Interview: Frightened Rabbit
By Joe Goggins
“I think we had a bit of an identity crisis on the last record.” Scott Hutchison is referring to The Winter of Mixed Drinks, the third Frightened Rabbit album, which was a hit with the critics but seemed to fly under the radar commercially, failing to deliver on the promise of mainstream success that its predecessor, The Midnight Organ Fight, hinted at.
Plenty’s changed in the three years since; the Selkirk band have finally made the indie-to-major label crossover, making Atlantic Records their new home, and frontman Hutchison divulges that the switch allowed them to make a clean break as far as their approach to making music was concerned. “I don’t think we really knew what kind of album we wanted to make with Mixed Drinks, whereas with the new record we’ve achieved what we set out to do. There was a lot more collaboration in the writing process – we wanted to actually sound like a band this time round – and lyrically, I was keen to go back to the more personal stuff I was writing on the earlier records.”
This vision has brought the band their first top ten album with Pedestrian Verse, which charted at number nine in the week of release, and Hutchison is confident that the change in approach was key. “We’d actually never recorded live as a five-piece before; we’d usually start with the drums and sort of layer the songs upwards from there. It took longer and there’s obviously some overdubs, but the core of each song was recorded live and you can’t really get achieve that energy any other way.”
Pedestrian Verse also sees Hutchison return to the more personal lyrical style that served as his signature pre-Mixed Drinks. “I think I suddenly became aware of revealing too much; when you’re writing songs in your bedroom, you’re kind of in a vacuum because you’ve got no audience. Once you do find yourself with an audience, you’re thinking, “fuck, I’m not sure if I should be so revealing about myself, I don’t want to hurt certain people who might end up hearing this.”” That diversion, though, is something he felt ran contrary to what Frightened Rabbit represent: “I think you’re compromising yourself as a songwriter if you start censoring yourself in that way. It really watered down what the band is about. It might seem selfish, but lyrics are often the best way for me to make sense of what’s going on in my life.”
The passion and honesty that drive the band lyrically is reflected in the ardent response of their fanbase, with whom the songs clearly strike an emotional chord. “I don’t think I could ever be blasé about how into the songs the crowds seem to be,” says Hutchison. “Where a lot of the older songs are concerned, the original sentiment that inspired me to write them isn’t there anymore, and you realise that they’ve become more about the reaction from the vans; it’s like the band have become a vehicle for the crowd’s catharsis. In that respect, they’re not really my songs these days.”
Mixed Drinks seemed to meet with greater commercial success across the pond, certainly in terms of the live circuit, with a clear disparity between the sizes of the venues the band were selling out on either side of the Atlantic. “I think we’ve bridged that gap to some extent now, although I’m not entirely sure why things started moving quicker for us over there,” confesses Hutchison. “There’s definitely a great affection for Scottish music over there, especially on the east coast in places like Boston, where there’s a lot of Celtic heritage – I think that maybe allowed us a faster track than maybe an English band would have. A lot of my influences when I started writing songs were American, like Wilco and Ryan Adams, so maybe the audiences over there picked up on that, too.”
Even the nicest guys have breaking points, and for Hutchison, his came after a string of American journalists repeatedly compared Frightened Rabbit to Mumford and Sons. It’s an association so absurd that it borders on offensive – contrived, calculated and emotionally void, Mumford and Sons are an ‘indie-folk’ band as Simon Cowell would envisage one – and Hutchison, quoted by the NME as having said he ‘fucking hated’ the waistcoat-botherers, reveals he drew tired of discussing the link. “I’d been in a stream of interviews and in every single one, that band came up. I suppose I can hear it in places, but overall it’s not a very valid comparison. I’m trying not to talk about it now, in case I get in trouble,” he laughs. He also stood by his view that “it’s it’s a huge insult to someone who’s invested in the band to give them more of the same”, on the basis that “I think you owe it to an audience that’s followed you to at least make an effort to evolve on the next record.”
The evolution apparent on Pedestrian Verse is due in no small part to the band’s move to Atlantic. “People assume you have less creative freedom once you’re on a major, but if anything, moving to Atlantic has been liberating for us. Having a bit of money for once has allowed us to make a huge step forward creatively; we could afford to go away together for a few weeks and work on nothing but the record. Even things as simple as not having to worry about having a day job can be really freeing in that respect. A lot of things have changed since we signed, but none have been negative.”
A tour of obscure towns in the Scottish Highlands was used to sharpen the songs before Pedestrian Verse was recorded, with the trip documented in the form of Here: The Highlands Film. “A lot of bands I admired, like Idlewild and Biffy Clyro, had done that kind of tour, and spending so much time surrounded by beautiful scenery and playing to crowds that usually wouldn’t get to see us was obviously a positive experience all round,” recalls Hutchison. “I mean, I suppose we might not paint the most flattering picture of Scotland at times,” he laughs, “so it was nice to show people there’s another side to it, too.”
Pedestrian Verse is out now on Atlantic Records. Frightened Rabbit play Gorilla on February 22 – sold out.