Snow Patrol are a Northern Irish alternative rock band formed in 1994,[1] consisting of Gary Lightbody (vocals, guitar), Nathan Connolly (guitar, backing vocals), Paul Wilson (bass guitar, backing vocals), Jonny Quinn (drums), and Johnny McDaid (piano, guitar, backing vocals).[2] Initially an indie rock band, their first three records, the EP Starfighter Pilot (1997), and the studio albums Songs for Polarbears (1998) and When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up (2001), were commercially unsuccessful and were released by the independent labels Electric Honey and Jeepster. The band signed on to the major record label Polydor Records in 2002.
Snow Patrol rose to national fame with their major label debut, Final Straw, in 2003. The album was certified 5× platinum in the UK[3] and eventually sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Their next studio album, Eyes Open (2006), and its hit single, "Chasing Cars", propelled the band to greater international fame. The album topped the UK Albums Chart
and was the best-selling British album of the year, selling over 6
million copies worldwide. In 2008, the band released their fifth studio
album, A Hundred Million Suns; then, in 2009, they released their first compilation album, Up to Now; and, in 2011, released their sixth studio album, Fallen Empires.
During the course of their career, Snow Patrol have won seven Meteor Ireland Music Awards and have been nominated for six Brit Awards. Since the release of Final Straw, the band have sold over 13 million albums worldwide.[4]
Early years (1994–97)
Originally formed in late 1994 by University of Dundee students Gary Lightbody, Michael Morrison and Mark McClelland as the Shrug,[5]
the band started by performing gigs at the university and surrounding
pubs such as Lucifer's Mill. Their first EP was entitled the Yoghurt vs Yoghurt debate.
In 1996, they changed their name to Polar Bear (or Polarbear) to avoid
issues with any American bands that were also named Shrug. Shortly
afterwards, drummer Michael Morrison left the band after suffering a
breakdown and returned to Northern Ireland. In mid-1997, Polar Bear
released a three-track EP, Starfighter Pilot, on the Electric Honey label.[6] The band again renamed, this time to Snow Patrol in 1997,[1] because of a naming conflict with another band of the same name fronted by Jane's Addiction's ex-bassist Eric Avery.[7] At this point, Jonny Quinn, from Northern Ireland, joined as permanent drummer.
Songs for Polarbears (1997–2001)
Snow Patrol joined independent label Jeepster in 1997, home of Belle & Sebastian.[8]
Jeepster had the same idea for Snow Patrol as the approach they had
with Belle & Sebastian, who had become popular by word-of-mouth,
without heavy promotion. The band were happy to be associated with an
indie label, because it provided them greater independence than a major
label. At that time, they were quoted as saying they expected Jeepster
wouldn't expect them to have a strict work ethic or focus too much on
promotional efforts.[9]
Snow Patrol's debut album was Songs for Polarbears, released in 1998 after the band had started living in Glasgow.[10] Lightbody was then working at the Nice n Sleazy's Bar in Sauchiehall Street.[11] The album was a critical success, but did not make any impact commercially.[9] The same year, the band came close to getting featured in a worldwide advertisement for Philips. Gomez was ultimately signed.[12][13] In 1999, the band won the "Phil Lynott Award for Best New Band" by Irish music magazine Hot Press.[14] In 2001, still living in Glasgow, the band followed up with When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up.[15] Like its predecessor, the album was praised by critics, but did not sell.[9]
The band began to work harder by touring more, but continued to be in
control. They slept on fans' floors after concerts and pretended to be
members of Belle & Sebastian to get into nightclubs.[16] They owed rent to their landlords and used to receive regular visits and letters from them when on tour.[9]
After the failure of the second album, the band began to realise that
the label's lax attitude towards management and record promotion,
qualities that had initially attracted the band to Jeepster, was likely
holding them back. The band's manager at the time was Danny McIntosh.
