THE ARCH COOK FRANZ FERDINAND Alex Kapranos reveals how working in a

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Nov 5, 2006 | by PETER ROSS

GUESS who's coming to dinner? Alex Kapranos, and for such a skinny guy he really can put food away. Franz Ferdinand are a notoriously willowy bunch - three Hen Broons and a Fat Boab - but their frontman is a gourmand, "a bit of a grubber" as he puts it, who has just published Sound Bites, a book describing meals eaten while travelling the world. Most touring rock bands survive on a generic diet of Big Macs, but Kapranos tries to get a flavour of a city through its local cuisine, be that blowfish in Osaka or bull's balls in Buenos Aires. You might call him Piggy Stardust.

He'll try anything, allergy permitting ("I've learned to say, 'Are there peanuts in that?' in several languages") and so it made sense to suggest etain in Glasgow as the venue for our interview. They offer a special six-course epicurean menu involving pigeon breast, ox tongue and many, many wines.

Kapranos is up for giving this a go, although he does note that: "Before Franz Ferdinand did their thing I would never have come to a place like this." He is 34, and after years of having no money at all suddenly finds himself rich, thanks to Franz Ferdinand's multi- million album sales. He is actually rather mortified by this development, financially embarrassed in an unusual sense, and thinks this is to do with the idea that you have to starve for your artistic integrity.

Just as he is talking about starving, his hot pear souffle arrives.

Wearing a nice brown jumper, a black jacket and a smart pair of brogues, Kapranos doesn't carry himself like a rock star. Though confident and charming, he's no bighead. He has cheekbones that could slice prosciutto, doesn't talk with his mouth full, and veers accentwise between light Glaswegian and mild Geordie. He is a diverting dinner companion, happy to argue about the new Bob Dylan album ("boring and predictable"), discuss his obsessivecompulsive fear of stickiness ("My most hated sensation is running my hand over a surface and finding someone's left a jammy knife there") and tell you about the time he was mistaken for a hardcore porn star by a Serbian border guard.

He has a flat in Dennistoun and a house in the Dumfries area, and spends a fair bit of time in New York with his girlfriend Eleanor Friedberger, singer with The Fiery Furnaces. In mid-September, Franz Ferdinand finally finished an 18-month world tour, and since then Kapranos has been coping with the wretched feeling of adrenalin leaching out of his body.

Rock star is a classless occupation, so being in a successful band is "like a passport" when it comes to eating out. You can hang out in the scuzziest dives and the most expensive restaurants in the world. Kapranos has written about both.

There is a lot of good writing in his book.

A pheasant completely plucked apart from the bright feathers round its head is described as "a murdered gangster, humiliated in death, wearing nothing but his trilby and brilliantine".

Kapranos clearly understands and relishes food, as well he might, having spent time as a chef. At the age of 18 he was a kitchen porter in a restaurant in Fort William. "It was quite a wild life and I think kitchens are often like that, " he says. "The whole catering industry is like bands outside the remit of everyday society. People have their own rules and moral standards. I loved it. It was exciting. The danger and the banter and the fighting and the heat and the colour." He arrived in Fort William from Aberdeen, having abandoned a degree in divinity after one year. "I'd gone when I was 17 and it was mainly middle-aged guys studying to join the ministry. They were lovely fellas but for a 17-year-old it was stifling. There were extremists on the course as well. I remember a woman telling me they'd been holding a prayer meeting for me because they'd heard that I'd been smoking grass. I thought, 'I can't take this any more', and dropped out." The kitchen, by contrast, felt vivid and physical. Kapranos lost his virginity on the staffroom floor. It was an important time in his life. "It was a strong period of rebellion. I'd had a safe middle-class upbringing and I wanted to kick against that a bit." He felt alive. He'd go up Glen Nevis and jump 40 feet from the top of a waterfall into a pool below then swim down the river. Another time, with one of the chefs, he broke into the restaurant after it had closed by climbing through the skylight.

They got drunk, spent the night banging the ceilidh band's drum- kit, set off the burglar alarm and fled back through the roof, a frozen chicken their only spoils.

Much later, he worked as a commis chef at Groucho St Jude's in Glasgow. He recalls 16-hour shifts, sustaining himself with cooking brandy (he still has a scar from slicing an onion while drunk) and listening to the Velvet Underground and Stooges. Bob Hardy, now the bassist in Franz Ferdinand, worked there too.

"A lot of the ideas for Franz Ferdinand were formed in the kitchen of Groucho St Jude's, " says Kapranos. "Bob and I would be talking about music as we listened to it saying what we liked about it and what we would do if we were in a band.