The first thing he wrote after that - the anthemic “I Wish I Was Sober” - is sure to become one of Painting of a Panic Attack’s signature songs. And after that conversation, a lot of things came into focus.” That, out of the desire for this album to be different, I was avoiding writing about the stuff that actually matters to me and the things that were going on with me at the time. “Initially I was pissed, but as I thought about it more I realized that he was right. “Grant was like, ‘Are you really saying what you think here?,’” Hutchison recalls. But I was still avoiding admitting that that was how I felt.” He sent a few tracks to his brother Grant for some feedback. “I don’t usually get homesick,” he says, “but I’d never gone so far from home for such a long period of time before.” Being disconnected by friends, family, and especially his bandmates was a stark contrast to his life while making Pedestrian Verse, where the band moved in together, forging a camaraderie and connection that was, in Hutchison’s own words, “gang-like.”Īs he worked his way through the Wales demos, Hutchison says, “I was circling what could be a central idea for this record - this sense of not really being sure why I was in LA.

The singer had relocated there from Glasgow earlier that same year, and, although initially optimistic about the move, he was surprised to quickly discover that he felt profoundly out-of-step in LA. They wrote and tracked approximately a song a day during the course of a couple weeks and ended up with a dozen ideas that Hutchison took back with him to his new home in Los Angeles, where he would tackle the lyrics.

“We started as though we were making an instrumental album,” Hutchison explains. Painting of a Panic Attack began in the summer of 2014, when the band - Hutchison, his brother/drummer Grant Hutchison, bassist Billy Kennedy, guitarist/keyboardist Andy Monaghan, and multi-instrumentalist Simon Liddell (who worked with Hutchison and Monaghan on Owl John and joined Frightened Rabbit after Gordon Skene’s amicable departure) - convened in Wales to begin demoing ideas. One important aspect of that evolution has been a shift to a more collaborative process, with all five band members contributing as songwriters. After taking some time off from Frightened Rabbit to record and tour in support of the 2014 solo album he released as Owl John, the singer returned to his band with the goal of continuing to explore new approaches to songwriting. “I think a lot of this new record is informed by reaching a conclusion of sorts with Pedestrian Verse - closing a door on a sound that we came the closest to achieving with that album,” says Hutchison. outlets, including Rolling Stone, Time magazine, and Pitchfork, who praised Hutchison’s “lucid assessments of social and emotional turmoil.” The album also helped Frightened Rabbit achieve new commercial milestones, bringing a Top 10 debut in the U.K. In the UK, that LP was dubbed “a triumph” by The Quietus, while The Guardian described it as “a collection of stirring, instant anthems.,” Equal praise came from wide swath of U.S. Their last album, 2013’s Pedestrian Verse, marked their Canvasback / Atlantic Records debut, as well as their most critically and commercially successful albums to date. Though originally self-released, Sing The Greys earned the band a deal with indie label Fat Cat Records, who re-released the album and the two that followed: 2008’s Midnight Organ Fight and 2010’s The Winter of Mixed Drinks. “To me, lyrically, this album is a step above anything he’s written before.”īeginning with the 2006 debut album Sing The Greys, Frightened Rabbit have become one of the U.K.’s most beloved exports. “Great songwriters touch a nerve, and I think Scott really touches a nerve with these songs,” says Dessner.

In all of those respects, Painting of a Panic Attack – produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner –, is the band’s most accomplished collection yet. Over the course of five albums, including their new Painting of a Panic Attack, Frightened Rabbit’s frontman has made poetry of his misery, and still somehow managed to make it sound anthemic - like a triumphant rallying cry rather than a downer. Ever since Scott Hutchison started releasing music as Frightened Rabbit more than a decade ago, his emotionally honest and incisively worded lyrics have been among the project’s most beloved qualities.

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