Lightbody has described him as "the angriest man in pop: great, great
man". He has said that he loved the band "with every atom in his body",
and was never angry towards them. He has credited him with keeping the
band together in those years. McIntosh had a gold colored splitter bus
in which the band used to travel to play concerts.[17]
Jeepster dropped Snow Patrol in 2001,[18] a decision that was criticised by Hot Press magazine as brainless.[19] By July 2001, many major labels had started showing interest in Snow Patrol,[20] but the band were cash-strapped and had no record deal.[21]
Lightbody sold a major part of his record collection to raise money to
keep the band going. Lightbody calls the time "miserable", but was
confident of getting signed to another label quickly. However, the music
scene in the United Kingdom had turned its attention to American bands
and British bands were not getting signed. The band spent this time
constantly writing songs. Lightbody, bored at this point, assembled The Reindeer Section, a Scottish supergroup, and found a record label to release the group's recordings.[22]
Quinn said that though the time was hard for everyone involved except
for Nathan, the question of splitting up never arose. It was during this
time the band wrote "Run" (which had been around since 2000)[21]
in a room on an acoustic guitar, which later became the band's
breakthrough single. The band's "low point" came when they played a
concert to 18 people at a popular strip club in High Wycombe.[18][23][24]
The show took place in a shoddy VIP area, and the management had to
unscrew poles used by pole dancers in order to make space for the band
to play, something that Gary would later joke about whilst performing at
a sold out Wembley Arena. Quinn calls the show "horrendous". Desperate
for attention, the band raised £200 to nominate themselves for a Mercury
Prize, but failed to get shortlisted.[23]
Final Straw (2002–05)
Guitarist Nathan Connolly, previously a member of the band File Under Easy Listening[22] had been working in an HMV store room in Belfast at the time.[27]
Connolly and the band had a mutual friend, who introduced them to him.
Connolly moved to Glasgow to join the band in the spring of 2002.[28][29]
During Lightbody and McClelland's years at the University of Dundee,
they had been noticed by Richard Smernicki, a senior student. Through
Richard, brother Paul too had come to know the band. Richard graduated in 1996, two years before Lightbody and McClelland, to become Polydor's Scottish A&R representative. Paul became Polydor's Press and Artist Development Manager[30] and Fiction's label manager.[31] Later, Jim Chancellor, an A&R executive for Fiction, and fellow talent scout Alex Close[32] approached the band in Glasgow to listen to their demos, and judged them on "the quality of the songs", according to Lightbody.[21][33] Chancellor introduced them to producer Jacknife Lee, who despite having been a guitarist in 90s punk rock band Compulsion had no rock production experience at that point, being known at the time for his work with Basement Jaxx and Eminem.[9][34][35]
Final Straw was released on 4 August 2003, under Black Lion, a subsidiary of Polydor Records.[10]
Its music was along the same lines as the band's first two albums, and
no attempt was made to change the sound to something more
radio-friendly.[9][10] The album, along with "Run" (which debuted at No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart), gave the band their first taste of mainstream success. The record peaked at No. 3 in the UK Albums Chart.
Archer's final date with the band was 27 September 2003 in the St
Andrews Students' Association. They followed the success of "Run" up
with three more singles from the album: "Chocolate", as well as a re-release of "Spitting Games", both reaching the top 30, and "How to Be Dead" reaching number 39.
The release of Final Straw in the United States in 2004 saw
the album sell more than 250,000 copies and become the 26th most popular
album in the UK of that year. In mid-2005, during their tour to support
Final Straw, the band toured with U2 as an opening act on U2's Vertigo Tour in Europe.[36] The band then returned to the United States to continue touring in support of Final Straw. That summer also saw Snow Patrol playing a short set in London at the worldwide benefit concert Live 8.[37] After finishing their opening act duties and extensive 2-year tour of Final Straw
in late July, the band took a few weeks off and began writing and
recording songs for a new album. Snow Patrol's new version of John Lennon's "Isolation" was released on 10 December 2005 as part of the Amnesty International campaign, Make Some Noise.[38] The song was later issued on the 2007 John Lennon tribute album, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur.[39]
Eyes Open (2005–07)
On 16 March 2005, McClelland left the band, with Lightbody stating 'a
whole new set of new and unexpected pressures... have unfortunately
taken their toll on working relationships within the band, and it was
felt the band could not move forward with Mark as a member.'[40] At the end of March 2005, former Terra Diablo member Paul Wilson was announced as the official replacement for McClelland and Snow Patrol also declared longtime touring keyboardist Tom Simpson an official member of the band.[41]
The band completed recording Eyes Open
in December 2005, with Jacknife Lee returning for production, and this
album was released on 28 April 2006 in Ireland, and the UK on 1 May
2006, with the first UK single "You're All I Have"
having been released on 24 April 2006. The album was released in North
America on 9 May. While "Hands Open" was the first American single, "Chasing Cars"
pushed its way onto the download and pop charts after it was heard
during an emotional scene of the second season finale of the television
show Grey's Anatomy
on 15 May 2006. Due to the song's surprise popularity, it was released
as an overlapping single in early June and the video was re-recorded to
include clips from the show. "Chasing Cars" was also nominated for 'Best
Single' in the 2006 Grammy Awards.
