Frightened Rabbit 'may release unfinished songs by Scott Hutchison'

Frightened Rabbit have discussed plans to release unfinished songs by their late frontman Scott Hutchison.

Scott, 36, took his own life in 2018 following lengthy struggles with depression and anxiety.

His brother Grant said the group felt a “responsibility” to finish off demo versions of songs they had been working on for a sixth Frightened Rabbit album.

The Edinburgh-born musician had spoken months earlier about plans for a follow-up to the album Painting of a Panic Attack, which was released in 2016.

Grant has now suggested some of the unreleased songs may see the light of day this year.

It came as part of an interview about the release of The Work, a book of his brother’s lyrics and illustrations.

The book has been produced in collaboration with designer Dave Thomas, a long-time collaborator with Frightened Rabbit.

In an interview with Flood Magazine, Grant Hutchison said: “I have various boxes of Scott’s: illustrations, lyrics, sketchbooks that we got from his flat.

“I’ve kept a sort of ‘Frightened Rabbit’ box.

“I’ve been through it a couple times and I find it a quite enjoyable thing to do, although it’s hard.

“I guess it’s maybe the closest and most real thing to him that isn’t the music, because for me sitting down and listening to the music doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

“When it came to proofreading [the lyrics book], which myself and Dave and obviously the publisher took a responsibility to do, I sat and listened to the songs while reading the lyrics just to make sure everything was right.

“Experiencing it like that – as opposed to live, where we would play a song from this album and a song from that album and kind of jump around – there was a creative evolution in Scott’s writing, not just with the lyrics but in the music as well.

“You could tell his writing became more sophisticated as the years went on.

“We have demos and I think straight away we were like, ‘OK, the way that music and recording and technology is now, these demos will probably never go away, someone will find them at some point and want to release them.’

‘So we kind of feel like, ‘This is Scott’s last work and if he would have trusted anyone to finish it off, it would be us.’

“I think this project and the act of just listening back to all the songs again…I’ve played drums for the first time in a couple of years, just playing along to songs that I learned to play the drums to.

“I think we do feel like maybe this year at some point we could either sit in a room or just separately pick up our instruments and play along to those demos and maybe revisit them and get them out there.

“Whether it’s in an album format or whether we just decide to release them as we feel they’re ready, I think we feel a responsibility there to kind of finish off unfinished work for sure.”