The frontman talks about the band's first album in six years, getting sober and learning not to hate himself
Not for the first time in our interview, Gary Lightbody stretches out his hand and places it against his heart for emphasis. The 48-year-old is talking about the new Snow Patrol album,; the band’s crisis of confidence after losing two members; a return to the sort of anthemic songwriting of “Run” and “Chasing Cars”, the songs that lifted Snow Patrol to 15 million album sales since their breakthrough in 2003.
He’s keen to point out the album is “more about time than it is about love – how time messes with our minds and our hearts. It’s not linear. I don’t give a shit what somebody tells me.” But pop songs about relationships normally pulse in the here and now: about being in love, or recently heartbroken. It’s unusual to look so far back.
But it hasn’t been easy since. Snow Patrol went on hiatus in 2012, with Lightbody struggling with addiction to drink and drugs upon moving to Santa Monica. After a health scare in 2016 – he had serious infections in his ears, eyes and sinuses due to alcohol and cocaine use – he saw an acupuncturist in LA and got clean. But even sincethere has been more upheaval.
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