Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol are a rock band that are currently based in Glasgow and are signed to Polydor Records. The band was formed in Scotland, with the majority of their members being from Bangor and Belfast, Northern Ireland. The band was originally formed as an indie rock band. However, a more alternative rock sound has been sought by Snow Patrol in recent years. Their popular songs "Run", "Chasing Cars", and "Signal Fire" have achieved them the mainstream success.

History
Early years
The students Gary Lightbody and Mark McClelland at the University of Dundee in Dundee, Scotlandoriginally formed the band as "Shrug" in late 1994. The band used to perform gigs at the university and surrounding pubs. In late 1995, the band changed their name to "Polar Bear" (or "Polarbear").

A three-track EP, Starfighter Pilot, was released by them on the Electric Honey label in mid 1997.Richard Colburn played drums on this record and Stuart Murdoch, sang on one of the B-sides. Both of them were from Glaswegian indie band Belle & Sebastian. They became "Snow Patrol" due to legal threats from an American band with the same name (led by Eric Avery, the former bassist of Jane's Addiction).

At this point Jonny Quinn, from Northern Ireland, joined as permanent drummer. Their next EP Little Hide was released by the band on Jeepster Records.A follow-up single "One Hundred Things You Should Have Done in Bed" was a minor independent chart hit. .Snow Patrol starting to appear on television when both of these early singles were heavily promoted by Jeepster - with videos included as computer files on the CD singles.Their first MTV interview was in 1998. They briefly appeared on a Channel Four documentary about Jeepster Records that same year.

Songs for Polarbears in 1998 (including a slightly remixed version of their debut single Starfighter Pilot) and When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up in 2001 (both recorded while the band lived in Glasgow) were two albums on Jeepster.

Also in 2001, A group of Scottish independent musicians from such acts as Mogwai together was collected by Gary to perform as a "supergroup", "The Reindeer Section", who have so far released two CD albums. On a single by Cut La Roc, vocals were performed by Gary.

Breakthrough success
The band saw their major breakthrough when they were signed to the mainstream Polydor label. The guitarist Nathan Connolly joined them at the same time and he proved to be very lucky for the band. With their song "Run", they were successful in gaining the mainstream success. The single was debuted at No.5 in the UK singles chart. For his contribution to the Final Straw album, Iain Archer won an Ivor Novello award. Iain Archer remained the touring guitarist and songwriting collaborator of the band from

2001-2003
In the UK albums chart, the record peaked at #3. They followed the success of "Run" up with three more singles from the album: "Chocolate", a re-release of "Spitting Games", both reaching the top 30, and "How to Be Dead" reaching number 39.In 2004, Final Straw was released in USA. It was a big hit and there were quarter of a million sales of the album. It also became the 26th most popular British album of that year.Their single "Run" was the 22nd most played British song on American airwaves.

Eyes Open is one of the most successful album of the band. Eyes Open was the UK's best-selling album of the year as of November 26, 2006. There was record sale of 1.5 million copies of the album.The album reached platinum certification in the US as well.It has successfully maintained a spot in the upper quarter of the Billboard 200 list for over fifteen weeks. The band also holds the distinction of having one of iTunes' top downloaded albums and songs of 2006. Some eight months after its release on January 22, 2006, Eyes Open topped the Australian charts.

On the March 17, 2007 episode of Saturday Night Live, Snow Patrol made an appearance as the musical guest. The show was hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. "You're All I Have" and "Chasing Cars" were performed by them in this show.

The current line-Up of the band includes Gary Lightbody (Lead vocals, Guitar), Paul Wilson (Bass, guitar), Jonny Quinn (Drums/Percussion), Nathan Connolly (Guitar) and Tom Simpson (Keyboards).