Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band that formed in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom in 1994 and currently based in Bangor, Northern Ireland, where most of the band members are from. They consist of Gary Lightbody (vocals, guitar), Nathan Connolly (guitar, vocals), Paul Wilson (bass), Tom Simpson (keyboards) and Jonny Quinn (drums). Lightbody and Quinn are the only original members who remain in the band. The band became wildly successful on both sides of the Atlantic on the back of their fourth record, 2006's Eyes Open and the ballad "Chasing Cars" - a song that has spent a near-record breaking 90 weeks on the UK Top 75. ...show more

Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band that formed in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom in 1994 and currently based in Bangor, Northern Ireland, where most of the band members are from. They consist of Gary Lightbody (vocals, guitar), Nathan Connolly (guitar, vocals), Paul Wilson (bass), Tom Simpson (keyboards) and Jonny Quinn (drums). Lightbody and Quinn are the only original members who remain in the band. The band became wildly successful on both sides of the Atlantic on the back of their fourth record, 2006's Eyes Open and the ballad "Chasing Cars" - a song that has spent a near-record breaking 90 weeks on the UK Top 75.

Some of their other well known songs are Run, Spitting Games, You're All I Have, Hands Open and Take Back the City. The main thing to get about Snow Patrol is that, 14 years after they started out as a student band at Dundee University, they're still flying, gloriously and unpredictably, by the seat of their pants. "The great and terrifying thing about our band," declares their leader and main songwriter Gary Lightbody, "Is that everything has always happened as it's going along. There's been very little masterplan.

We allow things to happen as much by accident as by deliberate intention." One notable early accident was their name. Lightbody's band used to be known as Polar Bear - hence their 1998 debut album Songs For Polarbears - but were obliged to change it after discovering that this was what the bassist of Jane's Addiction was calling his side project. 'Snow Patrol' had already been chosen for them by a friend who didn't care for the Polar Bear moniker; and so it came to pass that Snow Patrol signed in 1995 to Jeepster, home of their Glaswegian indie heroes at the time, Belle and Sebastian. Now that the band have become feted as commercial giants - their last album Eyes Open was the UK's best-seller of 2006 - it's worth remembering that Snow Patrol spent the 1990's so broke that at one low point Lightbody had to sell his record collection to pay the rent. ...show less