The band were forced to postpone a majority of the American Eyes Open tour after polyps
were discovered on Lightbody's vocal cords, and failed to heal after
initial postponement of three dates on the tour. Dates were rescheduled
for August and September. The year would continue to be difficult on the
band for the U.S. legs of their tours, as they were also forced to
cancel two west coast festival appearances in mid-August due to the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S.-bound flights from the UK.
Two band members made it to the U.S. while two were stuck in London.
Subsequently, they all made it to the lone U.S. tour stop in Boston days later but failed to recover any of their luggage, forcing them to shop for clothes on Newbury St.
that afternoon. Their gear arrived hours before show time, just in time
for sound check. The band also had to cancel appearances in Germany and
France after bassist Paul Wilson injured his left arm and shoulder.
On 26 November 2006, Eyes Open had become the UK's best-selling album of the year, overtaking previous leader Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not by Arctic Monkeys. Despite very strong sales for Take That's comeback album Beautiful World, Eyes Open
marginally earned the title of the UK's best-selling album of 2006,
with 1.6 million in sales. The album reached platinum certification in
the US as well, selling over 1,000,000 copies, and it maintained a spot
in the upper quarter of the Billboard 200
list for over fifteen weeks, on the heels of the popularity of "Chasing
Cars". The band also holds the distinction of having one of iTunes' top
downloaded albums and songs of 2006. Ahead of the band's February tour,
Eyes Open topped the Australian charts some eight months after its release on 22 January 2006. Back home in Ireland, Eyes Open
became one of the best selling albums of all time, staying at the top
of the charts from the end of 2006 to early–mid-2007, and remaining in
the charts to the present.
At the 2007 Grammy Awards, "Chasing Cars" was nominated for Best Rock Song, and at the 2007 Brit Awards, the song was nominated for Best British Single.[42][43]
1 September 2007 saw Snow Patrol headlining a "home coming" mini-festival in Lightbody and Jonny Quinn's home town of Bangor, County Down. Around 30,000 people came to see the band.[44][45]
A Hundred Million Suns (2008–09)
Lightbody stated that recording for the follow-up to Eyes Open was to begin in Autumn 2006, with Jacknife Lee returning a third time for production.[46] Since then the band stated that they wished to take a year off after the back-to-back tours of Final Straw and Eyes Open and intended to emerge at the end of 2008 with their next album.
A post, dated 23 May 2008 on the band's official website stated that
recording for the next album had been under way for a week; they began
on 19 May 2008. The new album, entitled A Hundred Million Suns, was released on 24 October 2008 in Ireland and 27 October in the UK and US. The first single entitled "Take Back the City"
was released in Ireland on 10 October 2008. Filming for the music video
to "Take Back the City" took place on 11 August 2008 in Central London.
The music video was directed by Alex Courtes.
The band kicked off their Taking Back the Cities Tour on 26 October 2008.[47] Singer Miriam Kaufmann tours with the band and sings backing vocals, most notably on "Set the Fire to the Third Bar", which originally featured Martha Wainwright.[48] The 'UK & Ireland Arena tour' ended on 23 March. The final show was played at the Odyssey
in Belfast to a 9,000 strong crowd including family and friends of the
band, and the Northern Irish football squad. It also reported that the
band played to an estimated 200,000 fans during the tour.[49]
The band next visited South Africa to play a couple of dates at the Coca-Cola Zero Festival, supporting Oasis[50] before beginning a European leg of the tour.[51] In June they supported Coldplay for a month on the Viva la Vida Tour,[52] and joined the U2 360° Tour in July/August.
