Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody reveals depression struggle as band release first album in seven years
The multimillion-selling band known for mega-hits Chasing Cars and Run admit they were 'burnt out' on their last tour and needed a break
IT is seven years since we last heard from Snow Patrol – and a lot has changed for singer Gary Lightbody.
Wildness marks the return of the multimillion-selling band known for mega-hits Chasing Cars and Run.
“At the end of the last tour we were burnt out,” says Lightbody.
“We’d been in a cycle of ‘album, tour, album, tour’ and we needed a break. We needed a rest from the road.”
In particular, Lightbody, 41, needed time to sort out his personal problems. He had struggled with depression for years and tried to numb the pain with drink and drugs.
We meet at a cafe in Hollywood where he’s just finished radio interviews promoting Snow Patrol’s comeback.
Chatty and friendly, he says he is enjoying the band’s return and is very proud of Wildness.
He is open about his personal issues and the changes he has made to his life.
“Talking about stuff is a really good way of dealing with depression,” he says.
“The more open you are about the things that are going on in your life, the more you are able to cope with it.”
Lightbody has lived in Santa Monica, California, during his time away from the band he formed at the University of Dundee 25 years ago.
Appearing lean and healthy, wearing a blue and white Adidas jacket, he looks like he is on his way to the gym rather than returning to the stage.
“I’ve been running, playing football and I meditate every day,” he says.
“Acupuncture has been amazing and I speak to therapists when I need to.
“I wasn’t able to drown in booze any more. I do a lot of things now to temper that.”
The wake-up call for Lightbody had come before football’s European Championship during the summer of 2016.
“I had my tickets and flights booked for all the matches and was going to France with four friends,” explains Lightbody.
“I woke up one morning and wasn’t feeling very well — physically unwell.
“I was doing my exercises and I bent down to touch my toes and when I came up, it was like it was an earthquake.
“I was dizzy and everything was moving. I phoned a friend who lived nearby and went to see a doctor.”
That was the first step in Lightbody’s recovery. The doctor referred him to a specialist and further investigations.
Lightbody says: “I had tests and basically my whole head, eyes, ears, nose and sinuses were infected. I was told I needed an operation and there was no way I could get on a plane.”
His pal, an acupuncturist, asked to treat Lightbody for six weeks to help him get back on track.
“She also asked me to calm down on the drinking,” he says.
“So I stopped. That was two years ago and I credit my friend with saving my life. The song Heal Me is written all about the experience.”
Tackling his drinking helped Lightbody deal with the depression he had battled with since he was a teenager.
“In the past I’ve drunk to deal with the darkness and it’s got me into trouble,” he now admits.
“Drinking never made me aggressive, it only really made me goofy.
“I would fall over. I had a really bad fall down some steps years ago and ended up in hospital.
“That was really bad but besides that, most things I did drunk were just embarrassing. I’ve said some hurtful things to people, which I wished I’d never said.
“I’ve apologised for my mistakes, which is what AA teaches — and I’m all for it. Atoning for your mistakes is important.”
Lightbody says he had battled with the booze for years and would return to drinking again and again.
When I interviewed him in 2008, he insisted he was “no longer the chaotic, crazy person with his finger on a self-destruct button — though chaos can be fun at times”.
Today, he admits things carried on in the same way after that — and his drinking got out of control when he first moved to Los Angeles.
Then the chaos stopped being fun and Lightbody’s depression took him to dark places, even contemplating suicide.
Lightbody admitted recently there were times he “used to think about not existing”.
Now he tells me: “When it hits, it’s extremely dark and I feel I’m at the bottom of a very deep well.
“But I haven’t had that deep, dark depression for six months now. Being busy is a blessing.
“Pottering around the house on my own is not the way to get out of a dark place.
“Being in rehearsals with the guys and being active and doing interviews all helps.”
We meet before the tragic news of the deaths of Swedish DJ and producer Avicii and Frightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison.
Lightbody paid tribute to Hutchison on Instagram, calling him “one of Scotland’s most extraordinary songwriters”.
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He added: “He wrote with such profound insight into loss and longing, and listening to his words always made me feel this heady mix of wonder, elation and pain.
“That pain that also makes you feel someone understands what you’re going through and you don’t feel so alone.
