Bob Hardy
Bassist with chart topping rock band Franz Ferdinand, Bob Hardy, completed the Foundation in Art & Design at Bradford College in 1999.
Bob showed artistic rather than musical talent during his year at
Bradford College. Lecturer Andy Griffiths recalls “He did quite a lot
of printmaking with us. He had a wry, satirical sense of humour
and was a jolly, sociable student but he was quite perceptive in
his work. He was a talented artist but I was not surprised about
him being in a band as art colleges have always been breeding
grounds for bands. Obviously the extent of their success has been
a big surprise.”
Bob had no musical ambitions until he enrolled at Glasgow
School of Art and made friends in the city. He first picked up a
bass guitar in Alex Kapranos’ kitchen that had been donated by
Mick Cooke from Belle and Sebastian.
Thus they became Franz Ferdinand, Glasgow’s art-damaged rock
quartet featuring Bob on bass, guitarist Nick McCarthy, drummer
Paul Thomson, and singer/guitarist Alex Kapranos. In late 2001,
Kapranos and Hardy had begun working on music together when
they met McCarthy, a classically trained pianist and double bass
player who originally played drums for the group despite no
prior experience as a drummer. The trio had been rehearsing at
McCarthy’s house for a while when they met and started playing
with Thomson, a former drummer for the Yummy Fur who felt
like playing guitar instead. Eventually, McCarthy and Thomson
switched to guitar and drums, and the band switched practice
spaces, stumbling upon an abandoned warehouse that they
named the Chateau.
The Chateau became Franz Ferdinand’s headquarters, where they
rehearsed and held rave-like events incorporating music and art
(as well as Bob’s attendance at Glasgow School of Art, Thomson
had also posed as a life model there). The band members needed
a new rehearsal space once their illicit art parties were discovered
by the police, and they found one in a Victorian courthouse and
jail. By summer 2002, they recorded an EP’s worth of material
that they intended to release themselves, but word of mouth
about the band spread and Franz Ferdinand signed to Domino in
the summer of 2003, just after Bob graduated with his BA (Hons)
Painting degree.
The group’s EP Darts of Pleasure, which led some to label Franz
Ferdinand ‘the Scottish Interpol’ was released that autumn. Their
second single, Take Me Out, arrived in early 2004 and propelled
them to greater popularity in the UK, laying the groundwork
for the band’s debut album. Franz Ferdinand was released in
February 2004 in the UK and a month later stateside. Success
followed them across the pond. Take Me Out became a sizeable
modern rock hit, in part thanks to the song’s cutting-edge video,
which earned the Breakthrough Video award at that year’s MTV
Music Video Awards. They went on to win an Ivor Novello Award
in 2004.
In 2005 Franz Ferdinand won 2 BRIT Awards and performed
at the Grammy Awards. They released their second album, You
Could Have It So Much Better in autumn 2005, when it entered
the UK Album Charts at Number one.
The band has recently been holed up in the studio recording their
3rd album, to be released this autumn, and is currently on tour.
Photograph supplied by Supervision Management