Mind, Lightbody & soul

If I had a tenner for every woman who’s told me they’d like to shag Gary Lightbody senseless, I’d be sat writing this in Rio rather than smelly old Dublin 2. Ask them what the attraction is and, along with guff about cheeky grins, cherubic curls and eyes you want to gaze into forever and forever, you’ll be told that right now he’s the writer of the most heartfelt love songs on the planet.
Bad news for the Chris Martins and James Blunts of this world, but great for Snow Patrol, who last week joined that elite group of Irish artists who’ve simultaneously topped the Irish and UK charts.
Then there’s America, where Eyes Open has yet to be released, but the lads are selling-out 3,000-capacity theatre shows in minutes. Add in celebrity endorsements from the likes of Bono, Pink and David Gilmour, and there are plenty of reasons for Lightbody’s head to have grown a few sizes since the last time Hot Press met him.
Fears that he might have turned into a pouting prima donna go out the window when Gary and his guitarist bandmate Nathan Connolly arrive for our tete a tete wearing a selection of this season’s St. Vincent de Paul’s separates.
“People think that because you’ve sold a few records everything about your life changes, but my complete disinterest in designer labels is the same as it’s always been,” the singer laughs. “As for sex-craved women desiring my body, I’ve yet to meet any and if I did I’d ask ‘em, ‘Have you listened to my lyrics because it’s obvious from them I’m a complete disaster at relationships?’ I certainly wouldn’t want to go out with me after hearing one of our records.”
While not a full-blown concept album – “We leave that sort of thing to The Streets” – much of Eyes Open is about the same very real and very messy break-up that had Gary in agonies on Final Straw. Judging by lines like: “I’ll pull the thorns from our ripped bodies and let the blood fall in my mouth” (‘Headlights On A Dark Road)’, time hasn’t been the great healer its often touted as. Tough on Gary Lightbody and tough on his ex- who has to listen to this kissing and telling on the radio. Does he ever lie awake at night, worrying that he’s turned into the rock ‘n’ roll Abi Titmus?
“I can honestly say that I’ve never felt like any sort of Abi Titmus, but I have had sleepless nights worrying about the impact me writing about the relationship might have on her. So much so that I played Eyes Open to the lady in question before it came out. We had a cry – we’re friends and there’s still a lot there, but I don’t have time for anyone at the moment. I went out with a girl recently for four months, and got to see her precisely three times. For all of my being a hopeless romantic, I don’t believe in love at first sight. I need a lot of time to get to know someone, which I won’t have the luxury of until late 2007/early 2008 when we’ll have finished touring this album. The only bad thing about what we do – and, really, I’m not complaining – is that your relationships are limited to the ones in and around the band. I love the guys dearly, but penetrative sex is out of the question.”
Damn, there goes my next line of questioning. Is writing about his failed relationship Gary’s mechanism for coping with it?
“Very much so,” he acknowledges. “The second Reindeer Section album was written in the aftermath of us splitting up for the first time. It was very therapeutic, though maybe not as therapeutic as me swallowing my pride and telling the girl to her face how I felt.”
Which was?
"Devastated and grieving for part of me that I knew had been destroyed forever. The way it’s dealt with on that record isn’t particularly subtle or mature, which is why I’ve gone back to it again. There was damage that needed repairing, and I take great comfort from the fact that she and I are friends.”
The impression one gets from couplets like “The splintered mast I’m holding on won’t save me long/Because I know fine well that what I did was wrong” (‘Make This Go On Forever’) is that the fucking-up of the relationship was down to him.
“(Long pause) I was unfaithful a couple of times, which hit me so hard that I’m still continuously apologising for it. Of course, you could argue that it’s the coward’s way out – me apologising to her in order to ease my guilt.”
Is there a Sunday World ‘Snow Patrol Love Rat’ headline waiting to happen?
“Let me think a minute… no, I’ve pretty much owned up to everything at this stage!”
Does Gary have a “type” that he goes for?
“Girls that make me laugh.”
Jo Brand?
“Don’t rule it out!”
Was he an early-developer romantically?
“That sounds like a polite way of asking me when I lost my virginity, which is a confession too far,” he chuckles. “My first kiss would’ve been playing Spin The Bottle on a school trip to London. My first two girlfriends were from Strathearn, the posh girls grammar next door to the boys secondary I went to, Campbell College.”
An establishment that, according to Gary, was attended by “the cream of Ulster’s young.”
“Yes, thick and rich! There was a no fraternisation policy during school hours, so everybody went to this pub in Hollywood (County Down) where they’d unilaterally lowered the legal drinking age to 14.