“He was willing to hurt in his songs so the listener hurt less. But when you live on the edge of that pain, it can sometimes get to be too much to bear.
“I just wish he knew what he meant to so many. Thank you, Scott, for every extraordinary song you ever wrote and for the times we shared.
“Your music brought light to the world and always will. So much love to all your family, bandmates and close friends. I am so deeply sorry for their loss. The world is less today without you Scott. x”
There were plenty of times when Lightbody thought he’d never write another Snow Patrol album again.
He says: “It wasn’t writer’s block, as I was writing music scores and songs for other people.
“Going through what I went through gave me something to write about.
“In the past, I wrote love songs or songs about heartbreak.
“But I haven’t been in a relationship for a long time, so I can’t really talk about those things this time.
“And it was really important I said something different on a Snow Patrol record.
“A lot of this album and the clarity with this record came about when I stopped drinking almost two years ago.”
Lightbody has no fears about drinking again, saying: “The only time I do think about drinking, I think about hangovers immediately, and I don’t want to go back there.
“It was my health to begin with and then my sanity after that. Giving up drinking is an intuitive thing.
“The only problem is, it makes you more insane to begin with.
“You feel completely at the mercy of your own mind.
“But talking about it is a really good way of dealing with it. The more open you are about the things that are going on in your life, the more you are able to cope with it.”
As well as battling problems with drink and depression, Lightbody has struggled seeing his dad deal with dementia.
“That hurt inspired the song Soon on the new album.
“It’s been tough,” he says, “but also beautiful in ways because my dad reminisces a lot.
“Your long-term memory is the last to go, so he’s now talking about his childhood a lot and we have conversations about him being a boy and I hear stories I’ve not heard before.
“It’s been illuminating and touching to have a renewed connection at a time when it feels some of it is slipping away.”
The album Wildness is full of deeply personal songs, the two best being the widescreen opener Life On Earth and the majestic A Youth Written In Fire.
The latter is about “the alcohol- fuelled days and the more sedate days of now”.
Once again, Lightbody made Wildness with Garret “Jacknife” Lee — Snow Patrol’s producer since 2003.
Lightbody credits Lee with “understanding where he wanted to go with this album”.
He adds: “He just gets me and he has a way of drawing things out of us all.
“He’s not just a producer, he’s a cool writer and a brother-in-arms.
“One day in the studio, I was trying to write a song when he put on Nick Cave’s Jesus Alone, which is an extraordinary piece of music and written about something horrendous.
“But it set me into a trance and that’s where A Youth Written In Fire came from.
“It was the song that allowed me to find my way into the album.” Making Wildness has been a personal journey for Lightbody but he is keen to stress it is “a band album”.
Snow Patrol boasts another high-profile songwriter in Johnny McDaid, who has also written for Ed Sheeran, Robbie Williams and Pink.
I ask how the politics of songwriting works within the group.
“I don’t let him do anything,” Lightbody laughs.
“I’m kidding. Johnny, Garret and I wrote (new single) Empress together — and a whole bunch of other songs for this record that will no doubt come out at some point.
“Johnny is the busiest man in showbiz. He’s working with a lot of different people and is an amazing songwriter — and an amazing guy as well.”
Snow Patrol - Wildness
- Life On Earth
- Don’t Give In
- Heal Me
- Empress
- A Dark Switch
- What If This Is All The Love You Ever Get?
- A Youth Written In Fire
- Soon
- Wild Horses
- Life And Death
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Lightbody himself has written songs for Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and One Direction. He says Sheeran is his favourite person to write with away from Snow Patrol.
“Ed is so much fun to write with,” he says. “He’s so easy-going, so fast and such a quick thinker.
“He is an endless well of imagination and energy.”
Lightbody says he finds it easy to keep his extracurricular work separate from the band.
He says: “I started Snow Patrol when I was 18. It’s been my whole adult life, so I have everything invested into it.
“I don’t mean any disrespect but film work or anything else just doesn’t have the same investment soulwise.”
Lightbody is excited about the release of Wildness — and for fans to hear what he says represents his proudest body of work.
“Anyone who listens to the album as a whole hopefully will feel like they’re on a journey through my psyche — and hopefully it’s not too disturbing,” laughs Lightbody.
“It’s someone trying to find their way back to the truth, back to clarity, back to a reality that seems more hopeful.”
- Wildness is released on May 25.