in the U.K. and laid the groundwork for the band's debut album. Franz Ferdinand was released in February 2004 in the U.K. and a month later stateside. That September, the album won the Mercury Prize and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album in 2005 (Take Me Out received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal). In 2015 they collaborated with Sparks under the name FFS and released their self-titled album that June. The following year, McCarthy left the band. Franz Ferdinand added guitarist Dino Bardot (formerly of the band 1990s) and Miaoux Miaoux keyboardist Julian Corrie to the fold and made their live debut as a quintet in 2017. Later that year, they debuted the title track from their fifth album Always Ascending. Recorded with producer Philippe Zdar, it arrived in February 2018 and combined the band's raw aesthetic with electronic experiments.

Franz Ferdinand

Performing artists