'Splain Yourself: Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol
Posted Friday 02/27/2009 10:02 AM in
Blender Blog
by
Blender Blog
Why does your music make some people want to knee you in the ’nads?“About two years ago we were playing KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas concert in L.A. with Beck, Gnarls Barkley, the Killers and the Raconteurs—the cool bands. Backstage was like the VIP room inside the VIP room of an after-hours club on a closed street.
“We were doing ‘Chasing Cars,’ when I saw a guy with a shaved head in the 10th row giving me the finger. With both hands. His look said, I want to kill you. Or maybe, I want to kill other people, blame it on you and then kill you. He must have spent a lot on that ticket, just to sit up close and hate. And it was Christmas, a time of giving.
“I know there are people who despise Snow Patrol and think our music is boring: too mellow, too earnest. ‘Chasing Cars’ was an inescapable hit worldwide. People think of us as that band with that song on Grey’s Anatomy and decide to hate us.
“I could Google ‘Snow Patrol’ and ‘I hate’ or ‘boring’ and add up the hits, but I’ll leave that to someone more small-minded. [Editor’s note: 642,000 and 401,000 respectively.] One review said our fourth album would ‘keep Ford Focus drivers happy,’ meaning our music appeals to average blokes, not hipsters. But in our heads, the music we make is vital and passionate. Our hearts don’t bleed, they gape—and sometimes people prefer a few closed doors in their music.
“It might help if we were photographed falling out of bars at 3 a.m. with models. I’ve met a few models, but I’ve never woken up with one. Fact is, I’m Irish, and like the British, we weren’t born naturally sexy. I’m skinny, but not in the way Prince is skinny. I’m six-foot-three—I look likea flagpole wearing a t-shirt. If there’s a hot girl in our dressing room, she’s probably talking to Pablo, our bass player. He’s genuinely sexy. And the name Pablo doesn’t sound very Irish.
“Truth is, we only seem dull on the surface. Jonny fights fires, Tom toils shirtless on construction sites, Pablo is in the Navy Reserve, Nathan is a volunteer policeman and I explore my Cherokee ancestry. We’re like the Village People, only slightly less gay.
“So insult us all you want. Nothing will offend me. It’s all been said. And you can’t give us more than two middle fingers.”
