FUSE TV - Franz Ferdinand Frontman Admits: "I Wanted to Split the Band Up"

Franz Ferdinand are currently busy preparing for the August 27th release of their fourth studio album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action. 

But frontman Alex Kapranos recently revealed that making music together wasn't always as easy.

It's been more than four years since the Scottish quartet, Franz Ferdinand released their last album. That's a good chunk of time for any band, but especially for one as big as Franz was at the time.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Kapranos explained the reason for the hiatus: he was so unhappy, he was thinking about splitting up the band.

"I wanted to split the band up, because in my head it felt like one of those jobs… the ones I had to jack in," he said.

"I didn't like the routine and the obligations. And whether those obligations lay with my contemporaries, my peers, my record label, the fans, the audiences—or maybe myself… I felt… It was time to, erm, stop that."

Kapranos also admitted to being "incredibly miserable" during the making of their third album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand.

There are a number of things that contributed to his misery, including a public breakup (with Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger), label issues, endless touring and the everyday grind of being in a band.

"[The fun] went out when I felt I was working to someone else's schedule or deadline," he lamented.

"I'm not naturally the kind of person who works well under those conditions. In fact, my whole adult life before that point, if I'd been in a job where I felt I was under pressure, I would usually just jack in the job. And suddenly I couldn't do that any more. But maybe… Maybe, that's what we did after the third record."

Luckily for us, Franz Ferdinand—and Kapranos are in a much better place today. They recently showcased the sound of their new record when they released four tracks from the upcoming album. You can check them out here.

It pushes the envelope a bit more than their previous works, but they did hold onto the quirky, upbeat drive that originally set them apart from their peers. 

Kapranos said that he felt like that signature quirk had been "shaved off" during their dark period, but the foursome found a way to tap into it again while recording Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action. He explained:

"When we came to making the new album, we decided that oddness was just us! And we should enjoy that: it should be at the heart of our existence if we want to continue."