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When you use a human skeleton as an instrument on your album, someone's going to hear about it.
During the recording of their third full-length disc, Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand bought a few human skeletons from a clearance auction to add character to their recording space.
At first, it was all for decoration, until they eventually needed a dry percussion element on one of the tracks, and the box of old human bones sounded just right.
The thing is, even though the stunt garnered attention, you probably won't notice it.
"It's only there, on the record, for like a second," says bassist Bob Hardy, sitting on a couch in a swank hotel room. He glances at guitarist Nick McCarthy -- both musicians are sipping hot beverages and feeling a bit under the weather -- who elaborates on the fascination with the skeletons.
"People just like that," McCarthy says.
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"The morbid facts, I guess. But in the end, we used just a little bit on No You Girls Never Know. Going into the chorus, there's a little rattle in the background, and that's it."
The album, called Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, hits North American stores today.
The band, which also includes frontman Alex Kapranos and drummer Paul Thomson, first found fame with their hip-shaking hit Take Me Out five years ago.
After the success of their 2004 self-titled debut -- which has since gone on to sell more than 3.6 million copies worldwide -- the group quickly released 2005's harder-edged effort, You Could Have It So Much Better.
But after a lengthy tour for their second album, they needed to take a breather.
"We were just really tired, after three or four years of non-stopness," says McCarthy, who mentions that the band members took a four-month break -- when they dedicated time to family, travelling and other creative pursuits -- before starting work on the new disc.
"We just wanted to take our time with this one, and lead a normal life to write about."
To create the 12-track album, the group worked with London, England-based producer Dan Carey, whose credits include Hot Chip, CSS and Lily Allen.
During the songwriting process, where the band tinkered with tunes in a crumbling Victorian town hall, they discovered two things about their new songs.
First of all -- and probably because the blocked windows shut out any glimpses of daylight -- every song was about the night.
And secondly, every song was danceable.
"We wanted to bring the rhythm section to the front," McCarthy says with a grin. "We felt like that's what we do best."
"I just want it to be a go-to party album," adds Hardy, "a failsafe if you're at a house party and you want to pick the mood up."
The quartet is currently gearing up for a late-winter tour that includes stops in Asia and Europe. And while fans might obsess over rumours of skeletal percussion, McCarthy mentions another otherworldly event -- it's all about the morbid facts, right? - that occurred during the recording process.
For the song What She Came For, the entire band stood in a cellar and roared into one microphone, trying to create a dramatic feel for the song's finale.
"And when it got really intense," he says, "the lights started flashing on and off. That was just really bizarre, and I don't know how it happened. It must have been the ghosts. I'm sure it was the ghosts."