We recently spoke to the two guitarists about devising great parts, recording Right Thoughts, their meticulous miking techniques, and their fondness for offbeat gear from Harmony, Silvertone, Hagstrom, Hoyer, Selmer, and Traynor. In fact, he started playing guitar the year before Ferdinand made it big. McCarthy’s guitar work is informed by his training as a classical pianist and double bassist, while Kapranos playing is refreshingly naïve. Both players have fresh perspectives on the art of guitar, though they stem from very different backgrounds. If kneejerk dismissiveness hurts anyone, it’s players who could learn a thing or two from Kapranos and McCarthy about composition, mood, and sparseness. McCarthy is a bit more lighthearted about it, recounting how, while the band was tracking their latest album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, he tried to master a fast picking technique. “I tend not to write parts to show off my skill or new techniques,” Kapranos says. The two Scots are completely out of the guitar-ego loop. Such attitudes don’t hurt the feelings of Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy, Franz Ferdinand’s guitarists, one bit. When a new band strikes it as big as Franz Ferdinand did in 2003 with their danceable post-punk radio hit “Take Me Out,” hardcore guitarists can be dismissive, ignoring subtleties like the intro’s deceptively simple tempo changes, or how brilliantly the lean, snarling dual guitar parts shift and slither within the relentless tide of the band’s lockstep rhythm section.
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