Snow Patrol’s next album is set to focus on love and time, but to “open the lens” in a way the band haven’t done in a “long time”.
Frontman Gary Lightbody was speaking as he celebrated the Bangor Court House music venue in his home city receiving the 2023 National Lottery Project of the Year award in recognition of the transformation of the Victorian building.
He described the former bank turned magistrates’ court as now being “full of soul”, noting with pride that 55% of the performances have been by local artists.
Lightbody previously announced plans for a new album in 2024 following a major change for the band with the departure of members Jonny Quinn and Paul Wilson.
Recent years have also been a time of change for Lightbody, who has spoken publicly about his battles with alcohol and mental health, personally.
He said he hasn’t drunk alcohol for seven-and-a-half years, and based in his native County Down he is practising daily cold water dips in the sea, hot yoga and meditating, adding “it’s taken me a long time to get to that place”.
Lightbody described having “tried to escape for a long time” travelling around the world with Snow Patrol, but that Bangor was “always calling me back”.
He said his concert on Bangor seafront in 2022, as well as previous gigs in the city’s Ward Park, were “four of the best gigs of our lives”, and didn’t rule out playing in the Court House in future.
In terms of the new album, Lightbody said: “I’m back writing about love again, but in a different way.
“I like to think I have written about it in different ways over the years, it’s a subject that is oft used in music, but it’s a long time since I have been in a relationship, so writing about it from distance, from the distance of time, is something I’ve never done before, and that is one of the themes on this record.
“Another is time itself, the passing of time, the collapsing of time, time happening, past, present, future all happening at once.
“So there’s been a lot of classic themes of music but trying to look at them in a different way.
“I think the last record Wildness was more about my mental health, and this one is I’m opening the lens a bit further to see the world rather than focus on myself.”
Lightbody laughed as he added: “It’s hard not to think about yourself when you’re alone writing lyrics to a song, I think everybody struggles with that, but there is definitely a wider lens on this record than there has been in a long time.”
