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Franz Ferdinand The four-piece band have had a rapid rise to stardom since they met nearly four years ago. Drummer Paul Thomson was working at Glasgow School of Art school where bassist Bob Hardy was studying. Alex Kapranos was studying English at university but had friends at art school, and the line-up was completed when guitarist Nick McCarthy moved from Munich, Germany, to the city. But it could have been very different when Kapranos and McCarthy first met at a party. The pair almost came to blows after McCarthy adopted Kapranos' bottle of vodka as his own. Their first gig was at an all-female art show and so they set out
to make music that girls could dance to. Developing a DIY ethic from
the start, they took over a disused art-deco warehouse in Glasgow,
made it their base and renamed it The Chateau. |
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The venue soon became legendary in the city - so well-known that the police spent a month trying to find it, eventually raiding it and arresting Kapranos. But the charges of running an illegal bar and contravening health and safety, fire hazard and noise abatement laws were dropped. The band took over an abandoned Victorian courtroom and jail instead, and named that The Chateau. They signed with independent label Domino, home of Smog, Sebadoh and Four Tet, in June 2003. Their debut album sent them around the globe twice and landed them Mercury, Brit and NME Awards - the first band to scoop all three in one year. |
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