"I would hope that both of our sets of fans would expect to be surprised," says Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos of his band's ambitious collaboration his pop tearaway icons, Sparks. "Most people I've spoken to have said 'Oh, I would never have thought of that, but it totally makes sense'."
And make sense, the record does. Rather than find a common ground where both acts can compliment each other, what they've done is create an entirely new band - where their delightfully twisted artpop can truly flourish
Watch our video interview with FFS above
"This album is populated by all sorts of different characters," Kapranos tells Gigwise. "It's not even like there's a character per song, there are lots of different characters in each song. A song like 'The Power Couple' has Russell and I taking on these different characters singing simultaneously at you. It's those characters that make the album quite rich - you feel like you're being invited into a world to share and meet them. Some of them you might want to hang out with, a few you probably wouldn't...'Dictator's Son', you probably wouldn't want to hang out with him."
Ron Mael chips in "You get a good dinner?" before Russell Mael adds "You might get to meet some chicks?"
Speaking of the ethos behind FFS, Russell continues: "Sparks are always striving to do things that would shake up our universe and the outside universe as well, so this collaboration feels like it's a certain way very logical from our perspective - to do something as illogical as this.
"This has been our focus, and it's not like this is a side-project that we need to get out of our systems then we return to the 'real stuff' - this is the real stuff. We're fully immersed and excited. We don't know where we're going.
Watch our video interview with FFS above
Watch above as FFS tell us about their shared influences, the energy behind their writing sessions, how the album took on a life of its own and what the future may hold.
FFS release their self-titled debut album on 8 June. Their upcoming tour dates are as follows. For tickets and information, visit here.
June
16 June - Glasgow Arts School
22 June - Zagreb Inmusic Festival
24 June Brussels AB
26 June - Paris Bataclan
29 June - London, The Troxy
July
1 July - Cologne Gloria
2 July - Amsterdam Melkweg
5 July - Lyon Transbordeur
10 July - Trencin, Slovakia Pohoda Festival
19 July - Benicassim, Benicassim Festival
September
12 September - Berlin Lollapalooza
