Alex Kapranos

Alex Kapranos is the lead singer and the guitarist of the Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand. His middle name, Paul, comes from Paul McCartney, on whom his mother had a crush on at the time of Alex’s birth. Alex was born in Gloucestershire, but moved to Glasgow in 1984, attending Bearsden Academy, then studying at Strathclyde University.

Before finding fame with Franz Ferdinand, Alex played in some of the most popular bands on the Glasgow scene, including The Karelia, The Amphetameanies and The Yummy Fur.

Franz Ferdinand, comprising of Alex, Nick McCarthy (guitar, keyboard, backup vocals), Paul Thomson (drums, backup vocals, sometimes guitar) and Bob Hardy (bass), saw chart success after their second single Take Me Out reached Number 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 2004. The band went on to win the 2004 Mercury Music Prize and two BRIT Awards in 2005 for Best British Group and Best British Rock Act, as well as awards from NME, Q, and the Ivor Novello Award in 2004. They have also received several Grammy nominations.

Outside of Franz Ferdinand, Alex has written a weekly column for The Guardian, which detailed his eating habits whilst on tour with Franz Ferdinand. The articles were later compiled and published as a book entitled Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand. He later read it on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week programme. He also acts as producer for indie rock group the Cribs, and narrated a BBC Scotland documentary on the recovery of Orange Juice singer Edwyn Collins.

We [Franz Ferdinand] definitely see ourselves as a Glasgow band above anything else, ... one of the great and inspiring things about Glasgow is you have all these characters who did things and they did them their own way.