In 2015 the aptly named supergroup FFS, formed by Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, issued its debut album after more than a decade of intermittent planning. Mutual admiration between the two acts first surfaced in 2004, not long after Franz Ferdinand unveiled its self-titled debut; Sparks’ Ron Mael offered the Scottish quartet the track “Piss Off” as potential shared material. Scheduling conflicts kept the idea dormant until 2013, when both bands found themselves in California and Ron and Russell Mael crossed paths with Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos while he headed to a dental appointment to mend a broken tooth. That unplanned encounter revived the stalled project, prompting the musicians to exchange new songs for eighteen months before finally tracking them together during a concentrated two-week session. The singles “Johnny Delusional,” “Piss Off,” “Collaborations Don’t Work,” and “Call Girl” arrived ahead of the self-titled FFS album, which appeared in 2015.
