Mere Curiosities

I’m sure I would have got around to discovering Frightened Rabbit eventually. I liked Scottish things, Like Biffy Clyro, David Tennant, and well, Scotland. But it wasn’t until one night in March 2009 when a friend invited me to a pub in Surry Hills in Sydney to hang out with Biffy Clyro. Biffy Fucking Clyro! It was honestly the best night for so many reasons. The obvious one being that I got to hang out with one of my favourite bands for an evening. Another being that I got to have a life changing conversation with Simon Neil. To cut a long story (conversation really) short, we got talking about our mums. Simon’s mother had passed away a few years back, and mine was seriously ill. He was so sympathetic and lovely gave me this life changing advice: “Listen to Frightened Rabbit.” and I was like “Who? Tell me everything!” Simon went on to tell me that he had been listening to their then latest record, The Midnight Organ Fight, at least once a day. “It’s a bit heavy, but it might help.” he said. As soon as I could, I got my copy of The Midnight Organ Fight, as well as their live album, Liver! Lung! FR!; and ordered myself a copy of their debut Sing the Greys. I devoured them. Spoke to anyone I could about them. Scott’s lyrics, even though they were about a different kind of heartbreak, helped me deal with the recent heartbreaking loss of my mum, along with Biffy Clyro’s Puzzle.

In the following years, TMOF, and a more recent release, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, served as an accompaniment to my own heartbreak over an ex lover. I remember being at the same party as this guy and being so miserable that I had to leave, and listening to Nothing Like You  on the train home was so healing. Just like a big “FUCK YOU!” to this guy even though he wasn’t anywhere near me at the time.

“This is a story and you are not in it, uh huh Fuck pages torn out Here is a bedroom that you’ve never been in and Here is your shovel, there’s the ground.”

The fist time I ever saw Frightened Rabbit live was with my sister on a very sweaty February night at The Beach Road Hotel in Bondi. It was a free gig, but I would have paid absolutely anything to see them. We had dinner at the pub before the show, and my sister and I were trying to act cool as the band sat at some tables right near us. The show was amazing and sweaty, and I think we met Andy very briefly after the show.

Frightened Rabbit at the Beach Road Hotel, Bondi, 2010.

  That same night, they did a DJ set at the Unicorn Hotel in Paddington. From memory I think there were a few technical issues. We left early as we lived kinda far away at the time. I remember we told the band this on twitter and they were kinda like, “How dare you!” but also appreciative that we came along.

A review of The Winter of Mixed Drinks from MX magazine.

Bands came and went, but Frightened Rabbit were a constant for me. I was living a miserable existence in Melbourne in 2012 when State Hospital came out. I’d had such a shit year, and despite the content of the song, it was a comfort somehow.

February 2013 rolled along, and I had recently moved back home to Sydney and their fourth album, Pedestrian Verse was released. I was excited for a number of reasons. Obviously I was excited that there was a new Frightened Rabbit record, but it was also the first one I could play at work. See, I work for a certain Australian home entertainment retailer, and we generally can’t play anything in store that has too many swears. This time around, Warner Music had sent clean copies of Pedestrian Verse to retailers for instore play. It was seriously hilarious, even though it really shouldn’t have been. Anything sounding vaguely like a profanity was just blanked out. “I am that _________ in the kitchen, giving wine to your best girls glass.” But it meant that I could play it, oohh, and play it I certainly did!

It was also around this time that Frightened Rabbit came back to Australia for some shows. I think it was for the Groovin’ the Moo festival tour. It seemed like they were here forever! (Definitely a good thing!) They played two shows in Sydney while they were here, about a week apart if I recall correctly. It was drunkenly after the second show at the Oxford Art Factory, that I went back to my sister’s flat in Vaucluse where I was minding her two cats, and booked a ticket for their upcoming show at Brixton Academy. Honestly, one of the better decisions I’ve made whilst drunk. Upon waking up the next day though, I was like, “Shit. Now I gotta figure out how to get there!” It was still a fair few months away though.It was also at that show that Scott, all alone on the stage at Oxford Art Factory, played the best version of “Poke” I have ever witnessed. Just him and his guitar, and no microphone. In true Australian fashion, everyone laughed at the word “Cunt”, and had to start over.

I’m still so annoyed at myself that the memory in my stupid crappy iPhone 4s ran out of memory and cut off the end of the song.

A friend of mine in the UK, who is also a huge Frightened Rabbit fan messaged me a little while later and said that he was also going to the Brixton show, but that he also got us tickets to their show in Bristol a couple of days before that if I also wanted to come? Oh hell yes I did! It was the best holiday a totally broke gal could have! It was the first time I had traveled overseas by myself as well, so it was definitely an exciting time. I remember before the Bristol gig my friend and I were trying to find the entrance into the university bar where the show was ( I don’t know how we missed it…turns out it was pretty obvious) and we wandered past their tour bus parked near the venue. I can’t remember if we discussed going up to say hi or not. Maybe I just wished we did?

