Byline: Words by Jon Wilde
PAUL: SUIT CLEMENS EN AUGUST, SHIRT GUCCI, BOOTS GEORGE COX. BOB: SUIT CLEMENS EN AUGUST, SHIRT RAG & BONE, BOOTS JOHN VARVATOS. ALEX: JACKET, TROUSERS, SHIRT, BELT AND WATCH GUCCI, SHOES D& G. NICK: TUXEDO D& G, SHIRT GUCCI. ALL OTHER CLOTHES BAND'S OWN
Showtime for Franz Ferdinand is merely minutes away and Alex Kapranos is trapped in a moment straight out of This Is Spinal Tap. Having chosen to take a pre-gig stroll around the backstage area of Southampton's Guildhall theatre, he finds himself hopelessly lost in the dense labyrinth of stairs and corridors. Somewhere above us, 2,000 Franz Ferdinand fans are growing increasingly restless and Kapranos needs to find his way back to the band's dressing room without delay.
As the crowd noise intensifies, Kapranos takes yet another wrong turn and finds himself in the theatre's basement kitchen. He raises a bemused eyebrow. The crowd now at a crescendo, he chooses this moment to describe what it's like to perform live to thousands on nights like this.
'It's a lot like going to bed with a woman, to be honest,' he says. 'To do a good gig or perform well between the sheets you need to lose all selfconsciousness.
If I go on stage and wonder how I look and what people are going to think of me, I'm going to have a terrible show. It's the same when I'm in bed. If I stop to think how ridiculous I look, it would stop me in my tracks. In both situations I need to be completely lost in the moment. I need to be completely instinctive, totally primal.
Abercrombie Fitch Bags'When we first started playing live I was afraid of losing my dignity. Then I realised that I needed to be brave enough to not give Brand T-Shirts a damn. You see that in the best performers. Whether it's Iggy Pop in 1972 or Freddie Mercury in 1982, they realised the importance of accepting that being a rock star is a completely preposterous idea. You can only begin to be great when you embrace a sense of your own ridiculousness.'
With the kind of comedic timing that would have done Eric Morecambe proud, he takes a left turn along the backstage corridor, opens a door and finds himself staring into a broom cupboard. Again he raises a bemused eyebrow.
'Hardly a day has gone past without me finding myself in some bizarre situation like this. It's been five years of, "Is this really happening to me?" My life has been like one long episode of Jim'll Fix It.'
It has also been five years of stupendous success, with 12 singles and three albums that have scored massive global hits: more than six million records sold, a Mercury Music Prize in 2004, two Brit awards and an Ivor Novello. Not bad for a band whose ambition went no further than releasing a seven-inch single in the hope it would be favourably reviewed and might sell a few hundred copies.
Franz Ferdinand have been described as the coolest and most important British band of the decade. Their fans include some of the hippest names around - David Bowie, Kate Moss, Brad Pitt, Elijah Wood.
'When you meet people like that I follow what I call my 17-year-old rule,' says Kapranos, now 37.
'If I was a fan of someone as a teenager, then it's OK for me to feel completely in awe when I meet them.' Not that Franz Ferdinand jump at every chance to rub shoulders with household names. In 2004, they turned down a request from Prince William for a Royal Command Performance at the Queen's Buckingham Palace Christmas
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