Franz Ferdinand have launched an attack on the music industry and detractors who claim the band have ‘sold out’.
The stars of the NME Awards tour have experienced a meteoric rise to success in 2004, hitting number three in the UK charts with their last single ‘Take Me Out’ and are getting ready top head out on their first headlining tour in April.
Singer Alex Kapranos said: “I don’t think by getting into the charts we’ve sold out. By playing music to lots of people? I don’t think so at all. I think popular music should come from the leftfield, it should come from the outside. The best music comes from the edges and takes over.”
He added: “I think pop has become a dirty word recently and I think that’s a real shame as I love pop music. To me, the Sex Pistols getting to number one and not being able to print their name at the top of the charts, that’s the best moments in pop music. Dexys Midnight Runners getting to number one as well. Or Franz Ferdinand. All great pop bands.”
“And that’s the problem at the moment, people think that pop music has to be manufactured by these huge corporations – it doesn’t,” Kapranos told Xfm. ” It should come from people’s bedrooms, from the ideas of real people. That’s what I’d like to see happening again.”
As previously reported on NME.COM, [a][/a] were forced to upgrade many of the shows on their forthcoming tour to bigger venues to cope with the demand for tickets.
The dates are:
Glasgow QMU (April 12/13)
Liverpool Carling Academy (15)
Dublin Ambassador Theatre (16)
Sheffield Leadmill (17)
Nottingham Rock City (18)
Leeds Blank Canvas (20)
Birmingham Carling Academy (21)
Brighton Concorde 2 (26)
Norwich Waterfront (27)
Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (29)
Manchester University (30)
Oxford Brookes University (May 1)
Bristol Anson Rooms (2)
Portsmouth Pyramid Centre (4)
London Astoria (5/6)
London Coronet (May 7)
For ticket availability, [url=]click here or call the NME Ticketline on 0870 1 663 663.