Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos has called on the government to offer more support to budding musicians. Speaking as part of the Edinburgh Lectures programme, he said: "For any cultural output to thrive there needs to be some kind of state input to that as well. There are elements of our musical output which require sustenance because they aren't self-sufficient.
But so-called commercial music would benefit from investment as well."
However, while he urged politicians to give more support to music, he warned against musicians becoming too closely linked to members of the political community: "I think the role of musicians is to question politicians rather than to go to bed with them".
Kapranos was speaking as part of the University of Edinburgh's prestigious lecture series at a discussion on Scotland's role in making
21st Century music. On other topics he said that musicians should listen to as wide a range of music as possible and ignore the stereotypes that are associated with different artists: "Because
I listen to Nirvana and Korn I am a troubled individual, I'm riddled with angst because I listen to Chopin and Debussy, I listen to Kylie Minogue and Scissor Sisters because I'm upbeat and I like to party, I listen to Wagner because I like the smell of napalm in the morning."
On experiencing different kinds of music, Kapranos said more should be done regarding the general "hostility" towards classical music, adding: "There is very little done to break that hostility other than [UK classical radio station]
Classic FM."