Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand - Tapa dura

In September 2005, Alex Kapranos began writing about what he ate while touring the world with the rock band Franz Ferdinand. The writing is as much about where he eats and the people he eats with as the unusual flavours he tastes on the road.

Whether it’s munching donuts with cops in Brooklyn, swallowing bull’s balls with the band in Buenos Aires or queuing for a saveloy in South Shields, these are surprising and vivid snapshots of life on the road.

Funny, poignant, sickening or sexual depending on the situation, the material, both new and previously published in the Guardian, is fascinating and entertaining.

Alex Kapranos is the singer and guitarist of Franz Ferdinand. Before the success of the band, he spent over a decade jumping between stints as a chef, wine waiter, kitchen porter, delivery driver, welder, promoter, college lecturer and doley layabout: anything to generate the cash that his bands didn’t.

Andrew Knowles is touring drummer and keyboards player with the band, and a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art