Gary Lightbody on the block

Talking to BBC News, Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol says he had trouble with this album:

For someone with a continuous drive to create music, Lightbody was shocked to find himself suffering a crippling bout of writer's block last year.

"Oh God, I never want to go through that again," he grimaces. "You've done the thing that you do every day of your life for 16 years and suddenly it's removed from you.

"I just couldn't write a single word. I was terrified. I couldn't pick up my laptop, my notepad, or anything, for fear that I was going to sit there and stagnate.

"I was actually catatonic for most of it."

It must have been terrible; imagine having to write a record and not being able to come up with a single idea for it.

Judging by the new Snow Patrol album, he's still suffering from it, too.

Gordon in the morning: Bad teacher

Gordon Smart has had a bit of a chinwag with Gary Lightentertainment out of Snow Patrol:

Snow Patrol: U2 taught us to be rock stars

What exactly did those lessons cover? It can't have been how to be interesting on stage. Maybe it focused on arranging your tax affairs?

"When U2 took us on tour in 2005 and then the subsequent three years on the 360 Tour, they showed us the virtue of a show compared to a gig.

"Even when we were playing bigger gigs around Chasing Cars and Eyes Open, we were still turning up for gigs like we had just fallen out of the student's union at 3am.

"We didn't really think about stage presence. We would work out the set list five minutes before we went on stage in the same clothes we had been wearing in the pub.

"U2 showed us the approach we should be taking. There should be a show, a spectacle."

Really? I suppose you probably need something to lift your songs when they're taken from their natural home (being laid over Ellen Pompeo looking worried), but if you're plodding through Chasing Cars, no lasershow known to man is going to wake the audience up, is it?

Belfast Telegraph journalists spoil Snow Patrol's surprises

It's a harsh world. As if knifings, territorial wars, Piers Morgan and disease aren't bad enough, Snow Patrol are now having the name of their new album revealed against their wills. Lost In The Showbiz publishes a letter from their PR team - or, rather, a statement from Gary:

"Hello everyone
Well, in this world of instant coffee, news, messaging and everything else
is was bound to happen. In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph we let slip the working title of the album then said not to print it until we had finalised it with each other (and put it on this very site). Those words were not heeded and they printed it anyway.

We’re sorry you didn’t hear it from us first but the album is indeed called 'a hundred million suns’. We will endeavour to make you guys the first to hear about everything else. It’s becoming increasingly hard but we’ll do our best.

Lots of apologetic love to you all. Gary.x"

Oh, my. How heartbreaking to think that the news of what the new Snow Patrol album will be called should slip out, rather than being subject to a proper announcement. We're given to understand that the band had planned to reveal the title in a remake of that time Thatcher flogged off BP and they had the abseilers uncover a massive board with the share price on. Clearly, Gary wanted to be able to see the slightly underwhelmed reaction when the world - as a whole - gathered to discover the name of the follow-up to whatever the last one was called.

And all because, erm, they told a journalist. Who probably wrote it down in a book. You just can't trust 'em, can you?

Irish music could be in trouble

An alarming headline from Gigwise:

Snow Patrol To Speak On Behalf Of Irish Music
At Stormont today...

Good lord, how did they land that gig? I mean, were they elected? Or was it an evil trick by Welsh music to make its rival across the sea look bad?

It turns out they're only talking on behalf of an Irish music project:

Lightbody is expected to show how the project, Oh Yeah, has helped Irish musicians across the country.

Oh Yeah was set up by Ash’s Tim Wheeler in a bid to establish a dedicated music centre in Belfast.

Which is a lot less alarming than it first appeared.

Feist tops Shortlist

In what we're contractually obliged to describe as 'the American version of the Mercury Prize', Feist's The Reminder has scooped the Shortlist Award for 2007. But amongst the people doing the choosing was Gary Lightbody, so we're not sure it's quite as flattering as it's meant to seem.

Yes, Gary, please take your time

Some good news from Snow Patrol this morning. Gary Lightbody says they're not going to rush to get the next album out:

"I don't think there's any point of doing it this early. By the end of the summer people will have had enough.

"We've been at it for four years non-stop. We need a break and maybe everyone else needs a break too. So we're gonna take a good bit of time off and make the album at our own pace."

Let's hope 'a good bit of time' is sort-of like forever and a day.

Lightbody's evenings of heavy

Apparently, Gary Lightbody has stopped drinking because he was getting through thirty pints every evening. He was depressed, see:

“I started drinking at 25. I was being an arsehole. I was swearing at people, smashing equipment and acting like a dickhead. I loathed myself. At my worst I'd do maybe 30 pints of Guinness on a three-day bender. I've always got my finger on the self-destruct button. Drink's lost its appeal, to be honest. I don't drink on tour. I get very depressed and I lose my voice, which makes me even more depressed."

To be honest, we thought that being depressed was his thing - after all, how is he going to churn out primetime TV friendly downbeat droners if he's sitting chuckling to himself at today's Fred Bassett?

And we can't help wondering if the "thirty pints of Guiness" has more than a little in common with William Hague's 14 pints of beer, which he'd hoped would prove something about himself we'd find surprising.

Snow Patrol on a soundtrack? Surely not

Gary Lightbody's solo project has apparently been signed up to provide some sort of soundtrack music for some sort of "exciting" film project:

Gary said: "You'll be the first to know officially which movie when we've definitely been confirmed.

"It is something we're very excited to be asked to be involved in as we've been fans since childhood."

It is exciting - at least if they've got him writing new stuff it means we'll be spared Chasing Bloody Cars on one soundtrack then. But which movie can it be? Surely Indiana Jones hasn't slowed down to the point where Snow Patrol could soundtrack his action?