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Annie interview: Girls Aloud, Alex Kapranos, Brian Higgins
Posted at 1:11 PM, 16 August 2009 - 0 Comments

Norwegian pop princess Annie was recently interviewed by Wears The Trousers magazine. Here's a few Xenomania-related bits:

Working with Xenomania:
«That was actually related to working with Saint Etienne, because they worked with Xenomania before. Saint Etienne are amazing. I think they must be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Really really sweet. We did this one song and Bob [Stanley] said it would be great to get another producer on it and they suggested Brian [Higgins, Xenomania founder]. He really loved ‘Heartbeat’. He thought it was a great song and said he’d always been looking for the songwriter, and he didn’t realise I had written it myself. He was really excited and almost offered me a record deal the day after. I think he’s doing some really great stuff. I mean, he’s making music all the time and he’s really creative and has a lot of good ideas. Serious and ambitious. It gave me an extra punch to work really hard and that was exactly what I needed.»

The Girls Aloud collaboration:
«When I was doing ‘My Love Is Better’ they were recording ‘I Can’t Speak French’ so they were around all the time. Brian just asked them if they wanted to sing backing vocals on my song and they were really up for it – they had heard ‘Chewing Gum’ before – so, yeah, it was really really fun. But then of course their record company said no and they ended up not singing on the song after all. I thought it was a little bit stupid but what can you say? It wasn’t my choice. They were really nice, very sweet.»

Working with Alex Kapranos (who plays guitar on "My Love Is Better" and "Loco"):
«I don’t know him really well but I met him for the first time in Japan. We were both playing in Australia and then we went to Japan and hung out there. We went to this party that was quite mad! I was a little bit drunk, it was quite embarrassing. I was making this song, ‘I Can’t Let Go’ – I used to call it ‘Misery’ – at the time, and I was inspired by Alan Vega – jukebox, sort of rockabilly – and I always thought that Alex’s voice would really suit it. So I sent him the song but it didn’t happen. He decided he didn’t want to do it after all. But when I was working in Kent with Xenomania, he played ‘My Love Is Better’ and ‘Loco’ to Alex and he really wanted to play on those, so he did.»

"Heaven & Hell":
«Richard X was saying it was the most not-sounding-like-Annie song, like what I used to do before, so I guess it’s something quite different. But I really like the song. It’s sort of tear-dripping and dramatic and I really enjoy songs that are very life-and-death and very dramatic.»

The album's "power ballad", "When The Night":
Who was my role model for that? Everyone! Shit, I have to think about that. [Maria McKee's] ‘Show Me Heaven’ is quite amazing. It doesn’t sound like that at all but I wanted to make a song that was quite simple, but really sort of about pain and longing for something in a way. I might do more power ballads. Maybe a Las Vegas residency! I would love to go to Vegas. I’m not now saying that my next album will be all power ballads. I’m not becoming Céline Dion! Not yet. I think it’s probably wise. There’s only room for one.

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Sarah Cracknell: "We've never had any trouble with Xenomania"
Posted at 10:32 PM, 20 February 2009 - 0 Comments

Sarah Cracknell (from Saint Etienne) told Planet Sound that she's "surprised" that Franz Ferdinand were unable to work with Xenomania:

«We've never had any trouble with Xenomania. Maybe Franz weren't willing to let themselves go enough. I can't speak for them, but I'm surprised it couldn't have worked out.»

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Franz Ferdinand: "Working with Xenomania was just so wrong that we thought it may be right"
Posted at 5:53 PM, 01 February 2009 - 0 Comments

Franz Ferdinand have been speaking a lot in interviews about their unsuccessful recording sessions with Xenomania. The band began recording their third album with the pop production house in 2008, but ended up ditching the sessions later in the year. Their latest album, Tonight, was recently released.

They have been constantly asked in interviews about the reason why things didn't work out, and what they have learned from the experience. Long story short, it didn't work out with Xenomania because of some irreconcilable methods (they even had a "huge barney" in front of Brian Higgins over a drum beat...). They say that Brian Higgins' process of working with his team of ten or so people was too messy - they have specific staff in their organisation working on areas like lyrics, melodies or beats and Franz Ferdinand operate the same way, so the band felt it was "a case of too many cooks".

