Franz: 'We stole Girls Aloud master tapes'

Franz Ferdinand have spoken out about their unsuccessful recording sessions with Xenomania.

The Scottish indie band began recording their third album with the pop production house in 2008, but ended up ditching the sessions later in the year.

When asked what they took away from their time with Brian Higgins's company, singer Alex Kapranos joked: "Some crockery, some silverware. All the Girls Aloud master tapes!"

Bassist Bob Hardy commented: "Xenomania had an amazing work ethic. After we spent a couple of days with them, we worked a little bit harder when we got back to Glasgow. Our other producer James Ford, his ethic was 'This will sound a lot better after a few more pints'."

Kapranos continued: "I enjoyed it. It was really interesting to see how they worked. It was an eye opener. We did three sets of sessions, some with Xenomania, some with James Ford and some with Erol Alkan. We took something from all off them because they had different working methods."

Meanwhile, when asked about their 2007 collaboration with Girls Aloud on the cover of David Bowie's 'Sound And Vision', drummer Paul Thompson revealed that he bonded with Cheryl Cole over the subject of body art.

"I had a chat with Cheryl Tweedy about tattoos," he said. "She was quite nice. She thought neck tattoos were really sexy and was suggesting that her husband get one."

He joked: "I don't think she was coming on to me!"