MP3: Frightened Rabbit - 'The Modern Leper' ('The Midnight Organ Fight', FatCat)

I'm standing with Scott Hutchison, lead-singer of Scottish indie/folk band, Frightened Rabbit whose sophomore album 'The Midnight Organ Fight' (FatCat) has earnt them praise from critics all over and gained them lots of attention of late. They recently finished a successful tour of America and I managed to catch Scott in London outside a couple of sex shops in Soho at about 9pm. How apt...

How's everything going?
Yeah, everything's good. We're all right, we didn't get back that long ago from America. It was amazing, at the beginning of the tour things began to snowball for us and it built and built. Every night seemed to get better... Americans are much more receptive than you guys, for the most part.

"In Scotland, 'fuck' and 'cunt' are practically used as punctuation..."

Did any radical Christians get offended by the lyrics in 'Fast Blood'? [Sample lyrics: "Jesus is just a spanish boy's name/How can one man get so much fame?" & "Give me the cloth and I'll wipe my face"]
Ha, I'm sure they were offended but I've never got any hate mail for that song. I don't know if it's that explicit. It's more about life than about death or Christianity or anything. But no it wasn't a problem.

So have you ever been told to clean up your lyrics?
I've been told to... By a record company in the past.

I guess it would help with radio play but I think it adds character.
I've never actually considered them not being there because it's not actually that rude, in Scotland. 'Fuck' and 'cunt' are practically used as punctuation and if I were to change those then it wouldn't be very honest of me.

That's what I really like about your lyrics; the honesty. You don't paint yourself to be the perfect guy and you don't paint her to be "the bitch".
No way, no. If she was to write an album, then it'd probably sound pretty similar! I didn't want to go all 'woe is me', y'know?

Has being so open in your songs caused you any grief from current or ex-lovers?
No, no. We're on good terms so it's not been a problem. She was one of the first people to hear the record when it was done so, yeah, it's all good.

When did you first start singing?
I started singing when I was around nineteen, up to that point I was just a guitar player. I didn't know I could sing, I had been told I couldn't. It happens still but yeah it was a relatively short time.

What did you enjoy about guitar playing?
Well I never used a wide range of effects I really love the challenge of 22 frets, 6 strings and seeing what I could do with that. As opposed to stepping on a pedal to change the music, you know, there's such a wide range of sounds that you can get from a guitar and it's fun to get different ones every time you pick it up.
I guess that's a bit like the Fugazi school of thought - not using effects and playing in standard tuning to give yourself a challenge with how to create something interesting each time, within those rules.
Yeah, exactly, I use one different tuning - the drop D and instead of volume or anything I like that I try to open up the guitar, string by string, and doing things like that. It's more interesting to build things up gradually and layer it.

"I wanted people to put themselves into the lyrics instead of me just projecting my own thoughts."

I hadn't actually heard any of your songs until 'The Midnight Organ Fight' came out and I know you've been getting a lot of attention elsewhere since then, what was the major turning point for you since that record was released?
I guess SXSW raised the profile of the band and then the record came out and the sound of it was quite different from the first record; it was a lot more accessible, I think that was the major turning point. Following that, there were just more people interested in the band. Like, MySpace in the US had us as a featured band and then we noticed more reviews and stuff. It was never just one thing, it was many, apart from the album itself. I think things have progressed through word of mouth as well.

Yeah it seems, as opposed to over-hyped bands by the press, that attention has been gained 'organically', just through people getting excited about your music.
Yeah, it's been like that from the start. We've always said, we're not bothered how things go as long as we feel like we're moving forward. Although I'm sure it's very fun, we've never been interested in having instant attention, we'd rather have a slow rise and I think you're right, you build a foundation that way and the band are totally used to playing to five people and if we go back to that it'd be hard for us but we could do it.

I think with hyped bands as well, and it's not through any fault of their own, but people get sick of it through over-exposure. I still think with our band that people are still telling their friends about us and fans of ours become the first person in their social group to know of us and then they spread the word.

How did you feel when you finished the album?
Afterwards, well, a lot of work went into it. We spent really long days recording it and afterwards it took me a month to be able to listen to it or perhaps objectively, to distance myself from the context. But immediately...

Scott caught me glancing through a crack in the door of the sex shop we were standing in front of. I thought it was closed but apparently not.

... We're going to catch someone leaving y'know...

What was the stigma for the 'Set You Free' cover and video?
The cover is, well it's a song that I love. It was done with absolutely no tongue-in-cheek whatsoever. It's genuinely one of my favourite songs and it sort of reminds me, and I was hoping it'd be the same for a bunch of people, of a time in my life and it fits with how 'The Midnight Organ Fight' is about a girl and 'Set You Free' was released about the time I was getting into relationships so it was kind of about that for me.

I read that you went to art school and you did all the drawings for 'The Midnight Organ Fight' and the singles from it, did art school inform how you wanted to write music?
Yeah, in loads of ways. I was there for four years and I didn't particularly want to be an illustrator so I wanted to apply the rules that I learnt to everything I do, in terms of working in a bank or writing music. The importance of not making a particularly selfish piece of work, in terms of writing lyrics - I wanted people to put themselves into the lyrics instead of me just projecting my own thoughts and seeming a wee bit self-obsessed.

"I try to open up the guitar string by string"

So what was the major differences in recording this album to 'Sing The Greys'?
We were in a nicer studio this time round. We didn't really have that much longer either. We were a lot more prepared, the whole album was a lot more focussed with the writing. It felt like a collection of songs for an album and it pulled together. All the songs seemed to go with one another so I guess those were the main differences.

Are there any local bands you could recommend?
Well there's this band, We Were Promised Jetpacks who have just signed to FatCat and have an album coming out soon. Then there's a band called El Padre - I'm not sure what's going on with them but I love them. There's a lot of guitar music in Glasgow, and we're saturated with electro things, I think there's a little bit more romance involved in Glasgow music.

I know you're called 'Frightened Rabbit' because your mum used to call you that when you were younger and a bit socially awkward, but I was wondering, what are you most frightened of?
I just recently got over it but, for a short time on the tour I had a fear of swallowing. It was really weird, I don't know how it came about and it kind of went over night. I'd chew my food until it was like soup. It's gone now though.
When I was younger I'd swallow food and it'd kind of get stuck, or slowly go down my throat. I thought I was going to choke at a few points but that kind of went - I think it was because I was eating dry food.
Yeah, that was the main fear I guess, of choking.

And what's the most frightened you've ever been?
I'm terrified of heights and I was at the Vatican and went up a tall building. When we got to the top I was having cold sweats and could barely make myself look over the edge.