Franz Ferdinand also felt "amazed" by some people's reaction to their collaboration: «I think it says a lot about the prejudices a lot of people have, everyone from other musicians to fans and journalists, about bands like us and people like Xenomania. And the idea that those worlds could never come together.»


Here are few interesting excerpts from interviews:

--- «We spent a couple of weeks with Brian and went down to their studio in Kent. We had a great time there and they are very inspiring, lovely people but it had very little impact on the record in the long run. It just wasn’t right for us. What worked on paper didn’t work when we got there. They make music in a different way to us. They’re used to writing their own songs and we’re used to writing our own. We don’t need them to write songs for us. But I do love them and they are a lot more innovative than many other contemporaries.”

--- When asked what they took away from their time with Brian Higgins's company, singer Alex Kapranos joked: "Some crockery, some silverware. All the Girls Aloud master tapes!"
Bassist Bob Hardy commented: "Xenomania had an amazing work ethic. After we spent a couple of days with them, we worked a little bit harder when we got back to Glasgow."
Kapranos continued: "I enjoyed it. It was really interesting to see how they worked. It was an eye opener."

--- Alex Kapranos: «I was always kind of interested to see how Xenomania worked. Their idea of writing in a modular way – sometimes you sketch down ideas, record melodies or improvise as we sit around on the session. It’s not a conventional style they use, but if there’s a way of saying the way they write …
«They have a target and know what they’re writing for whereas we write and that’s the adventure. The surprise is the reward.»
«Certain rules went down that weren’t liked. Nick and I had a huge barney in front of Brian Higgins over the whole high-hat scoop drum beat [the signature beat that held down much of their debut] as daft as it sounds…»

--- «Working with Xenomania was just so wrong that we thought it may be right. Brian Higgins is a guy who's used to working with manufactured pop groups, and the process of working with his team of ten or so people was just too messy. They have specific staff in their organisation working on areas like lyrics and we operate the same way with our Franz Ferdinand organisation. The result was a case of too many cooks. I'm not disappointed because I think it worked out best for everyone in the end.»

--- «The way Xenomania work is that there is a group of them and one of them will do the melodies and one will do the lyrics and then someone on beats and keyboards so it’s very similar to how we work. In a way they’re a band on their own and we didn’t need their expertise as we have our own.»

--- «I love their unconventional attitude to pop music. The structures and sounds of their songs are really radical. But they're a set of writers, even more than producers, and we're a set of writers as well and we didn't want anybody else writing songs for us. It was almost like asking another band to produce your record and write for you. It didn't seem to ring true. But it was a good experience. I came away feeling very positive from it.»

--- «I was really amazed by the way people reacted to that. I think it says a lot about the prejudices a lot of people have, everyone from other musicians to fans and journalists, about bands like us and people like Xenomania. And the idea that those worlds could never come together.
«But I loved the ideas that those guys had and they've made some very interesting records. Their songs are unpredictable, they are novel, they are original yet they still have an extremely strong sense of melody and that's everything I wanted Franz Ferdinand to be.»
«(...) they are so used to writing everything and maybe we couldn't get our heads around that or it would have taken a really long time to work out the record. We got on well, we had a really, really good time but it wasn't going to be right.»

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"Xenomania is a total cottage industry"
Posted at 8:57 AM, 02 October 2008 - 1 Comments

Paul Thompson from Franz Ferdinand speaks to Q magazine about Xenomania's work method and parting ways with them:

«Brian's working methods were quite enlightening. He has a team in the kitchen listening to Radio 1 all day, monitoring what's being played. And he has somebody watching fashion TV all day making notes on what kind of beats they're using. It's a total cottage industry and it's perfect if you're Girls Aloud - five girls who won a TV talent show - but not if you're us.

When we came out of Xenomania it made me reassess the proclamations I'd made about the fact that we're a pop group. I realised we don't operate in the way that most pop groups work. We don't have songs written for us in the way that modern pop groups do. I suddenly though, Fucking hell! We're not a pop group! What the fuck are we then?»

