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— by Corey Moss
It's 7:45 on a dewy Monday morning in Los Angeles and the staff at KROQ-FM's "Kevin & Bean Show" is making last-minute preparations for the arrival of their musical guests, testing microphones, brewing coffee, restocking the Red Bull.
"I've had to go on beer runs before," a bright-eyed producer recalls. "You know, to keep [a band] going from the night before."
When Franz Ferdinand arrive just minutes before their scheduled airtime, the only thing the Scottish dance-rockers are carrying over from their San Diego gig the night before is reading material.
While frontman Alex Kapranos and guitarist Nick McCarthy whip out their acoustic guitars and rush through soundcheck, bassist Bob Hardy and drummer Paul Thomson find stools in the back of the studio and prop open paperbacks.
Between the interview, the two-song set and the mandatory autographs and photos, Kapranos and McCarthy are kept busy, but both also bring books. And if you can learn something about a man by what he's reading, then Franz Ferdinand are a nutty bunch of Scots.
"I've just started reading a new book — well, new to me — by Norman Mailer called 'An American Dream,' " Kapranos says later of the controversial 1965 novel about a former Congressman who runs rampant in New York after killing his wife. McCarthy is making time for "Holidays on Ice," a collection of Christmas stories from humorist David Sedaris. Hardy is reading some Jonathan Lethem, who happens to be a friend of a friend and a Franz fan. "He's going to our show next week," the bassist says, flashing a boastful smile across his face.
Thomson is the only one whose choice of reading slightly reflects his occupation: Jaime Hernandez's "Locas," a series of vignettes collected from his "Love & Rockets" comics about two bisexual women coming of age in the 1980s L.A. punk scene. "I've been waiting all my life for this stuff to come together and finally it has," he chirps with excitement. "I just found it in a bookshop and I was like, 'Oh sh--, no way!' "
So this is what the rock and roll lifestyle has become? High lit and graphic novels over high times and groupies? Intellect over debauchery?
"We're more infantile than you would imagine," art-school alum Thomson insists, jumping to Franz's defense."I don't know what intellectuals do on the road, but ..." McCarthy starts.
"We're pretty normal guys," Hardy interrupts. "We like what everybody else likes. We're not ashamed to go and watch a Hollywood blockbuster."
"I mean, we'll pick up anything that's lying about as well," Kapranos chimes in, going back to literature. "One minute you might be reading Allen Ginsberg, the next minute it's a copy of [British celebrity gossip magazine] Hello! We're not really snobs about what we read."
It's this collision of intelligence and downright goofiness that also makes Franz Ferdinand's music so infectious. Songs like "Take Me Out," "Do You Want To" and next single "The Fallen" are pure ear candy, but behind all the "woo hoos" and "doo-doo-doos" are fascinating, imaginative stories of religion, politics and everyday life.
"The Fallen," which Kapranos and McCarthy play acoustic on KROQ (after "Do You Want To"), imagines the second coming of Christ as a seedy character in the band's hometown of Glasgow. "Turning the rich into wine and drinking them and maybe getting on Mary Magdalene," Kapranos explains, laughing at the picture in his head.
Before performing the tune, Kapranos and McCarthy make a few fast adjustments and the guitarist writes out the notes on a cheat sheet. Despite the lack of prep time, they nail it.
"I quite like radio shows," Kapranos says later. "It's kind of fun to take a song and strip it back to its essential parts. I don't like gettin' up really early in the morning after three hours of sleep, mind you, but once you're up, you're up, aren't you?"
"It makes you feel like an old horse," McCarthy adds.
"An old whore, I think you meant to say," Kapranos jokes. "It makes us feel like old whores."
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Photo: Epic
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