Franz Ferdinand have spoken for the first time about their aborted sessions with Girls Aloud and Sugababes producer Brian Higgins.

The band hired Higgins, who forms master pop production enterprise Xenomania, in bid to change their sound from their two previous albums.

However, Franz guitarist Nick McCarthy explained to Drowned in Sound, that the transition to pop was too difficult, with the band halting work with Higgins and opting for Dan Carey to continue work on their forthcoming third album Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, released January 26th.

"It never really took off to be honest - we only went down there and recorded one song in the end," he said. "We thought it'd be great to collaborate with a total 'pop' producer but we realised pretty quickly that it's not our world; we're not really a 'pop' band. But we took some great things away from it, I really enjoyed working with Brian [Higgins], he's an amazing guy."

He continued that the result of their third album has ended up totally different from what it would have been had Higgins continued.

McCarthy explained of the Carey sessions: "That process was quite intense, but also quite playful; we had a lot of time to experiment, whereas it would have been a very strict time schedule [with Xenomania]."

Concluding: "I don't really give a shit [if the new tracks sound good in arenas], it should just be good music, not written especially for big places. I think that's a terrible idea."

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