FRANZ FERDINAND to share the mic with SPARKS

FFS – the collaboration between Glasgow-based quartet Franz Ferdinand and seminal Los Angeles duo Sparks – have announced details of the release of their self-titled album on June 9 on Domino.

The first proper single will be released in April, with details coming soon. In the meantime, FFS are slaking fans’ thirst by previewing the album’s closing track ‘Piss Off‘, fittingly the first song written for the album, and the first song now to be heard in its entirety.

The seed of FFS was sown around the time of Franz’s debut album when word got back to the Mael brothers that the band were big Sparks fans. “We thought ‘Take Me Out’ was very cool, and wouldn’t it be nice to say hello when they came to Los Angeles?” recalls Russell Mael. “We met and decided then it would be great to do something together. We put forward a couple demos, one was ‘Piss Off’. But they got swept up by everything, and it didn’t happen at that time.”

Fast-forward to 2013 when both Sparks and Franz Ferdinand appeared at Coachella. On the day of Sparks’ warm-up show in San Francisco, Kapranos was in the city trying to locate a dentist when he heard a voice behind him: “‘Alex, is that you?’ It was Ron and Russell. They invited us down to see them play that night. We said hello after, and everyone agreed that the 10-year gestation period for this idea was long enough——- we should try and make it happen now.”

FFS was recorded during an intense 15-day period in late 2014. “We approached it the way bands do with their first record,” says Kapranos. “We had the songs first, rehearsed them and then recorded it all together, in a room. So no hanging around or fannying about.”

Very much a ‘new’ project, FFS doesn’t truly sound like either band, but a striking and fascinating mutation. “The real motivation was to make something new, not ‘Franz featuring Russell Mael’, or ‘Sparks with Franz Ferdinand backing them,” says Alex Kapranos.

“You can’t chart what is Sparks and what is Franz Ferdinand,” suggests Ron Mael. “I think each band unconsciously relinquished a little of who they were in order to enter new territory.”

FFS Tour Dates

Tuesday June 16 || Arts School || Glasgow, UK
Monday June 29 || The Troxy || London, UK
Monday August 24 || Festival Theatre || Edinburgh, UK
Tuesday August 25 || Albert Hall || Manchester, UK

Produced by Grammy-award winner John Congleton (St Vincent, David Byrne, Anna Calvi) and recorded at London’s RAK Studios, the tracklisting of the 12-track album is as follows:
1.   Johnny Delusional
2.   Call Girl
3.   Dictator’s Son
4.   Little Guy From The Suburbs
5.   Police Encounters
6.   Save Me From Myself
7.   So Desu Ne
8.   The Man Without A Tan
9.   Things I Won’t Get
10. The Power Couple
11. Collaborations Don’t Work
12. Piss Off

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