“Oh you’re in Melbourne? That’s a lovely place,” says the chipper Scottish voice on the end of the phone. “Yeah, it reminds me of living in Glasgow”.
Choosing to take that as a compliment – Glasgow is no New York, but it’s not Sierra Leone either – I launch into questions about the band’s latest EP, State Hospital. It’s a miniature album that, along with a fourth album planned for early 2013, signifies big changes for the band. For starters, what began as Scott’s bedroom solo project has expanded over the years to a five-piece band, the latest addition being guitarist/keyboardist Gordan Skene.
Next, the EP and as-yet-untitled new album were produced by Leo Abrahams, swapping out their regular dude Peter Katis. Where Katis is considered indie rock royalty (previous production credits include Interpol and The National), Abrahams may be a more obtuse, adventurous choice, with a timeline peppered with aural explorers like Brian Eno, David Byrne and Jon Hopkins.
“Everything had to change with this album, we felt that there had already been so many changes so we went further,” explains Scott. “We felt that, if we went back to Peter again –although I would love to work with him in the future – we would lose the new energy we had.
“When Leo came along, he was so passionate about the music, he seemed like the obvious choice.”
And finally, after years of solely holding the reins of the Frightened Rabbit wagon, Scott has welcomed songwriting contributions from each band member. This doesn’t always go down well in bands that were once tightly controlled – think Metallica’s Some Kind Of Monster or when Brian Wilson’s brain began to bubble – but Scott’s only seeing positives. Which is rare for a guy who started out writing gut-wrenching ballads about sceptic relationships and suicide.
“We have five heads instead of one,” Scott says proudly. “You can get so caught up in your own little world – the sleepless nights I had making the last record, I didn’t have any this time around.
“I’m really enjoying that the rest of the band is contributing to the songs, and those are my favourite parts of the songs. Whereas before I was a little bit anal about having control over the process, and I had to let go because I was repeating myself and getting bored. I don’t think I can go back to the old way now”.
The result is State Hospital, a clutch of songs that are too disparate to fit on the next album, but too good not to be heard – more objective facts. Or, as Scott puts it, they deserved to be “more than just a B-side”.
“They don’t really hint at what the next album will sound like, except for maybe State Hospital, the title track. The rest of them are sort of like the weird cousins. I don’t know what it says about the album. The EP served a few purposes, as a stopgap, to get back into people’s ears, but we just really didn’t want to forget about them.”
Frightened Rabbit’s 2006 debut Sing The Greys, like so many other debuts, was an odds and sods package, the result of various recording sessions and a flurry of songwriting before Scott had given much thought the direction of the band – and it was a barely a band at that stage anyway. Get the album out, see if there are any bites, and figure out the rest later. Second album The Midnight Organ Fight was largely the emotional outpourings of a bad breakup, or an amalgamation of many. Equal parts glum, bitter and melancholy, it was a catharsis of demons and darkness that was leagues away from the anthemic joy of follow up The Winter Of Mixed Drinks. At the time of touring The Midnight Organ Fight, Scott’s brother and Frightened Rabbit drummer Grant joked that if Scott wrote good songs when in a bad mood, then the band would be forced to occasionally insult him for the best results. Thankfully, this tactic no longer seems necessary, as the songs now dictate the mood rather than the other way around.
“The tone on the new EP and next album – I’ve been trying to spread my scope lyrically to other people’s lives more, it’s not about me anymore. The last album was semi-fictional with some truths included, but this time, I started to try and write about other things. It’s more like an author’s role in writing fiction. I could write about being heartbroken until the cows came home, but I wanted to challenge myself this time.”
BY MITCHELL ALEXANDER
