Franz Ferdinand return with their sixth long-player, The Human Fear, “unashamedly going for the pop jugular” Photo: © Fiona Torre
Franz Ferdinand mainstays Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy are so in tune with each other that they even share the same phobia. Over two decades since Take Me Out and The Dark Of The Matinée launched the Glasgow-based literate pop powerhouses, the pair have remained in thrall to the possibilities of music.
But, with their sixth album entitled The Human Fear, it’s natural to get darker and ask what they’re scared of. The pair’s responses reveal the Franz Ferdinand hivemind: they’re both terrified of snakes. Hardy’s most vivid childhood memory is of going to Noah’s Ark, an exhibit on Morecambe beach, aged three. “It was a fake zoo, stuffed with models of animals,” shudders the usually amiable bassist. “The floors and walls were both glass, and one room was full of snakes. I lost it and had to be carried out of there. I can’t stand snakes; I can’t look at them.”