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The latest: Franz Ferdinand, Xenomania casting
Posted at 1:41 PM, 24 July 2008 - 0 Comments

--- Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos speaks to BBC 6 Music about Brian Higgins: “Brian’s a really great guy and the stuff that they do down at Xenomania is unique and there’s nobody else really doing stuff like that, but they have a completely different way of working from us. (...) While it was fun to hang out together, it didn’t really work. I still get the odd email from Brian and they’re doing interesting things, but not with us.”

--- Xenomania casting: Xenomania Records are looking for a 16-21-year-old blond female singer to join a new girl band.

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Annie: "Brian Higgins is a good-looking man"
Posted at 8:29 PM, 14 July 2008 - 0 Comments

Annie's new single is out today. "I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me" is available on CD-S, 7'' vinyl and as a download. On the 7'' vinyl you'll find on the flipside a brand new Xenomania production named "Danny, Danny" (which you may also buy digitally on iTunes or 7digital).

Now, for a quick round-up of Xenomania-related things that Annie has been talking about in interviews:




- On Brian Higgins/Girls Aloud:

Metro: You worked with Girls Aloud’s producer Brian Higgins on your album. Did you fight over songs?
Annie: No, we didn’t do that. Brian’s a brilliant producer. I wrote maybe 300 songs with him. Girls Aloud were recording Can’t Speak French and I was in the other studio doing My Love Is Better. They ended up doing backing vocals for me. We had fun.

Metro: Who’s your favourite member of Girls Aloud?
Annie: Sarah and Nicola are both really nice. I heard Sarah likes going out a lot but I didn’t have time for that.

- On Brian Higgins/Alex Kapranos:

“I was working with Brian Higgins [Girls Aloud producer] when he started to work with Franz Ferdinand,” she says. “I wrote two songs, My Love Is Better and Loco, and Alex thought they were great. So he came in and played guitar.”

- On Brian Higgins:

PinkPaper: Now, you’ve worked with Brian Higgins from Xenomania/Girls Aloud fame on this album. We’ve heard he’s quite hot. Discuss.
Annie: I think he’s a good-looking man, definitely.

PinkPaper: But straight.
Annie: He is, and he also has a very beautiful girlfriend.

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New Annie interview
Posted at 10:20 PM, 04 June 2008 - 0 Comments

In a recent interview for Ponystep, Annie talks about her new album Don't Stop and particularly about the Xenomania-produced "My Love Is Better". Girls Aloud's collaboration is still uncertain.

For Don't Stop Annie started by teaming up with the Finnish producer Timo Kaukolampi, with whom she had worked on her previous record Anniemal. "We worked on four songs and then I met up with Brian Higgins who ended up producing six songs on the record - more than we expected!".

One of those songs is "My Love Is Better", where Girls Aloud sing backing vocals. Recently it was rumoured that their vocals would be removed because Brian Higgins didn't ask for permission to use them. "[Girls Aloud] were in same studio at the time, working on their own tracks - it was literally a case of asking them if they were up for it and they were. But it still hasn’t been cleared with their management so it may be they won’t feature on the finished mix. We had a lot of fun though...".

"My Love Is Better", as well as "Loco", also feature guitar work from Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos: "He’s amazing. (...) I met him a couple of times before, I think he’s such a great musician. I was so pleased when he came up with some ideas for the project."

Don't Stop is due for release in September.

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Franz Ferdinand scrap collaboration with Brian Higgins
Posted at 9:42 PM, 25 May 2008 - 0 Comments

Brian Higgins won't be producing Franz Ferdinand's new album. The band has announced that they have parted ways with the producer and will now recruit Dan Carey (who's worked with artists such as Kylie, Sia, Lily Allen and Róisín Murphy).

"We spent a week or so with Brian and it was wonderfully stimulating. He's a real maverick. It was inspiring but it didn't work out completely in the end.", Alex Kapranos said. "We learned a little bit from his methods. We wrote with him for a while and initially we thought we'd work more with him but it didn't really work out. We just realised that we're not really a pop group. We're just a band that happens to cross over into the whole pop sphere.", Paul Thomson revealed.

Last year Xenomania produced Franz Ferdinand's cover version of David Bowie's "Sound and Vision" for a Radio 1 40th anniversary album (Radio 1: Established 1967) with Girls Aloud doing backing vocals.

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