FRANZ FERDINAND TURN DOWN $50 MILLION

Last updated: Wednesday, May 3, 2006

FRANZ FERDINAND TURN DOWN $50 MILLION

British rockers FRANZ FERDINAND have refused to take part in a colossal $50 million (GBP30 million) advertising campaign, insisting they'll never compromise their artistic integrity.

The WALK AWAY hitmakers admit they were hugely tempted by the lucrative offer, but hated the idea of losing their independence and working closely with the unnamed conglomerate.

Frontman ALEX KAPRANOS insists while the band want their music to reach the widest audience possible, it must be on their terms.

He says, "They wanted to do this huge thing that was going to have $50 million spent on it. It would have meant we sold four times as many copies of the album, just from the extra exposure it would have got. But the advert meant we had to completely surrender all of our identity and integrity to this product that was being advertised.

"It wasn't Coca-Cola or anything like that. It was just a thing that needed some music associated with it. We just had to say no because of the gut reaction. It wasn't because we didn't want to sell more records. It was just because it didn't feel right.

"We'd have been completely surrendering if we had done that. We'd be lost. You can just tell with stuff like that - you can tell when you're doing something bad. We probably hacked off quite a few people by not doing it. But as ourselves we felt a lot better about it."

| Wednesday, May 3, 2006

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