Interview with Snow Patrol Interviewed By: Paul Anthony Paul Anthony chats with Snow Patrol's Tom Simpson about records over food, animals in the studio and the new album!

I’ve been listening to the cuts off of “Eyes Open.” It’s a powerful album. Well, thank you very much Tell me about this studio in Ireland where you guys recorded. There’s a little bit of confusion over where we actually recorded the album. First of all, we did a little bit of writing at this place called Dingle on the west coast of Ireland. It’s this little round house overlooking the sea, but we actually recorded the album in this old kinda’ condemned complex in a place called West Meade, right in the middle in Ireland. It was a secluded area with rolling landscapes and cows munching on grass and stuff… kind of a laid back place. I think the nearest pub was about six odd miles away, which was even too far away for even me to go looking for a pint, so it was a really good place for us to go. There weren’t too many distractions and there was a lot of space for us all to work. It was sort of a family run studio with lots of animals running around… horses and cats and dogs… it was almost like a holiday home but a place were we could also work.

Snow Patrol - just Say Yes

Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody - interview

The band's songwriter Gary Lightbody tells Neil McCormick why their new, number-one album is tinged with romance.

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In 2006, one group dominated British rock. It was the year of the Arctic Monkeys, when the Sheffield tyros came roaring out of MySpace with the fastest-selling debut album ever. They won four-star reviews, were plastered over magazine covers, inspired a chain of copycat bands, and were garlanded with end-of-year awards.

Yet, by the time the dust had settled, the biggest-selling band of the year turned out to be a little heralded, long-serving Scots/Irish outfit of geekish, unprepossessing scruffs turning 30, who had been knocking around since 1994, and had barely picked up a good review in the process. 

Snow Patrol - Run

Snow Patrol

Biography

Snow Patrol is an alternative rock band which formed in Dundee, Scotland in 1994 and currently based in Bangor, Northern Ireland, where most of the band members are from. They consist of Gary Lightbody (vocals, guitar), Nathan Connolly (guitar, vocals), Paul Wilson (bass), Tom Simpson (keyboards) and Jonny Quinn (drums). Lightbody and Quinn are the only original members who remain in the band.

The band became wildly successful on both sides of the Atlantic on the back of their fourth record, 2006’s Eyes Open and the ballad “Chasing Cars” - a song that has spent a near-record breaking 90 weeks on the UK Top 75. Some of their other well known songs are Run, Spitting Games, You’re All I Have, Hands Open and Take Back The City.