Music – Snow Patrol
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Snow Patrol is an indie rock band from Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The band was formed in Scotland by vocalist/guitarist Gary Lightbody and bassist/keyboardist Mark McClelland. Achieving sudden success after years of obscurity in much the same way as Pulp, Snow Patrol mix Coldplay-style indie, and alternative rock to create tasteful tales of relationships good and bad.
Originally formed in late 1994 as “Shrug”, the band started by performing gigs at Dundee University and the surrounding pubs before changing their name to “Polar Bear” (or “Polarbear”) in late 1995.
In mid 1997, they released a three-track EP, Starfighter Pilot, on the Electric Honey label. Richard Colburn, from Glaswegian indie band Belle & Sebastian, played drums on this record, and Stuart Murdoch, from the same band, sang on one of the b-sides. Due to legal threats from an American band with the same name (led by Eric Avery, the former bassist of Janes Addiction), they became “Snow Patrol”. There is a “thank you” to Garys English tutor Peter Easingwood in the sleeve notes of the original Starfighter Pilot.
At this point, Jonny Quinn, from Northern Ireland, joined as permanent drummer. With him rounding out the lineup, the band released their next EP Little Hide on Jeepster Records while still living in Dundee (its cover was a blurred photo of a football crowd watching Dundee United at Tannadice Park). A follow-up single “One Hundred Things You Should Have Done in Bed” was a minor independent chart hit. Both of these early singles were heavily promoted by Jeepster – with videos included as computer files on the CD singles, and Snow Patrol starting to appear on television. Their first MTV interview was in 1998, and they briefly appeared on a Channel Four documentary about Jeepster Records (which concentrated mostly on Belle and Sebastian) that same year. Two albums on Jeepster followed: Songs For Polarbears in 1998 (including a slightly remixed version of their debut single Starfighter Pilot) and When Its All Over We Still Have to Clear Up in 2001 (both recorded while the band lived in Glasgow). Also in 2001, Gary collected a group of Scottish independent musicians from such acts as Mogwai together to perform as a “supergroup”, “The Reindeer Section”, who have so far released two CD albums. Gary also performed vocals on a single by Cut La Roc.
Despite warm critical approval, “Songs For Polarbears” sold very little, as did its followup, “When Its All Over We Still Have To Clear Up”, released in 2000, which softened those grunge tendencies with forays into post-rock and commercial indie music. Despite radio-friendly singles like “One Night Is Not Enough” and “Ask Me How I Am”, the significant lack of acclaim following this album spurred Jeepster to drop Snow Patrol.
It wasnt until after being dropped by Jeepster that guitarist Nathan Connolly joined, and the band signed to the mainstream Polydor label.
Initially, their third album “Final Straw”, possibly their most radio-friendly release, looked like being a similar flop, originally charting outside the top 150 in the album chart in August 2003.
However, in November, mainstream radio started to play the single “Run”, and it was released in January 2004, reaching number 5 in the chart, and the re-release of the album reached number 3 at first, before eventually peaking at number 1 in the charts. Further singles, “Chocolate”,”Spitting Games” and “How To Be Dead”, all charted inside the top 40.
They gained mainstream success with their song “Run” (which debuted at #5 in the UK singles chart), as well as the album it was from, the 2003 release, Final Straw which was produced by Jacknife Lee. Iain Archer, a touring guitarist and songwriting collaborator from 2001-2003, won an Ivor Novello award for his contribution to the Final Straw album.
The release of Final Straw in the United States in 2004 saw the album notching up well in excess of a quarter of a million sales and becoming the 26th most popular British album of that year. Their single “Run” was the 22nd most played British song on American airwaves, having been played just under 28,000 times on US radio stations in that same year.
On March 16, 2005, McClelland left the band, with Gary 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. Former Terra Diablo member Paul Wilson replaced him on bass. In April 2005, Snow Patrol declared longtime