-I am so excited.
I'm sitting here behind the Troubadour
in West Hollywood, California, about to interview
Scott Hutchison from one of my favorable bands
of all time, Frightened Rabbit.
They're from Scotland. There he is!
-All right! -Hey, man.
-How you doing? -I'm well.
It's good to see you. -Good to see you, man.
Let's do it. -Should I get in the van?
-Yeah, go ahead. Get in, yeah. -Yeah.
-What? Okay.
That's just --
[ Scottish accent ] They're Scottish.
-Take a sip from your soul
On a metaphysical milkshake
-[ Normal voice ] Hi, Scott. -Hi, Rainn.
-How are you? -I'm very well.
-Where do you want to go today?
-You know, I haven't been home for a while.
-Okay, home it is.
-Where's that? Is that your bedroom?
-Oh, right, yeah. That's my bedroom in Edinburgh.
It's where myself --
Actually I live with a guy called David Byrne.
-Do you really? -Yeah, he is not --
-Not the David Byrne. -No, no.
I think that would be awkward.
He's much more social than I would imagine.
-So you have a roommate?
-Yeah. -You're, like, a rock star,
and you have a roommate? -Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
-Rock stars aren't supposed to have roommates.
-Are they supposed to have, like,
comfortable bachelor pads for -- -Yes.
-Like, lots of televisions, and there's pornography running
the entire time. -Exactly, yeah.
-Well, there is pornography running the entire time.
-Okay. -[ Laughs ]
-Did you have kind of questionable hippie vans
in the '70s in Scotland? -Yeah, absolutely.
-Yeah? -I actually have a friend
who has one now. -Oh, yeah?
-Yeah, yeah, he gets a lot of great looks.
Like, kids clap it in the street and stuff like that.
-Really? -Yeah, he's got, like,
an old VW thing. -Must have been really boring
in Scotland. -[ Laughs ]
-Kids are clapping vans. -It is really desperate,
isn't it? [ Laughs ]
-It's so pathetic.
That does not reflect well on your culture.
Why are you guys called Frightened Rabbit?
-When I was younger, much younger,
I didn't really enjoy talking to other kids.
-Mm. -Like strange kids anyway.
You know, I had a couple of friends,
and we got along fine, but, you know --
You know when you have to go to a party with your parents
and you have to socialize
with your parents' friends' children rather than --
And it's like, "These are not my friends."
-Right, right. -"They're your friends' kids.
And actually, they bully me at school."
So, I would just sit in the corner kind of terrified.
There we go -- like a rabbit.
Like, the look on my face -- Here it is. [gasps]
-So that's it. That's your look?
-Yeah, that's it. Let's get it. -Let's see it again.
-[ Gasps ] -Now you're putting it on.
Now, what would it really be like?
-Oh, okay, was that too much? It was more like a shock.
It was generally just rocking back and forth
sort of wide-eyed. -Wow, wow.
-No, it was a problem.
I had to do two years of kindergarten instead of one.
It's still a curse to me,
and in certain situations I sort of freeze up.
-So how did that transition work from shy guy to performing gigs?
And how has that evolved into who you are right now?
-I went to art school.
I kind of had ambitions to just be an artist,
so I was drawing all the time.
First performance in Glasgow,
I was, you know, strong-armed into it by a friend
who'd heard me play songs
in, you know, my dorm room at my college.
And he was like, "You're doing this."
So I went up and immediately something weird --
It was a comfort zone or something
whereby I didn't feel shy.
I didn't feel ill at ease anymore.
I felt completely, you know, happy there.
You know, I think that's one of the reasons
why musicians do what they do is because
they have trouble, you know, communicating elsewhere.
You know, there's all this stuff that perhaps is stored up.
-And it can only come out through music.
-Right. -Or through lyrics
and through songs. -Well, it's true.
I think there's an energy that we bring
that is often unexpected, you know?
So, yeah, there's a lot of sweat.
-You are the sweatiest band... -[Laughs] Yeah, we are.
-...since, like, Motley Crue. -Right.
-Yeah. -That's a great --
I'm going to use that if that's okay.
-"The sweatiest band since Motley Crue"?
Could that be on the sticker on the front of CDs?
-Exactly, yeah, it will be.
-Dab off your forehead. -Am I -- Yeah.
Good. -Good.
-Boom, life's big questions, lightning round.
-What paralyzes your creativity?
-Sleep.
-What fuels it? -Heartache.
-What's one emotion that you have
you wish you had better control of?
-Maybe love. You know, falling for --
-Wrong -- "anger." What's your life's big question?
-Does what you do in life matter after,
or should it really just matter now
rather than somehow trying to save up brownie points?
-You've talked before about happiness.
You find happiness when you're performing.
-Yeah. -And you find happiness
through success?
-It's not, like, about an upward trajectory.
For me, it's about a creative one
and feeling like we're never stagnating.
-I mean I feel like, for me, as an actor,
I may have peaked in terms of my popularity.
-Right.
-I got a chance to do a bunch of movies.
-Yeah. -And "The Office" was a big hit
several years ago, and now it's kind of waning.
And this has been done, and my fame may come to an end.
But that's okay because I didn't get into it for the fame.
I got into it to be an artist, to be an actor,
to get to do cool things and work with cool people
and tell stories and express myself in cool ways.
-And the places that you're going from there,
you know, could almost be infinitely more exciting
because they're your choices.
-Does happiness come in other ways?
You've talked about happiness coming in performing.
-You do need to find a way to replace the intense happiness
that you find on tour.
For me, I have to try and almost go the opposite direction.
And I do a lot of, you know, nothing --
wandering the streets there.
I find happiness in routine when I'm back, as well.
That's a really attractive thing to me is, like, having
something that I do every day,
whether it would be just, like, going for a coffee.
It's, like, something you don't get
the opportunity to do when you're on tour.
-So, Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit has said
that he is happiest when he's on stage.
He's happiest when he's wandering
the streets of Edinburgh at night, in a routine,
having a coffee at a regular place.
Where are you the happiest?
Can you tell us in a video?
And Scott and I will watch the videos.
Or write it down in the comments below.
-Scott. -Yeah.
-Let's touch beards.
-Oh, I thought you'd never ask.
-Let's intertwine them.
-Mm. -Ohh.
[ Both groan ]
-SoulPancake
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