LOS ANGELES — Franz Ferdinand fans struggling to figure out what some of their new songs are about can take some solace in knowing that singer Alex Kapranos even has to explain them to his bandmates.

"We always talk about what they're about," bassist Bob Hardy admitted.

"You gotta know what the songs are about, otherwise you don't know how to play them," guitarist Nick McCarthy added. "If it's about a rough guy, you play it a bit rougher or something like that."

Kapranos, meanwhile, seems to enjoy knowing that his lyrics are rarely obvious.

"I love the fact that you can make a song sound really, really simple," he explained. "If all you hear is the 'whoo-hoo' from the chorus, that's fine, but you can put a lot more into [discovering the meaning of] it as well. It's there if you want to hear it."

Kapranos was talking specifically about the new Stateside single, "The Fallen," which has the "whoo-hoo" chorus, but verses that certainly take some explaining. Like, for instance, this one: "And the Kunst won't talk to you/ Because you kissed St. Rollox adieu/ Because you robbed a supermarket or two/ Well, who gives a damn about the prophets of Tesco?"

"It's based on a number of different characters who are pretty enigmatic in their own right," Kapranos explained. "These characters, Glaswegian characters, who maybe sometimes stumble on the darker side of life and maybe are from the rougher side of life. And it's imagining Christ coming back as one of these characters that we'd know from back home and what he'd do and imagining him coming back and turning the rich into wine and drinking them and walking on the mean and maybe getting on Mary Magdalene.

"See, once you know it, it's that easy, it all makes sense," he added with a smile.

"The Fallen" is not different from a lot of Franz Ferdinand songs in that it's based on vivid characters from the bandmembers' lives.

"That's where the best characters come from, the people that surround you," he said. "And then taking them and sort of combining them with all sorts of other things that happen to be flinging through your head at that particular time."

Franz have yet to make a video for "The Fallen," but have been shooting some live performances of the song that might be part of the forthcoming clip. The Scottish dance rockers have, however, finished a video for "Walk Away," but for now it will be released only in the U.K., where it's the official second single.

"I think in the States they're more up for a bit of rock and roll, which is kinda what ['The Fallen'] is, pretty much," Kapranos said.

For the "Walk Away" video, Franz worked again with Scott Lyon, shooting at London's Ealing Film Studio (see "Franz Ferdinand Take A 'Walk' In Black And White, Hitchcock Style"). "It's where all of the old black comedies were shot in the '40s and '50s," Kapranos said. "Things like 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' and the original version of 'The Ladykillers,' which were phenomenal films, really, really beautiful films. And the 'Walk Away' video has very much that sort of feel of this otherworldly film noir, but a very British take on that."

Franz just wrapped up a North American tour to promote the recently released You Could Have It So Much Better (see "Franz Ferdinand Take Manhattan"), and will trek through Europe to finish out the year.

To catch a glimpse of what life is like on the road with Franz Ferdinand, check out "Franz Ferdinand: Hooks And Books."