Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos had no qualms recently about revealing a huge brawl between he and guitarist McCarthy when the band was at the peak of their success in 2004. In an interview with Spin, Kapranos told a hilarious story about a fight that took place in Paris before their concert, after the show and on through the night, until they were finally separated, only to be mortified by the sight of Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker looking on.
“I can’t remember what started it – something about a light switch,” Kapranos said. “This huge fight erupted and we ended up laying into each other in the dressing room. Then we were told, ‘You have to be onstage in five minutes.’ So we played the gig. It was a great gig! Then we went backstage and picked up the fight. Chairs were upturned and food was everywhere.”
Not even a string of amazing news for the breakthrough band could stop their battle over the light switch: “Then someone comes to the door and tells us that the guys from our label want to give us our gold discs,” Kapranos continued. “So we stopped the fight again and got the gold discs. And then our manager says, ‘Oh, we’ve just got this message from the queen. She wants you to come play a garden party at Buckingham Palace.’ And we’re like, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ But we go back inside and start the fight again and now there are gold discs flying all over the place. I remember being dragged out of the dressing room by five guys and Jarvis Cocker staring at us. It was totally embarrassing. I realized I’d been a complete idiot.”