THERE was a moment making Snow Patrol’s new album when singer Gary Lightbody considered the band could be over.
The Northern Irish group — now a trio — had spent five months working on their eighth studio album, but “it just wasn’t happening”.
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Lightbody adds: “It was a rocky time and so, because we’d just been through quite a difficult process trying to make the album and now we were a three-piece, I thought, ‘Are we kidding ourselves? Is this too big a hill to climb?’”
The former quintet briefly had a crisis of confidence when they lost bassist Paul Wilson and drummer Jonny Quinn in 2023, but after regrouping — Gary, multi-instrumentalist Johnny McDaid and guitarist Nathan Connolly — got together, played records and hung out.
The singer says: “We were helped back to health by a producer friend, Michael Keeney, and it was what we needed, as our confidence had been shaken. We just had to figure out what the three of us wanted to do.
“And it was an easy and quick answer. We wanted to continue, and so here we are.”
Sat in the library of a central London hotel where the singer is based for a few weeks of touring and promo, he is clearly over any recent difficulties he experienced with the band he formed 30 years ago as student at the University of Dundee.
Big choruses
Rumours of a toxic split emerged when Quinn’s wife branded McDaid a “snake” in a sweary rant on social media, saying his reasons for leaving the band were “not the best”.
But when asked if this episode hurt him, Lightbody says: “You can’t do anything about other people’s opinions but I know what happened. I am very comfortable and confident that nothing was toxic.”
New album The Forest Is The Path is bursting with big anthems, and is their best in years.
He says: “Musically we were trying to let whatever happened happen and move forward. Johnny and I were down in Somerset with just a blank piece of paper and a couple of instruments to see what happened in the moment. We didn’t have any plan.
“We were just letting it take us wherever it was going to go. The first half of the record is such big songs and big choruses — it just happened.
“Do you want to hear the voice notes from that first day in Somerset?”
He takes out his phone and starts to play me original recordings of tracks off the album.
As he flicks through the recordings, they sound just like the finished versions on the album.
Lightbody says: “If I had an idea for a melody Johnny would say, ‘Why don’t you write the lyrics in the room?’ as I usually take them away and write on my own.
“And Johnny is one of the greatest producers in the world, so he’d build the track up as I was writing words.”
Songs as All, The Beginning, Your Heart Home, Years That Fall and This Is The Sound Of Your Voice are classic Snow Patrol — big, expansive songs that hit your heart hard, while the title track even features McDaid’s partner, Friends star Courteney Cox, and Connolly’s other half, Bad Sisters actor Sarah Greene, on backing vocals.
That’s not the only celebrity connection for Snow Patrol.
Lightbody has famously written and performed with Taylor Swift, who is playing Wembley on the very night we meet.
So is he off to see her?
He says: “I haven’t seen the show. I should, but we’ve been flat out doing press and gigs.
“But I did get my sister and niece tickets in Ireland, and loads of friends have been recently. Everyone is absolutely blown away by her. It’s fantastic.
“I haven’t seen her in a while but of course I’d be up for working with her again — if she’d have me.”
As well as the band’s new album, he has been recording a solo record.
He is not sure if he will release it yet, and for now his focus is on Snow Patrol.
He adds: “I’m enjoying playing with everyone more than ever. Johnny is an extraordinary musician, as is Nathan and I love to play with them both.”
Newish process
Lightbody reveals he and McDaid — also a prolific songwriter who has worked with Ed Sheeran, Robbie Williams and Pink — have written lots together but not many songs for Snow Patrol.
This was a newish process for the band.
Lightbody says: “We wrote a lot of this album together, and I wrote with our producer Fraser too, and then there was a couple I started in GarageBand at home, then took to Fraser and everybody, and we built them up from there. But most of the record was Johnny and I writing together.”
Having made the past five albums with Garret “Jacknife” Lee, working with Adele and Kasabian producer Fraser T Smith was another page in Snow Patrol’s new chapter that also includes new management.
Lightbody says: “Johnny and I are godfathers to Garret’s kids — he’s like family.
“But we spoke to him and said we want to try something different as we’ve worked together for 20 years.
“We all did — you have to test yourself.”
He adds: “A lot of the tracks on the record have Fraser’s fingerprints on them and Johnny produced a couple — What If Nothing Breaks and Talking About Hope — on his own. The Beginning was a song that set the tone of the album.”
Lightbody says being a collaborative album has made the band closer than ever.
Luckiest people
He adds: “We are in every moment of it together. With our last album, Wildness, I was too immersed in my own mental health crises and we worked on our own a lot.
“But this time, every single thing that went on the record, each of us witnessed the other one putting it on.
“Every day the three of us turned up to Fraser’s studio, which wasn’t like before. We are all co-parenting the album.”
Sober for eight years, Lightbody says quitting drinking and drugs after a health scare in 2016 and moving back to Northern Ireland from Santa Monica, California have helped him stay happy and focused.
He adds: “I’ve had a place in Ireland for 15 years but I’ve settled there permanently now.
“Being home is a joy. There is a forest next to the house and Belfast Lough is on the other side, so I walk the forest and swim the lough every day.
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“And I don’t take it for granted — I know I’m one of the luckiest people alive.”
Naming the album The Forest Is The Path, with one of his own paintings as the album cover came as a surprise.
He says: “It wasn’t my intention for it to be the album cover. And that song wasn’t originally intended to go on the record either.
“But I feel it rounds the album off quite well and brings in another flavour of something. The album starts with an intensity and hugeness, then drops to a quiet stillness of These Lies, and The Forest Of The Path is another bit of strangeness.”
Really proud
Lightbody was awarded an OBE in 2020 for services to music and to charity in Northern Ireland.
In 2019 he set up the Lightbody Foundation to support his philanthropy.
He says proudly: “The main reason I accepted the OBE was because of my parents.
“My mum would have killed me if I’d turned it down. It was sad but my dad’s dementia was too advanced to tell him.
“We thought we should tell him when I first heard, a month before it was announced. Then he passed away two days before it was announced so he never got to know.
“It’s bittersweet because he would have been really proud. I regret not telling him but my mum got a great day with me at Windsor Castle.
“She was proud as punch, and that’s why it matters. Although on my Instagram I joked that she stole some cutlery from Windsor Castle, and the amount of people who have mentioned it. I was joking. I’m sorry, Mum.”
With recent chock-full gigs at Radio 2 In The Park and at Koko, Camden on Wednesday where fans were queuing round the block, Snow Patrol’s popularity shows no sign of waning.
Lightbody says: “Our live shows have been great. At festivals it’s mostly younger people too. I look out and see young people singing Run on others’ shoulders — they weren’t even born when I wrote that song.
“It’s amazing that they know all the words. I know that’s the power of the playlist and streaming but we feel we have something to say, and the gigs have backed that up.
“We’ve got Ash Soan on drums and Ben Epstein on bass playing live with us and they’ve been brilliant. But this is a new chapter. We’re looking forward to playing our Europe, UK and Ireland tour next year.
“We are going to continue to be a three-piece for ever now, as everything is really good with us as a three.”
- The album The Forest Is The Path is out today.
