THEY have secured a Mercury Music Prize, a number one album and millions of fans around the world in their first four years of stardom. But Franz Ferdinand have a skeleton in their closet.
The Glasgow band have bought a human skeleton and used the bones for percussion on their eagerly-awaited third album. The first single will be played on the radio today.
The ghoulish experiment involved rattling teeth in a jar, clapping bony hand
s together and hitting the pelvic bone with a femur. It was part of an attempt by the band to get away from the modern reliance on computer technology in recording and go back to basics. Other innovations included hanging metal slinky toys from the ceiling to achieve a reverberation effect. One track was recorded on a single microphone under the stage.
The album, Tonight, is due to be released on January 26 after a two-year absence from the charts. Music critics who have been given a sneak preview of the album heralded it as being on a par with the band's 2004 debut.
The idea of using human bones as percussion on a track called 'No You Girls Never Know' came about after lead singer Alex Kapranos and guitarist Nick McCarthy bought the skeleton from a doctor's estate auction in Glasgow, intending to use it to decorate the studio.
Kapranos said: "We wanted to have a real dry, percussive sound in the chorus of one song. We had this skeleton in a box that just ended up sitting in the corner of the studio. Nick had the hands and was clapping the bones together. Paul, the drummer, was working with the pelvic bone and a femur.
"We put the teeth in a glass jar and rattled that about. We smacked the ribs together and we got this really weird kind of a sound that was wicked."
The track, which is a haunting number about "the ghosts of the Saturday night dancefloor", was recorded in complete darkness with little accompaniment apart from the bones.
McCarthy added: "It sounds like a dead man dancing – because it is."
The album was produced by Dan Carey, who has also worked with Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue and Hot Chip. The band described him as the "mischievous brainbox" who devised many new ways of creating sound effects naturally.
A spokesman said: "Nick climbed into the rafters of the hall to hang a microphone from a 30-foot cable, which Dan swung across an amp that had been kicked over and was feeding back from Alex's guitar.
"We could warp the sound with the Doppler effect of a passing racing car or a diving spitfire."
Although the effect can be easily created by a computer, the band refused to use such effects in protest against the trend to enhance music using software rather than relying on the talent of the players.
The spokesman said: "A gaggle of obscure and long forgotten Seventies synths were even mobilised for some tracks, and we hung slinkies from the ceiling as primitive spring reverb."
The band opted to record in Glasgow and set up in an old hall in Govan, previously occupied by a drug rehabilitation unit, which they soundproofed and blacked out.
A spokesman said: "The vibe was great and the monthly rent was half the daily rate of a London studio."
Although some music experts have praised the band for getting back to the basics, others suggested it was little more than a gimmick.
Music critic and broadcaster Colin Somerville said: "Everybody wants to make out they have got an organic process of recording and this band is very resourceful, but I'm not sure how different it will sound.
"They are probably bored with the fact that they have done it all using the technology and they want to try something different. They are trying to keep themselves interested."
However, Stewart Henderson, director of independent studio Chemikal Underground in Glasgow, said: "It is always better to try and get the authentic sound rather than creating it digitally. If you can get a sound by hanging upside down from the roof of the studio I would rather do that than press a button."
The full article contains 708 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