“Were they girls of easy virtue? No, although I was probably too shy and reserved at the time to put it to the test. It wasn’t until my first year at Dundee University that I came out of my shell a bit. Expressing one’s personality wasn’t something that was encouraged at Campbell’s.”
Was he a bit of a mother’s boy?
“According to my mum, I’m still a mother’s boy. I take after her in not only looks, but also the degree to which I worry about things. My dad and sister are the opposite in that they don’t particularly look like each other and never get stressed.”
What’s the best piece of advice his parents have given him?
”My dad telling me, ‘Never talk about politics’. It’s so partisan at home that no matter how careful or conciliatory you are, someone is going to be offended. The only strongly held opinion I had growing up was, ‘Why can’t we stop fighting and all get along?’
“’We will stop fighting and we will all get along’ would’ve been a brilliant Good Friday Agreement, but the politicians had to complicate it.”
They did, however, provide the North with one of its most surreal rock ‘n’ roll moments when Ash, Bono, David Trimble and John Hume appeared on stage together in the Ulster Hall.
“It was one of the first times that Northern Irish politics actually appealed to young people,” proffers Nathan Connolly who, dissection of Gary’s private life over, has decided to join us. “I steered clear of politics growing up because of the characters involved in it. You could either listen to some bloke talking bollocks on the TV or go and play music with your like-minded rock ‘n’ roll mates.”
Have Snow Patrol ever been tempted to do a political song?
“To contribute something worthwhile to the debate you need to be eloquent, completely sure of your facts and passionate. Unless those three things are in place, you’re just going to write something that’s inappropriate and cringeworthy.
“The only time I’d be tempted to write a Northern Ireland song,” he adds with a smile, “is if we qualify for the World Cup.”
Talking of the beautiful game, where were Messrs. Connolly and Lightbody on the evening of September 7th 2005?
“In Windsor Park watching Northern Ireland thrash England 1-0,” enthuses Nathan.
“In an Ibizan bar where my celebrating of Sir David Healy’s wondergoal wasn’t appreciated by the mainly English clientele," Gary offers. "But for the fact I was with the owner, I’d have got my head royally kicked in.”
A small price I’d have thought for a moment of such ecstasy. Along with Norn Iron’s somewhat Pyrric humbling of Sven’s men, there was also the excitement of Snow Patrol opening last year for U2. Given their indier than thou background, you’d expect them to be a bit sniffy about Bono’s behemoths but, no, they’re huge fans.
“There was definite childhood regression on that tour,” Gary reveals. “I remember being at the side of the stage the first night and thinking, ‘It doesn't get better than this!’ The Joshua Tree was a hugely important record for me growing up.”
“I waited outside the Europa Hotel all day when I was 16 to get my cassette copy of Zooropa signed by Bono, which he very kindly did,” Nathan recalls. “To be on a level that’s not the same, but close to your heroes is a very bizarre experience.”
So there’s never been a moment when either of them have thought, “For fuck’s sake Bono, leave it out!”
“The getting trapped in giant lemons was a little bit over the top, but who else can push the boundaries other than the biggest band in the world?” Gary resumes. “You do get a sense, though, of them feeling more comfortable in their skins now the theatrics have been trimmed back. It’s about the music again, which it wasn’t around the time of Zooropa.”
Did they get to spend any quality downtime with the boys?
“The very first day we were there, Larry came across and ate with us for 10 or 15 minutes," Nathan recalls. ”We thought they’d probably have their own executive dining room but, no, everyone sat in the same communal area. Another time I went back to the dressing room and there was Adam talking to our sound guy. I was also surprised at how hands-on they are. When the lights and the music needed syncing in Brussels, it was Bono yelling at people to do this and do that. Normally with a band of that size, the tech stuff is left to the crew.
“I’d be lying, though, if I said it wasn’t daunting. I like to try and eat up a stage, which isn’t easy when it’s the size of a football pitch. We’re far more comfortable in a club environment where the audience is six inches away.”
I understand sparks flew at the Croke Park gig.
“Literally,” Gary nods. “Our gear didn’t like the fact that it had been pissing rain all afternoon and started arcing half-an-hour before we were due to go on. As if playing to the bones of 70,000 people wasn’t nerve-wracking enough, we were expecting to be electrocuted at any moment. If we’d had time to nip into Dunne’s, we’d have bought ourselves rubber gloves and Wellingtons!”
Having spent an extremely hazy couple of days with them circa 2001 in Glasgow, I have personal experience of the Patrol’s legendary ability to party. Something that appears to have been toned down in their pursuit of global domination.
