Look! Frightened Rabbit!
Words by: Gaia Gardiner
Photos: Kalise Valerie
Things that are Scottish: Braveheart, haggis, bagpipes and Frightened Rabbit. While in Australia for 2010 Laneway Festival, the bonnie bunnies chatted to our girl Gaia about the this and the that and everything in between.
SPOOK : Hey Frightened Rabbit, so where are you playing while you’re here?
Scott: Tonight we’re playing at the Metro, which is with Echo & The Bunnymen, and then after that we’re playing here.
Andy: Where are we playing?
SPOOK : I think there’s a room next door, yeah, we went in before and yeah you’ll notice it by the stench, just the smell of beer. Haha feels just like home.
Scott: Sticky floors?
SPOOK : Yeah.
Scott: Yep.
SPOOK : Bring it on, have you been listening to much Australian music while you’re out here?
Scott: I went to see a band called Dappled Cities, and they were great at Laneways. I’d never heard of them before. I think a lot of the time aswell it’s actually quite difficult for Australian bands to make their way over to the U.K., so it’s like, you kind of have to come out here to find all this good stuff. But I was really taken with them, they were good.
Andy: Bridezilla, are they Australian?
SPOOK : Bridezilla, yeah. These are all Laneway artists – I was there and I saw you guys, very impressed!
Scott: You have to say that.!
SPOOK : Haha, Basically. Most Australians don’t have any idea of what it’s like to play at a U.K. festival, how does it differ to something you play here? It must be the norm for you…
Scott: We’ve done a few festivals and stuff, but we haven’t played that many large festivals in the U.K. but the main bonus here is like, the consistency of the weather. The last time we came it was just pissing down. I think the last time we came was Woodford Folk Festival, and there was a thunder and lightning show! That was an experience. The crowed were soaked within ten minutes, and then the entire pyrotechnics of the stage was cut so we were in pitch black just with lightning going up.
SPOOK : Wow. So it was a bit of an acoustic set for a while?!
Scott: Not even! It was absolute silence. Everyone’s natural reaction was to just, scream as loud as they possibly could – I did not scream! It was intense, and then everything came back on and it was just…
SPOOK : You’ve mentioned before that you’re not really sure if you’ve finished gathering members?
Scott: Five’s good for now! I think five for now, we’re settled as we are. I think it’s just a case of with each record we seem to become, you know, slightly grander in the scale of the sound.
Andy: We just keep on putting more and more instruments…
Scott: And I can’t really take it further than this last time, I think we’re done.
SPOOK : You’ve spent a while honing your sound, what’s it like to develop that, and then come out into the public like you did, was it very gradual?
Scott: There was a gradual start I guess, it’s the same story with a lot of bands, you don’t really see the root of it, I suppose it’s like an iceberg – you know when you see the top? So yeah, we spent a long time getting there and then all of a sudden the record came out and things did move a lot faster for us, but, we have been, basically since I started doing Frightened Rabbit on my own, playing out solo, we’ve been adding one member per year – that’s probably about as gradual as you can get! Yeah, I mean it’s felt like a long time for us but, I realise it probably doesn’t look like a long time to get to the stage that we’re at now. It’s been a good, organic process, and I think that that sets you up kind of well for whatever is to come. You know, we’ve got a strong foundation, and yeah, we all like eachother…
Andy: Still, which is good…
SPOOK : So you’re getting into your third album now, for it to be released in March this year, so I mean how do you think you would do things differently? If you were to look back and say maybe with the first album, I could have done that differently – is there anything at all?
Andy: Don’t ask him that question!
SPOOK : Haha.
Scott: You can always say that…
SPOOK :Are you a perfectionist?
Scott: Well yeah, I mean but I think I’ve learned to let things that you’ve done in the past just to let them sit there, and be what they are. I mean I would lose sleep if I ever thought like that!
Andy: There’s definitely nothing on this record, where you’ve gone I wish I could change this, I wish I could change that.
Scott: No I mean I don’t have any thoughts like that. But with this one, I think the other thing that’s happened, gradually we’ve gotten more and more time to complete the record. So the more time you have, the more details you can have in the process.
SPOOK : And you’re at the point now we’re you can get things sort of, perfectly so…
Scott: I wouldn’t say perfect! But…
SPOOK : Well, as close as you can get!
Andy: Yeah, there’s a good time between recording an album and mixing it aswell, so if we could like, settle in that, and when it comes the time to mix it, we can be like ‘Oh, should we add this?’
Scott: Yeah. I think the process of sorting making records is that pursuit of that perfect thing that’s never going to happen,
SPOOK : So it’snattainable?
Scott: Yeah it is, that’s the kind of beauty of it, it kind of makes it exciting for next time. Maybe…I wonder what happens when you make the perfect album?! Maybe you get like, beamed up into a spaceship! So maybe, I don’t know!
SPOOK : How do you think Australian crowds have been taking to you, are you a bit surprised?
Andy: Yeah very surprised, you know there’s always someone from Myspace from Australia, and you’re like nobody’s ever heard of us out here! I remember the first time we came out here, and my brother’s friend found out about us here and he came back to Scotland and he was like “No way you’re in this band!”
SPOOK: How funny!
Andy: But yeah we seem to be…oh what was it? Oh nevermind…
Scott: It’s early Andy, come on…
Andy: I’m losing it, I’m losing it.
SPOOK: Haha. I read that your next album would be “less oppressive”?
Scott: Yeah, I think I meant in terms of the lyrical content, um was very full-on, and just naturally, you know, the way that maybe I’ve been feeling…over the past year or so. There’s definitely still some fairly full-on moments on the record, but a lot of it’s calmer and that’s a result of, you know, me being calmer. I think the last one had a lot of like grab-you-by-the-throat and going like, ‘Listen to me!’. And I think this one is sort of more at ease with itself. So I stand by that!
SPOOK: Your album ‘Midnight Organ Fight’, how has that been a progression, I mean I know it’s your last album, but I read somewhere it’s supposed to be more ‘pop’ sounding than your previous record?
Scott: That one, it was more polished anyway, production-wise, I think it was maybe a bit more…
Andy: It was definitely more ‘poppy’ than our last, I think in the structural elements.
Scott: Personally so, aswell. I think there was a lot that I didn’t like in the first record. Again, I did let it go. But it still means you never want to repeat your mistakes, because I like pop music and I like the way that it’s memorable and annoying in equal measure. I don’t mind it being a little annoying melody that gets stuck in your head, it’s good.
Andy: Yeah and it sort of breaks the flow of all this stuff that you’re normally getting.
Scott: Yeah, and it’s nice to pair that sound, that poppy upbeat sound, with what can be quite intense and often morbid lyrics. It’s nice, like, friction for me, that I love creating.
SPOOK: What do passionate Frightened Rabbit fans do to get your attention?
Scott: There are a few intense bodies! I don’t know some of the most intense ones are just the quiet, reflective type that just sit and back and they’re very happy to meet and chat with
Andy: They don’t really want to chat…
Andy: Someone once brought cakes along!
Scott: Yeah, bring a cake along as long as there’s no poison in it! Someone in Denmark once brought along a stuffed rabbit on a stick
Scott: Not like a taxidermy rabbit, just like a kid’s toy rabbit. When it gets to be a real rabbit, you’re like ok, too far…I don’t endorse that. But the real Frightened Rabbit fans are just awesome!
‘The Midnght Organ Fight’ is available now.