The band also released a compilation album featuring tracks from the band's 15-year history,[53] Up to Now, on 9 November 2009. It includes thirty tracks spanning two CDs, of which three are original new songs. "Just Say Yes", a song written by Lightbody and earlier recorded by Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger and X Factor star Diana Vickers, was released as the lead single[53] on 2 November. The album additionally contains past singles, covers and rarities, including songs from the band's side-project The Reindeer Section.[54] A limited edition coffee-table book is also in the works.[55] The band also wishes to make a tour documentary in the future, on the lines of U2's Rattle and Hum.[56]
In December 2009, the PPL announced "Chasing Cars" was the most widely played song of the decade in the UK.[57] The same month, in a UK poll conducted by Channel 4, it was voted the nation's favourite "song of the noughties".[58] In January 2010, the band were nominated in three categories in the annual Meteor Awards.[59] The band also played at the event, scheduled on 19 February 2010 at The RDS.[60]
Fallen Empires (2010–12)
Snow Patrol said they would enter its "next phase" with their sixth album.[61] The band took a new musical direction, and Connolly advised fans to keep an open mind regarding the new material.[62] On 12 January 2011, Lightbody launched a blog to give details about the progress of the next release from the band.[63]
Snow Patrol released the single "Called Out in the Dark" (remixed by Fatboy Slim) for radio airplay on Thursday 21 July on BBC Radio 1 on Zane Lowe's
radio show. According to official sources, the single itself will be
released independently and as part of an EP later on and the UK release
date is said to be 4 September.[64]
More details on the EP were announced on 3 August, when the group's
website revealed the artwork and tracklist contents. Along with the new
single, the release contained three new tracks entitled "My Brothers",
"I'm Ready", and "Fallen Empires". In addition, it was revealed that the
EP was intended to be a digital release limited to the UK and Ireland.[65]
Shortly after the premiere of the new lead single, the quintet's
official website confirmed the news that the name of the new album would
be Fallen Empires.[66] Fallen Empires was released on 14 November 2011[67] in the UK and was launched at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire.[68] Singer-songwriter Johnny McDaid joined the band during the recording of the album.[2]
The second single from Fallen Empires was "This Isn't Everything You Are", released on 13 November 2011.[69]
Greatest Hits and seventh album (2013–present)
The band released a compilation entitled Greatest Hits on 14 May 2013.[70] The single version of the song "The Lightning Strike (What If This Storm Ends?)", featured in trailer of the 2013 fantasy-adventure comedy-drama film Epic, will make its compilation album debut upon the release.
Snow Patrol headlined the Tennent's Vital festival in August 2013 and
performed a special warm-up show in London before the festival.
Lightbody said in an interview that "[they] were going to do the show so
that [they] haven't gone rusty".[citation needed] After the show, the band announced that Simpson would leave the band.[71] At their Tennent's Vital concert, Lightbody announced that it would be Simpson's last night with the band.[72]
The follow-up to Fallen Empires is due for release in 2015.[73] Lightbody told NME that he had to overcome a bout of writer's block and that the songs written for the new album were scrapped before being replaced by new "mind-boggling" material.[74]
Impact
The success of Snow Patrol has influenced the thriving Belfast music
scene positively. This includes Lightbody, who returned to the city and
now lives there. The band's kindness towards local bands, partly by
founding Polar Music, and Lightbody being an active part of the Oh Yeah Music Centre has resulted in high optimism in the scene.[75]
Musicians, such as Bono (of U2), Michael Stipe (of R.E.M.), Nikki Sixx (of Mötley Crüe and Sixx AM), have also expressed their admiration for Snow Patrol.[76][77][78] Terri Hooley, founder of the Good Vibrations label and a lifelong supporter of local Northern Irish music has expressed pride in bands like Snow Patrol.[79]
Other activities
Snow Patrol have founded Polar Music, a publishing company run
through Kobalt Music. The venture is independent from the band's
publishing deal with Universal Music.
Polar Music will sign artists regardless of their genre, as drummer
Jonny Quinn explained: "there is no agenda—if it's good enough and we
believe in it 110%, we will sign it." Quinn, and his fellow band members
Connolly and Lightbody are acting as A&R.[80] The company's first signing was Johnny McDaid, previously of the Northern Irish band Vega4.[81]
Quinn has said that they wish to sign artists to a one-album deal, and
do not want to put undue pressure on the artists with a bigger,
multi-year deal.[81] Polar Music had its first chart hit in the first week of October 2009.[82]
Gary Lightbody and Tom Simpson are both fans of the football club Dundee F.C.. In 2008, they met the club's board of directors to find ways to financially help the short-of-cash club.[83] The band also owns a stake in the Houndstooth Pub in New York City.[84]
Philanthropy
On 25 November 2007, Snow Patrol performed an acoustic session for the charity Mencap, at Union Chapel, Islington. They were one of the main bands to take part in the project, called "Little Noise Sessions" which was curated by Jo Whiley.
In 2009, Gary Lightbody and Nathan Connolly donated plectrums and certificates
to the Music Beats Mines project that aims to clear unexploded
mines/landmines from conflict zones. The items were auctioned on eBay.[85][86]
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