Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos has angrily attacked the Israeli Defense Forces for using the band’s hit ‘Take Me Out’ in a new propaganda video.
On Saturday (March 7), the frontman posted on his Instagram Stories to share the band’s reaction to the 2004 track being used in an IDF video earlier that day.
In the video, the song plays over footage of fighter planes and ground explosions, while an Israeli soldier extols their recent deadly airstrikes in Iran. The IDF have labelled the post: “Operation Roaring Lion – this is how it’s done.”
In response, Kapranos wrote: “These warmongering murderers are using our music without our consent. This makes us both nauseous and furious. Kind of typical though, isn’t it? To strut up and take what isn’t theirs with a vile arrogance…”
On February 28, Israel and the US launched joint airstrikes across Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and targeting hundreds of other military and leadership sites. The strikes have provoked retaliatory attacks, with the situation now threatening to escalate into a wider regional war. Israel labelled the initial attacks Operation Roaring Lion, with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing it as a campaign to “put an end to the threat from the Ayatollah regime in Iran”.
Franz Ferdinand are no strangers to letting their political views be known – in 2016, they released the song ‘Demagogue’ ahead of Trump’s first presidential election victory, with lyrics including: “Those pussy-grabbing fingers won’t let go of me now”. Kapranos later described Trump’s victory in that election as a “nightmare”.
The band are currently in the middle of a UK and European tour, in support of their seventh album ‘The Human Fear’, which was released last year. The UK shows continue this week, including a date at London’s Brixton Academy on Wednesday (March 11) – see all of the dates and ticket information here.
NME gave ‘The Human Fear’ a four-star review, writing: “It’s a love letter to the idea of this band. Still shamelessly livin’ it up, with an eyebrow cocked and high kicks galore, ‘The Human Fear’ is – as promised – Franz-y as fuck. You do you, hun; you do it so well.”
Around the time of its release, Kapranos spoke to NME about the newfound wave of attention and praise the band were getting. “Of course things go in and out of fashion, don’t they? At the moment there seems to be a hunger for a good band that can play; that have a rawness and complexity to them,” he said. “It’s the human energy that you only get from a set of people standing on stage and exchanging that between them.”
“A lot of great stuff has happened in pop over the last 10 or 15 years or so, but it’s getting a bit stale. People are feeling that. I feel there’s a genuine desire for the rawness and the depth you can only get from a band.”
