How the Domino effect won over Franz Ferdinand

Published on Thursday 9 September 2004 01:56

FOR every pop and rock combo belting out their tracks on stage, there is a Svengali, standing in the wings, waiting to discover the next big thing.

For the Beatles, it was Brian Epstein. For Oasis, it was Alan McGee, who had gone to see another band at King Tut’s in Glasgow but was forced to listen to the Gallagher brothers after the Mancunians threatened to smash up the pub.

For Scotland’s latest pop success, the Mercury Prize winners Franz Ferdinand, the road to art-rock superstardom was partly conceived by Laurence Bell, the owner and founder of the fiercely independent Domino Records label - and a man certainly not cut from Simon Cowell’s commercial cloth.

Working with his "small but merry troupe" of 15 staff in Domino’s offices at Wandsworth, in south London, Bell craves artistic rather than commercial success.

It was with that ambition that he went to the Glasgow School of Art after first seeing Franz Ferdinand play a small gig in a London arts cafe.

"There was a feeling that just totally came off Franz," Bell told The Scotsman yesterday, using his shorthand term for the band. "What struck me about them was that the guitarist was wearing a cape, the drummer was wearing a 1930s’ sailor’s outfit and they were very striking.

"The first five rows were full of girls jigging around and everybody looked interesting."

He went on: "They were very hip people, but they had no pretension whatsoever and weren’t afraid to have fun. The look in their eye - that glint - made you just want to join in."

Now, it seems, the whole world is joining in.

After winning the 20,000 prize - which will go to help aspiring Glasgow bands - and more than a few post-party drinks, the four-piece group woke bleary-eyed before boarding a plane for a three-week tour of the United States.

The rock ’n’ roll lifestyle is most definitely alive for the former students who formed less than three years ago from a heady mix of stolen vodka, police raids, life-modelling at Glasgow School of Art and a gallery-cum-gig space dubbed "the Chateau". The band’s playroom was, in reality, a dilapidated building a stone’s throw from the derelicts which line the unreconstructed Gorbals.

While Franz Ferdinand may have straddled the rock stratosphere with unfathomable haste - their eponymous debut was released only on 9 February this year - their reputation was cemented by their desire to "make girls dance" at venues across Glasgow.

So why, when big labels such as Sony or EMI may have had more clout than Domino, did Alex Kapranos, Robert Hardy, Paul Thomson and Nicolas McCarthy decide to plump for Bell? The band had gone to London - or the Capithole as they describe it on their official website - and did not get on with many producers but found in Bell one of the "mavericks who have changed the world with their work".

For Bell, 38, simple belief in an honest sound produced by unique artists was enough. "I guess sometimes you just click," he said. "We talked and found we had common interests and reference points.

"We are quite passionate as a company and they respected that we also had an ambition for the band that they shared, too, and we decided to go for it together.

"Domino’s always had a great bond with Glasgow and it’s the primary musical city in Britain, as far as I’m concerned."

However, after the success of the Mercury Prize and the prospect of global success, life may change for Bell, just as it has for Franz Ferdinand.

It is all a far cry from Bell’s childhood when he wrote a post-punk fanzine from his bedroom in Ipswich.

Award ceremonies, stadium gigs and US tours belie his formative years, working in record shops, joining numerous bands and shifting as a roadie "just to be close to music".

Domino recently celebrated a decade in the business, but will its latest success claim its reputation of developing talent for musical and critical, if not commercial, success?

"I think it’ll mean more fun," Bell said, admitting he was suffering from a "wee hangover".

"It doesn’t mean we’ll change. We’re not richer - it just makes you think that anything is possible. We always believed we were happy doing what we were doing, and we will continue that way."