Snow Patrol frontman concern at few NI bands breaking international market

The lead singer of Snow Patrol has expressed his concern that no band from Northern Ireland has broken the international market this century.

Gary Lightbody was speaking after attending a meeting with arts leaders and Stormont Communities Minister Gordon Lyons over funding for the arts in the region.

He referred to his own group as having taken ten years to find success, recalling nights sleeping on friends’ sofas and relying on “the kindness of strangers”.

Snow Patrol was formed in 1994 in Dundee, when Lightbody was at university in the Scottish city.

Their third album, Final Straw, with hits Chocolate and Run, released in 2003, was their first to bring them mainstream success.

During the 1990s a number of other bands emerged internationally from Northern Ireland, including Ash, Foy Vance and Two Door Cinema Club.

Lightbody told the PA news agency in Belfast: “It took ten years to have success, and we had an awful lot of people who supported us.

“We didn’t apply for any government grants during that time but I still believe in those, and I know artists that rely on those, they’re very small in Northern Ireland compared to the Republic of Ireland for example, where grants can be as high as £20,000 to £50,000, here it is more like £2,000.

“We had a lot of friends and family who supported us, I slept on a lot of friends’ couches over the years, so I know what it is like to be an artist and not make any money.

“We didn’t make any money for ten years and relied on the kindness of strangers, to borrow from Tennessee Williams.”

Lightbody said he wanted to try to help make it easier for artists coming up.

“There are some people even within the artistic community who think arts is punk and we need to do it ourselves, and that is absolutely fine, but there are also people who rely on funding to survive, and I want that funding to be available to the people who need it,” he said.

Asked whether it was harder for a band starting out now compared with the early 1990s, Lightbody said: “immeasurably so”.

“There are a myriad of reasons even beyond funding, streaming has kind of democratised music in a way but it has also made it dizzying I think for the consumer.

“So it’s very hard to get your head above the water even though someone in Sydney or Mumbai or Tokyo can listen to your song, they probably won’t find it because of the colossal weight of music that there is out there,” he said.

“So there are other issues other than just funding set against young artists starting today, but that would certainly give them a good footing to start their musical career.

“We haven’t had a very successful Northern Irish band in a while, I think in this century so far. We’re talking Ash, Foy Vance, ourselves, Two Door Cinema Club.

“Compare that to the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or in England where there are a ridiculous amount of success stories.

“Northern Ireland has a wealth of talent, but that talent is not finding its way to success in the UK, Europe or the wider world and there is something about that which has cognitive dissonance.”