“Yes, my falling off stage days are over!" Gary says. "My most spectacular tumble was in 1999 when we supported somebody I’ve now forgotten in the Olympia. I used to get pretty angry and kick and demolish things on stage too, which was down to me being cripplingly unhappy in my private life. Now that I’ve got a lot happier and more comfortable with myself, I don’t do that anymore.
"Nathan wasn’t in the band at the time, but Jonny and (departed bassist) Mark took me aside and said, ‘This has to stop’, which, me being belligerent, it didn’t straight away. Eventually though the penny dropped, and I turned into the supremely professional entertainer you see before you today.”
Would I be right in surmising that had fame come his way back then, he wouldn’t have handled it too well?
“I would have been an insufferable prick. Some people are probably reading this and going, ‘Would have been?’ but, no, there was zero chance of us being the Arctic Monkeys of our day and coping with things in a mature manner belying of our youth. What they’ve learned straight away is how to say ‘no’. The temptation when you’re that young is to can the arse out of things, but they’re savvy enough to sidestep the huge hype surrounding them at the moment. Generally, bands are a lot more clued in than they were when we started. A lot of it’s got to do with the internet and the fact that building a big following isn’t dependent on a record label throwing money at you. DIY no longer means having no fans and living five to a room in a squat – which we never did, but I’m illustrating a point!”
As an old man of 30 rather than the child of 25 he claimed to be on ‘Chocolate’, Gary Lightbody has taken all the momentous things that have happened recently to Snow Patrol in his stride. The exception being Live 8, the memory of which still brings him out in a cold sweat.
“We wanted it to be about the message and the music rather than us advertising ourselves, which looking back was the wrong decision,” he admits. “Our ‘stumbled out of the Student Union at 3am’ approach was particularly misjudged, given that we were on after Madonna and her hundred dancers in white suits. I’d equate being backstage at Live 8 to quantum leaping into somebody much more important’s body. The most surreal thing, apart from seeing Elton John and Paul McCartney wandering about, was Dave Gilmour and his son coming over and telling us that they’re both big fans.”
“A close second,” Nathan joins in, “was seeing Mariah Carey getting carried up the stairs because her skirt was too tight and her heels too tall.”
When did the blind panic set in?
“It was fine at first chatting to people we know like Travis and Scissor Sisters, but as soon as we caught a glimpse of Madge that was it, instant diahorrea,” Gary winces. “I don’t know if you watched the documentary, but it was Bob Geldof who wanted and fought to keep us on the bill when they decided to add in that mini-documentary. I remember Pete Doherty having trouble with his hat, but I don't remember our own performance, which my brain has deleted for my own good. I should have shouted ‘fuck’ a lot to stop them putting our performance on the DVD.”
Snow Patrol indulged in some more quality hobnobbing in December when they were among the musical invitees to Áras An Úachtaráin to meet President Mary McAleese. Live 8’s ‘stumbled out of the Student Union at 3am’ look was replaced by an equally earthy ‘gardeners invited in for Christmas glass of sherry’ chic.
“That’s what our team of stylists came up with for the occasion and I think it worked,” Gary deadpans. “Not only were we recovering from the night before, but the first thing they did, after we’d met Mrs. McAleese, was stick a Guinness in our hands. Our dishevelment in the photos is in direct proportion to those two things. Somebody said in a review recently that, ‘They certainly haven’t spent the money they’ve made on clothes’.”
Outwardly no, but I’m sure he’s wearing a pair of Calvin Kleins under his jeans.
“Er…”
Go on Gary, show us your Y-fronts.
“Who’s been talking?”
Stop stalling.
“(Pulls down waistband to reveal, yes, you’ve guessed it!) How the fuck did you know that? Yes, I’ve got my pulling pants on.”
Ah, the all-seeing Hot Press! Nothing escapes us. Like the fact that Eyes Open is notable not only for its 11 (13 if you’ve got the Special Edition) corking tunes, but also the fact that Mr. Lightbody sounds more Northern Irish on it than ever.
“That’s a good point,” he concedes. “Quite a few of the vocals were done after Christmas which I spent at home, so I was probably at my most Belfast-y. To naturally sound like where you’re from is a big plus in my book.”
So, generally, how’s superstardom treating him?
“Touring with U2 made me realise how totally not superstars we are,” Gary concludes. “Knowing there’s going to be people at the gigs is cool though, as is being able to afford a taxi home when it rains. Life at the moment’s pretty damn good!”