Does Frightened Rabbit exist? Guitarist Simon Liddell and bassist Billy Kennedy, sitting in a Glasgow café, turn to one another for a moment then shake their heads. “No, it doesn’t exist without Scott at all,” says Kennedy. “Scott is Frightened Rabbit.” That present tense is telling. Scott Hutchison, the singer and chief songwriter of the… Read more »
Boris Johnson
First published September, 2004 in The Sunday Herald
WHAT better occasion than a buck’s fizz breakfast for making up one’s mind about Boris Johnson? Genius or idiot, or both? Could he really be some kind of authentic political savant, or is the posh bumbler of the popular imagination entirely a self-creation? Some have called him a pretender to the Tory throne, and perhaps that word, pretender, is more… Read more »
James Graham on Scott Hutchison
What made Scott’s songwriting great? There was something really honest about it. Scott wasn’t trying to be anyone else apart from himself. The songs spoke for themselves, especially Midnight Organ Fight, which seemed to connect with people on another level. Scott was such a clever guy. He was writing about love and loss and things… Read more »
Carrie Fisher
First published 22nd February, 2004 in The Sunday Herald
When Carrie Fisher goes missing right before an interview, you have good reason to worry. This, after all, is the woman who stopped taking her lithium during a holiday in Australia, had a psychotic episode, and took an impulsive trip to China because it was only six inches away on the map. Her press officer… Read more »
Duglas T Stewart
First published January 26, 2016 in The Guardian
ON the evening before we were due to meet and talk about the 30th anniversary of his group BMX Bandits, Duglas T Stewart got in touch with a warning: over the last couple of years he has been wrestling with serious mental health issues which manifest themselves, now and again, in self-harming behaviour. “Last night,”… Read more »