Frightened Rabbit

If your knowledge of Frightened Rabbit is slight, we'll let you off. They certainly don't make it easy. The band's website consists largely of photographs showing three huddled figures lying around Kelvingrove Park, faces away from the camera, and the band's MySpace offers little more, only that their abstract influences include pens and Hawick. Of course, The Skinny's a right nosey bugger, so we tracked the band down for a blether in an effort to find out what makes them tick, besides inky stationary and quiet Borders towns.

Once singer Scott's solo project wound down ("He played shows supporting Shitdisco in front of five, sometimes six people," says Grant), he soon recruited his brother Grant on drums (NB - no surname is given, perhaps for Madonna-esque iconic status) and they continued to play Glasgow's pub circuit with their lo-fi, often profane noodlings: one early live favourite memorably consisted largely of the words 'get my hole'.

Now, it's a very different story. The band is packing venues across Glasgow, landing high profile support slots, and they also jetted across the Atlantic to play South By Southwest earlier this year. The addition of guitarist Billy (again, sans surname) saw their sound flesh out as all three members took on multi-instrumentalist roles. While some songs follow a more traditional drums and two guitars set up, don't be surprised to hear keyboards and accordions popping up. This has allowed their earlier template to grow into something broader, textured and much more melodic. Like label mates and indeed future tour buddies The Twilight Sad, their hard-edged indie is shot through with that unmistakable sense of Scottish melancholy, and recently released album Sing The Greys has caused positive stirrings among critics.

"We're clearly miserable," offers Grant, slightly bemused by the band's upward trajectory. "And I think that comes through in our music. There's a lot of folk influence in there."

Folk, eh? That's the Scottish market and the Americans-who-once-knew-someone-who-might-have-sat-next-to-someone-from-Scotland demographic covered then. Are they about to emulate the Twilight Sad's disappearance over to the States, and become massive overnight with the Pitchfork crowd?

"We're off to the States mid-October for a tour with Pinback, and a few headline shows. The highlight of our career so far was the Bolognese me and Billy made in Connecticut," Grant enthuses.

It seems there's little danger of them emigrating completely, though: "The worst gig we ever played was our first night in New York in January" he shudders, "We were off the plane and straight to the venue, at 5am our time, and we were playing the same night as The Golden Globes were happening: Americans love that shit and not ours!"

Still, with a re-mastered version of their debut album poised for imminent release, and further dates on home turf in the pipeline, it looks like the rest of 2007 will be busy for Frightened Rabbit. Surely they're planning to finish it in style?

"We're releasing a Christmas single," says Grant, tongue firmly in cheek. "We've got Phil Collins on drums, Bono's going to sing one line really high and emotionally, and Status Quo will be providing the drugs."
A suitably off-the-wall answer from a suitably off-beat band, then. Yet while they might not make it easy to get to know them now, it's unlikely that will remain the case for much longer. It's only a matter of time before another of Scottish music's best kept secrets jumps out of the hat.