‘Northern Ireland punches well above its weight in the art world, it gives me hope for the future’ - Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody

SNOW Patrol have been on quite a journey for the last 30 years. Following a decade as struggling indie rock hopefuls, the Gary Lightbody-fronted group went on to release seven Top Five albums in a row over the past 20 years, their ongoing success precipitated by an unlikely six-minute long hit single called Run.

The line-up has evolved since the band formed at the University of Dundee in the mid-1990s, with a major change occurring last year when drummer Jonny Quinn and bassist Paul Wilson announced their departure.

Now, the remaining trio, Gary Lightbody (vocals/guitar), Nathan Connolly (guitar/vocals) and Johnny McDaid (guitar/piano/vocals), have powered on to produce their emotionally charged eighth studio album, The Forest is the Path. Released last week, it was topping the mid-week chart at time of press.

“On a band level, just the three of us feel stronger and more connected than we’ve ever done,” says Bangor-born Lightbody of the band’s first record in six years, which might be their first Number One album since 2006′s Eyes Open and looks set to become their latest Top Five hit at the very least.

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“And I’m so excited to bring this album out that we’ve made, that we’re all really excited about, we’re all really proud of, and get to gigging around the world.”

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The singer, guitarist and chief Snow Patrol songwriter has been on his own path of evolution, having gone sober in 2016. Based in his native Co Down, he is now practising cold water dips in the sea, hot yoga and meditating,

“I think there’s been a lot of evolution as people, as musicians, songwriters,” he says, reflecting on how the group has transformed over the years.

“Johnny and Nathan are two my favourite people in the universe and my brothers and I love them with all my heart, but I’m not going to speak for them.

“But for me, personally, my evolution has been glacial, but over 30 years, you can chart it.”

And he feels adopting these new practices over the last decade has sped us his evolution, adding: “All the things that I do for my mind – I think, on a personal level – made my life immeasurably better.”

Connecting with the landscape of his home country has also become part of his routine and served as an inspiration for The Forest is the Path. During his walks through the local forests he would note down phrases and lyrics, which later became the basis for the album.

“I hadn’t really done that before,” Lightbody muses. “Normally we don’t do any preparation. We just go and sit down and start writing and see what happens.

“And musically, that’s what we did. We always do that. But lyrically, I had a whole bunch of lyrics beforehand, pages and pages and pages that I was able to then plant into blank pages.

“It was so helpful. I’m definitely going to do that for every other album that we make - actually do some preparation. Maybe I should have been doing that for the last 30 years.”

The 12-track album, their first since 2018′s Wildness, offers their classic sound with punchy drums, flares of guitar and Lightbody’s signature vocals. It also has a sense of vulnerability as it dives into love, loss and time.

“I want to be in love / Without being loved in return,” croons Lightbody on the single The Beginning. The introspective and deeply personal lyric being born from the singer having not been in a relationship for a long time.

“I had never had the opportunity to explore that before because I’ve never been 10 years away from a relationship before,” he explains.

“It might be the only time I get to do that, I might meet someone tomorrow, I have no idea. So now I guess was the time for that.”

While love is explored, he believes the main focus of the record is the complexities of time. As part of his preparation, he reread a number of classics which deal with the concept including Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five and The Order Of Time by Carlo Rovelli.

“The time, the looping of time, the inconsistencies of it, the vagaries of time” were all areas he considered, says Lightbody of Vonnegut.

“The fact that you can feel like you’re living a part of your life in a strange moment where you’re living in the past, or in the future, or not in the present moment. Most of us have that problem of not living in the present moment - I certainly have.”

He continues: “For anybody that’s lost a loved one, I lost my dad few years back, that feeling that you see them in the street, that they’re there. That feeling that they actually might not be gone, I was clinging on to that a lot.

“That kind of informed the whole record. Time doesn’t behave itself. It speeds up and slows down to the beat of our hearts, really, not the pace of the clock.

“It’s more the clock that’s in here in each of us,” he adds, pointing to his own chest.

At this stage of his career, Lightbody prioritises spending time within the community of his seaside hometown. Sea swims in Belfast Lough, walks on the coastal path and lunches at a local cafe make him “feel part of something”.

“You feel part of your community. You feel part of the flow of life, because it can get solitary if I’m writing a lot, especially lyrics or prose or whatever I’m working on,” he says.

While the north has faced is owns battles over the last century, he still has a “deep love of the place” and believes it has had a “profound effect” on his life.

“In any country you can focus in on the negative parts, and sometimes that’s important,” he notes.

“But what I tend to like to do is to focus in on the positives. I think Northern Ireland punches well above its weight in all realms of the art world - drama, theatre, opera, film, TV. It’s a place of great beauty that people want to come and film in. These are the things that give me hope for the future.

“The music scene at the moment is as strong as ever. I’m very proud to be from Northern Ireland and part of our music scene, and I get so much joy from the music that’s been made in our wee place for a long, long time.”

To aspiring musicians hoping to continue on this legacy, Lightbody advises them to remain authentic.

“I think the most important thing to hold true to is your own soul,” he says.

“There’s nothing else really, you don’t get another one. If you’re making music that you feel pressured into making, or you’re in a place where you feel like you’re doing something that isn’t really connecting with you for any reason, I think that eventually will become disheartening.

“It could be financially rewarding. Who knows? It might be what you want more than anything.

“But as somebody who always wanted to just make music for me, I think that it’s really, really important to make music for yourself first - because you have to live with it for the rest of your life.”

The Forest Is The Path is out now. Snow Patrol play Dublin’s 3Arena on February 25 and Belfast’s SSE Arena on February 27 and 28. Tickets and full tour details via snowpatrol.com