Franz Ferdinand are a Scottish rock band, from Glasgow. Formed in 2001 and named after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the band consists of Alex Kapranos on lead vocals and guitar, Bob Hardy on bass guitar, Nick McCarthy on rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals, and Paul Thomson on drums, percussion, and backing vocals.

The band's debut self-titled album (released in 2004) debuted on the UK album charts at number three and won the 2004 Mercury Music Prize before their second album, You Could Have It So Much Better, charted at number 1.

So far, the band has released eight singles, a double single and two video-clip-only singles, of which "Take Me Out", "The Dark of the Matinée", "This Fire" (on the download chart) and "Do You Want To" were top 10 hits in the UK.

Franz Ferdinand have been quoted as saying they wanted to make "music that girls can dance to." This was combined with their art school background on their self-titled debut released in early 2004.

It debuted at number 3 in the UK Albums Chart in February 2004 and at number 12 in the Australian album charts in April 2004.

The Franz Ferdinand album received a generally strong positive response from critics. The New Musical Express said that the band was the latest in the line of art school rock bands featuring Duran Duran, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Roxy Music, the Sex Pistols, Wire, Travis and Blur.

The band spent much of 2005 in the studio in Scotland working on their follow-up album, You Could Have It So Much Better, which was released on 3 October 2005.

www.franzferdinand.co.uk