Snow Patrol

NORTHERN IRELAND’S music fans are taking more interest than usual in the annual Brit Awards ceremony on February 10th.  Our own home-grown talent, the indie band Snow Patrol, have three nominations.  They have been nominated for the best British group and also the best British rock act.  This second award is to be chosen by viewers of the Kerrang! cable and satellite television channel.  Their third album, Final Straw, has been nominated for best British album.  
  To add to all this acclaim, Snow Patrol have also been nominated as best Irish band and Final Straw as best Irish album in the Irish Meteor Awards at the Point in Dublin on February 24th. Things are looking up for the lads who are due to go touring the US in May.
  All this success wasn’t handed to them on a plate, however.  Kerr's Corner recently spoke to the band’s energetic drummer, Johnny Quinn.  We wondered why Snow Patrol was doing so well when other Ulster bands never get beyond the local club and bar circuit.  Johnny’s recipe for success is perseverance. Many give up before their chance of getting into the big-time comes up. He says, “Don’t give up!”  Bands need a real determination to succeed, hard work, time for rehearsal and a lot of luck.  As he put it to me, “It took us seven years to become an ‘overnight’ success.”  Their influences were the grunge scene, Nirvana, hip-hop, Northern soul and country music.
  The lads, he thinks, probably had an advantage in that their first gigs were in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh where it was easier to come to the notice of record companies.  Northern Ireland’s geographical isolation and the troubles meant that local bands often had to travel to London to get their big break. Record executives were quite reluctant to travel to Belfast.

  What are Snow Patrol’s chances in the Brits, then?  Johnny doesn’t expect to win this time around.  He reckons that the Scots sensation, Franz Ferdinand – which come head-to-head against Snow Patrol on each nomination – are more likely to win.  Not that this fazes him.  No more singles are to be released from the Final Straw album, so the nominations will keep the popular band and the critically acclaimed album in the public eye for a while yet.    However, the band may do better in the Meteor Awards where they played last year.
  They played to sellout gigs last year in the Ulster Hall, Belfast on December 21st and the RDS in Dublin on December 29th where they got a great reception.  For Johnny, these were the best gigs they have yet played. This strong home support may well be translated into votes on the night. We’ll just have to wait and see.
  In the meantime, local fans will have to make do with watching the lads on TV or listening to their CDs including another new album under the Polydor Fiction label. There will be no local gigs until 2006!  They need a break before flying of in May to tour the States where they are currently lying 91st in the Billboard charts.
  We asked Johnny where the band hoped to be in 2015.  Nobody can know the future, he says, but he hopes that they will still be making albums and able to get away with not having to get up early in the morning!
  Readers can keep up-to-date with all the band’s activities on www.snowpatrol.net

Thanks to Ciara and her mates from Year 10, Ballyclare High School for their help with the Snow Patrol interview.