Frightened Rabbit in Bristol, November 2013

A few nights later my friend and I met back up in Brixton for the next show. It was fucking epic. I still get chills thinking about how beautiful “Nitrous Gas” sounded with those acoustics. It was sad, but for me, a spiritual experience.

Brixton Academy, November 2013

It was during a bout of insomnia when, scrolling through Twitter, up popped a new post from Frightened Rabbit with a link to a new song, Death Dream. I listened to it on repeat until I fell asleep. Then on repeat on the way to work the next day. Then on the way home. And so on. And so forth. When it was released, Painting of a Panic Attack resonated with me just like TMOF did all those years ago. I was going through a really shit time at work and in my personal life, and it made me feel less alone. It also felt like a fucking age since they toured here. Looking back though, Frightened Rabbit toured a lot. I admit I was one of those people that most likely commented on a post or a tweet of theirs saying, “Come back to Australia!” or something of the sort. And I definitely did it later on when Scott and I would message each other on twitter. But more on that later.

Frightened Rabbit finally toured Australia once again, and sadly, for the final time in March 2017. They played two shows once after the other at The Oxford Art Factory in Sydney. One day, leading up to the show, my Frightened Rabbit mate in the UK sent me a tweet from a Whiskey company called Copperdog Whiskey mentioning a competition for a lucky few Sydney based Frightened Rabbit Fans to win the chance to hang out with the band after the second Sydney show and drink some whiskey. How could I not enter? I’m not entirely certain just how many people entered, but I was one of those lucky winners!

The two shows at Oxford Arts were a fucking blast of course. To top it off, a mates band, A.D.K.O.B was the support. Winning! After the second show, my sister and I flagged down Scott for an autograph, and I asked him to draw me a picture. He drew me a funny little dog. It’s now one of my most treasured items. My sister also managed to get one of their setlists and had it signed. We were being ushered out of the venue by this time, so my sister and I wandered up Oxford Street, to the Unicorn Hotel, where the whiskey tasting was being held.

At first it was kind of weird and awkward. A bunch of Frightened Rabbit fans sitting in the downstairs bar of this pub not really talking to each other, as the band hadn’t arrived yet. One of the bars owners, was so excited to have one of his favourite bands in his bar. He freepoured us all generous glasses of whiskey and got the chatter going until the band arrived.

When they did, it was still all a little awkward, but oh my gosh they were all just SO LOVELY. They all each introduced themselves to everyone in the room, and to their credit, remembered everyone’s names throughout the night. It was a fun, whiskey-fueled night with conversations I only remember snippets of. In some ways, I wish I hadn’t been as drunk as I was, but then again, if I hadn’t had Dutch courage, I probably would have sat in the corner, too shy and anxious to talk to anyone. I do remember talking to Scott about how Simon from Biffy Clyro had told me to listen to Frightened Rabbit, and he just smiled in a way that you could tell it just made him so happy. I told him all the things I said above about how his music helped me though some tough times and that he was probably sick of hearing shit like that and he was like, “No! Never! I’m so glad that people can relate to my music.” and gave me a hug.

In Sydney, March 2017

It was some time after this meeting that Scott and I were in intermittent contact on Twitter. At first it was just his drunken responses to something I had responded to on either his personal, or on the Frightened Rabbit Twitter. But we soon began to chat about a number of different things. One of his favourite things to talk about was Ibis. I had to explain to him what they were at first. (And just so we’re clear, we’re talking about the bird, not the hotel chain….although we did discuss that too.) He was fascinated and couldn’t believe he had never seen one before.

  A tiny glimmer of hope appeared, he wanted to come back to Australia.

I think I’ve rambled on so much because I really didn’t want to get to the end of this piece. I just want to keep writing and continue the story. Of course Frightened Rabbit will always mean so much to me, it will just be a little different from now on.

The day in May that the news was confirmed that Scott had passed away I was at home trying to write a paper on the class struggle between the Spartans and the Helots for university. I passed – only just though. The grief that I felt was overwhelming. I had messages from friends sending their condolences, which at first was strange, but it was only when someone I hardly knew asked me why I was so upset about it, I realised, Scott was a friend. I had lost a friend. I connected with others around the world sharing the pain of this loss.  The tributes that then came for this wonderful man was just so overwhelming. I bookmarked every one I came across on Twitter and Facebook, and still haven’t read the majority of them. There are so many, so much more eloquent than what I have written in this garbled mess, in bed in my pj’s on a Monday morning.

I honestly don’t know how to finish this. Maybe I’ll just say, to anyone who is reading this, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I felt I needed to get some things out in the open, and this seemed a good way to do it. And sorry. Sorry for this incoherent mess of writing.

I hope you’re at peace now Scott.

Karen.